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Very interesting article at The Domains:

http://www.thedomains.com/2014/06/03/did-networksolutions-com-give-away-free-xyz-domain-names/

According to the article, when someone regs a domain at Net Sol, he/she automatically is "given" the matching .xyz. One has to opt out by going to a separate link.

Indeed, I checked a couple of The Domains samples (both crap domains in any gTLD) in both .com and .xyz, and, yes, they are owned by the same person.

But I noticed something else that's interesting: the registrant email for .xyz is under privacy, but the .com isn't.

Check for yourself:

00938625.XYZ (privacy email)
00938625.com (regular email)

03304cjp64ubzd1.xyz (privacy email)
03304cjp64ubzd1.com (regular)​

I bet that the registrant doesn't even know that the .xyz has been awarded to him/her and that renewal notices won't even go to the registrant.

It does look fishy, I'm afraid.

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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
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Very interesting article at The Domains:

http://www.thedomains.com/2014/06/03/did-networksolutions-com-give-away-free-xyz-domain-names/

According to the article, when someone regs a domain at Net Sol, he/she automatically is "given" the matching .xyz. One has to opt out by going to a separate link.

Indeed, I checked a couple of The Domains samples (both crap domains in any gTLD) in both .com and .xyz, and, yes, they are owned by the same person.

But I noticed something else that's interesting: the registrant email for .xyz is under privacy, but the .com isn't.

Check for yourself:

00938625.XYZ (privacy email) -- registered June 3, 2014
00938625.com (regular email) -- registered January 28, 2014

03304cjp64ubzd1.xyz (privacy email) -- registered June 2, 2014
03304cjp64ubzd1.com (regular) -- registered April 16, 2014

I bet that the registrant doesn't even know that the .xyz has been awarded to him/her and that renewal notices won't even go to the registrant.

It does look fishy, I'm afraid.


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UPDATE: It gets worse: what do you see about the above registration dates (in bold)? It looks like some back dating going on in "awarding" .xyz domains.

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It would be interesting to get a comment from the .XYZ registry on this. Also it might need proper journalists on the story rather than bloggers.

Regards...jmcc
 
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I agree something isnt right here, that number grew quite a bit from this morning, ns now has 72% of the total registrations over 27k
 
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I agree something isnt right here, that number grew quite a bit from this morning, ns now has 72% of the total registrations over 27k

Just noticed that. http://ntldstats.com/tld/xyz

I tried a random word both at Netsol and Godaddy for .xyz, just typed in blahblahblah and it was taken, haha, what the hell, who would register that. So I added a numeral to the end, just to see how much it would be:

Network Solutions - $80
GoDaddy - $14.95

regs
Network Solutions - 27,584
GoDaddy - 4,561 - unless more numbers are coming in for them, don't know how that works

It cost 5 times+ more at NetSol but they have 22,000 more regs? Not something a domainer would do, they would go for the obvious lower price. Then I read Uniregistry has it for under $10, even lower than GoDaddy and they have 778 regs.

End users? Doesn't seem possible, that kind of number in that short of time. Who knows.
 
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Raymond just posted that email over on thedomains - http://www.thedomains.com/2014/06/04/network-solutions-has-no-idea-what-i-am-talking-about/

That would explain those great numbers, now we know. Looks like a bunch of people got a free domain.
Thanks for the mention JB yeah its been wild, get off the phone with them at 2 am my time then a friend on Twitter says I got the email too, so I updated the post as fast as possible. Been up 40 hours straight crazy couple days in this crazy, crazy business.
 
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It would be interesting to get a comment from the .XYZ registry on this. Also it might need proper journalists on the story rather than bloggers.

Regards...jmcc
I assure you John everything on thedomains has been researched and fact checked and the post I just did on Network Solutions involved real reporting with actual phone calls to the participants.
 
