Rick Schwartz shared the content of an email he received from Register.com, in which he was given a .Site domain name. A Whois search reveals Rick owns LastLaughs.com, which is registered at Register.com. The email to Rick offered him LastLaughs.Site, under the guise of Register.com’s “Brand Protection Program.”
This is one of the biggest gTLD models, STUFFING accounts w/ #Domains nobody asked for or ordered!
I have to act not to get it stuffed in my account??!!
I have to opt-out??BULLSHIT!!
Many companies will be fooled into paying renewals for years! #SCAM #DomainNames #Unethical pic.twitter.com/Haqu5xLYvL
— Rick Schwartz 👑 The DomainKing® 👑 Since 1995 👑 (@DomainKing) March 4, 2021
I was curious about the company’s Brand Protection Program to see what that entails. When I did a Google search for site:register.com “brand protection program” there were no results found.
Rick labeled this “stuffing,” because it is essentially stuffing his account with something he clearly doesn’t want or need. The domain registration is free for the first year, and presumably, the registrar hopes Rick and other clients will opt to pay to renew the domain name once it is up for renewal. In order to prevent the domain name from being automatically pushed into his account, Rick needs to proactively opt out.
In my opinion, this type of action should require a proactive opt-in – not the other way around.
I recall seeing this quite a while ago, and I thought this was a practice that no longer existed.
This practice violates the ICANN RAA which requires affirmative registrant agreement to the registration terms. Instead of a blog post, this should be sent to ICANN Compliance.
Logged into my Network Solutions account today and discovered they had “gifted” me with the .site equivalent of one of our domains. There was no introductory email announcing this. This did this previously with the .xyz extensions awhile back.
Sue them—Class action lawsuit for extortion. This is like Wells Fargo opening accounts without the consent of the consumers.
Sue Facebook too—the default is to accept 3rd party to sneak ,steal and use your data without your consent.
We own LastLaugh.online. I wonder if that’s any sort of violation? Maybe Rick will want to buy it? After all, a last laugh online is far better than a last laugh oncom. What do you think?
Can I please get some .coms stuffed into my account? I’m happy to enter a list at my preferred registrar so you know what I want.