Conceptualist.com, By Sahar Sarid

Network Solutions is hijacking unassigned sub domains and delivering link filled holding pages for hundreds of thousands of sites.

Win Betteridge runs GotGame.com and contacted TechCrunch with the details:

For instance, app.gotgame.com resolves to a Network Solutions page with text links, including "Poker Tournaments"? and "Texas Holdem Games."? The same is true of any other unassigned sub-domain. We have spoken to customer service a few times about fixing this problem"

I don't know if this is standard practice for a hosting company, but this strikes me as another case of Network Solutions unreasonably profiting at the expense of its customers.

According to a search on DomainTools there are 294,438 sites on the same Network Solutions IP address as GotGame.com. I ran a test on the sites listed (for free) by DomainTools and every single one had the same issue: unassigned domain names with link filled Network Solutions holding pages.

Yet another reason to not use Network Solutions.

Did he really say that? I wasn't going to comment on this until I hear what ICANN CEO and President Paul Twomey has to say about it, but since many other sites are already buzzing (and possibly jumping to conclusions) about it, I'll offer my initial thoughts on the developing 

brouhaha. 

It started when an article at GulfNews.com (a site that covers developments in the Middle East) had Twomey lumping domainers into the same category as cybersquatters  and typosquatters when he spoke at an Internet conference in Dubai last week. When commenting about the possible introduction of new TLDs and IDNs that would allow local languages to be used on both sides of the dot,  reporter Scott Shuey quoted Twomey as saying that while many would welcome the ability to have domain names in their native languages, there are a number of downsides, including cyber-squatting, typo-squatting and domaining.

Paul Twomey is the president and CEO of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the big kahunas who run the domain system. So, their view of domaining is obviously somewhat important.

Now we hear from Mr Twomey that domaining is bad. In fact, it's not only bad, it's as bad as cybersquatting and typosquatting.

Here's Mr Twomey's words (emphasis mine):

While many would welcome the ability to have domain names in their native languages, there is a number of downsides, Twomey said, including cyber-squatting, typo-squatting and domaining.

Cybersquatting is the practice of registering a website that contains a trademark, and then holding it hostage from the legitimate trademark holder in the hopes of a payoff. Typo-squattering involves registering websites that contain misspelling of trademarks, such as Googel.com, with the hope that the trademark owner will also pay to own the misspelled site.

Domaining, which is technically legal, is still somewhat controversial. Domainers purchase non-trademarked domain names in the hopes of either reselling the name at a profit [sic]. Some websites have resold for millions of dollars. Other domainers "park" the domain in order to generate advertising revenue. A parked site usually reroutes users to a website that contains ads.

While a number of international laws and internal procedures discourage squatting, domaining is going to be an issue, Twomey said.

Source: Gulf News