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Network Solutions Is Selling Your Information

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Madhu Menon

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User since: 07 Feb 2000

Articles written: 3

We always knew Network Solution was a clueless bunch, but now they've gone too far.

According to this news report from News.com, Network Solutions is selling neatly categorised and packaged information about domain names registered with them to marketers. What's even more disturbing is that they have been doing this for a year now, but has kept it relatively low key.

In recent weeks, the domain name registrar has been sending e-mails to companies and taking out ads in newsletters that urge marketers to sign up to use its database of "more than 5 million unique customers."

[...]

NSI spokeswoman Cheryl Regan said the domain name registrar's actions are no different than other companies'. "It's a common business practice to sell your customer database," she said. "Credit card companies do it. Telecom companies do it."

Of course, Network Solutions hasn't bothered to tell their customers that their personal information was being sold, preferring an "opt-out" option instead.

When will Network Solutions get a clue? And I thought they would have learned something from the DoubleClick-Abacus incident. All I can say is that I don't have a single domain registered with NetSol any more. I've moved them all out.

The Wall Street Journal also has a report about this.

Madhu Menon is a chef and restaurant owner based in Bangalore, India - the so-called "Silicon Valley of India". He has been online since 1994 when people used gopher more than the WWW. Madhu used to be a user experience consultant in times long gone but dumped his entire career in Web development to pursue the other passion in his life - cooking. He started an upmarket gourmet South-east Asian restaurant called Shiok in Bangalore where he serves food from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.

In a past life, Madhu has been the Webmaster of several large sites, including the now defunct CNET India. He was last seen masquerading as the head of the user experience department at an Internet solutions company. When not doing anything useful, he can be found ranting on his weblog at http://madmanweb.com.

Oh, and he's also the Language Nazi admin at evolt.org

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