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I saw your poll these posts are not paid, XYZ is not an advertiser on thedomains and my post tonight has been to reveal the truth. This is what makes for news in this cottage industry, if people don't like the new gtlds and don't want to hear one word, I get it and respect it, but it is still news and does not mean its paid for. I can't speak for the whole industry but TLDINVESTORS.com and TheDomains.com do not accept paid posts or posts for later perks down the road for anyone. Mike has turned down offers for such requests that were in the five figure range.
 
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Also it might need proper journalists on the story rather than bloggers.

Quick, call the Washington Post, they need a 'deep throat' about domains.
 
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I assure you John everything on thedomains has been researched and fact checked and the post I just did on Network Solutions involved real reporting with actual phone calls to the participants.
I meant that this could go to mainstream media coverage as it is the kind of story that could develop over the next few weeks. Thedomains does good work but most of the domain industry sites are still very much niche.

Regards...jmcc
 
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Quick, call the Washington Post, they need a 'deep throat' about domains.
Anyone seen that Hank Alvarez recently? :)

Regards...jmcc
 
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I meant that this could go to mainstream media coverage as it is the kind of story that could develop over the next few weeks. Thedomains does good work but most of the domain industry sites are still very much niche.

Regards...jmcc

I see your point does mainstream care though ? I can say TheDomains does get wide traction, and stuff gets picked up on Google news and gets out there.

I thought it was funny the first call I made today to Net Sol the guy said "What is Dot XYZ ?"
 
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NetSol and XYZ need to come clean about this. It gives the entire industry a bad name.
 
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I see your point does mainstream care though ? I can say TheDomains does get wide traction, and stuff gets picked up on Google news and gets out there.
If the story is more than just free domains, then it would be interesting. The downside is that it would be making headlines for all the wrong reasons. At the moment it isn't 100% clear what is happening. The registry claims to have gotten paid for each registration but that's a non-denial denial.

I thought it was funny the first call I made today to Net Sol the guy said "What is Dot XYZ ?"
The new gTLDs are very much a domain industry event and most people are unaware of them.

Regards...jmcc
 
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NetSol and XYZ need to come clean about this. It gives the entire industry a bad name.
Definitely. But the important thing is to get to the bottom of the story and determine whether this is some kind of attempt to inflate registration figures or some strange free domain thing. The 5 day figures (AGP) might provide some clues as to what is happening.

Regards...jmcc
 
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If the story is more than just free domains, then it would be interesting. The downside is that it would be making headlines for all the wrong reasons. At the moment it isn't 100% clear what is happening. The registry claims to have gotten paid for each registration but that's a non-denial denial.

The new gTLDs are very much a domain industry event and most people are unaware of them.

Regards...jmcc
True it is semantics, a politicians line, we got paid for each domain, that could be .50 just as a hypothetical, so typically you got paid. We know these Net Sol names not getting renewed we do know that.
 
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The big question is how large that "limited number of complimentary domains" is in reality.

I ran some cross TLD comparisons on all new gTLDs against the main TLDs (com/net/org/biz/info/mobi/asia) this morning. I'll post the percentages later today (need to get some sleep first). Of the domains in .xyz, 33.67% had an equivalent in just .com, 11.3% had the keyword present in all the main TLDs only and 0.71% were unique to .xyz. This is a bit different from other new gTLDs like .guru. It makes more sense when shown as a TLD DNA chart and I should have them done later today.

Regards...jmcc
 
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the wort thing about this is people had to optout just to not get the free domain...its not like people even wanted it...what a joke.
 
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I'll give them some credit for actually trying to market outside of the domaining industry ...

Giveways are a great marketing tool, the "thank you" builds awareness. Never mind that its too new for anyone to truthfully claim it's "hot", "memorable" or has "broad appeal." Get enough freebies out there (whether people ask for them or not), then use stats on the # registered as social proof to back claims of how popular it is and build on that.
 
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It boggles my mind that NetSol and Web.com would involve itself in such a dodgy/shady (and obvious) deal.

Did they really believe that smart domainers wouldn't suss out this symbiotic "relationship"?


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