Two Troubling Techniques This Time
February 1, 2008 on 11:53 am | In Business, Musings, Rants, Tech News by Josh Jones |
Welcome back to this week’s (and the final) edition of Friday illiterative lists!
Two business practices of pretty big-name companies came to my attention this week that I thought were too underhanded/sleazy not to be shared/copied.
#1. Sending something via FedEx Express Saver:
On Tuesday I had to FedEx some stuff from downtown Los Angeles to Chino. It’s only 36.5 miles so I figured, why not save a buck (or twenty?) and choose “Express Saver” .. it must be cheaper and it must get there in the same amount of time when we’re this close!
Wrongo! I guess FedEx really doesn’t want to cannibalize their overnight delivery sales for packages that aren’t going so far. So much so that they will actually ship an envelope from LA to MEMPHIS on its way back to Chino!
#2. Checking a domain’s availability via Network Solutions:
Now I didn’t do this. But a fair number of our customers must still remember way back when Network Solutions was the only registrar, and for some reason go to their site to check the availability of domains before attempting to register them with us.
BIG MISTAKE!
Since at least January 8th, any (non-gibberish) domain you decide to just CHECK availability for via their site, Network Solutions GOES AHEAD AND REGISTERS!
Although undoubtably sleazy, this maybe wouldn’t be sooo terrible if NetSol wasn’t still charging $35/year!
I’d actually thought about this a while ago. I thought, “If *I* were a good-for-nothing cyber-squatter, I’d set up a registrar, advertise insanely cheap rates, and then whenever anybody went to check or register a domain with me, I’d just register it for myself and then offer it to them for much more!”
But then I thought, “What about when people caught on? They’d come and check completely fake domains they never wanted, and then I’d be out the $7 a year for all these worthless domains!”
Of course, all this was way before ICANN’s Add Drop Grace Period (AGP) came into effect. The AGP provides registrars with a five-day grace period to delete a domain they’ve “mistakenly” registered and to get all their money back. The original purpose was to help people out when they make typos or when a registrar is the victim of fraud; noble enough goals.
In practice, the AGP has resulted in “Domain Tasting,” the numerous ill side-effects including:
Allowing Net S.O.L. to actually implement this practice at no financial risk. Allowing the “Drop-Catching” business to thrive… currently 100% of expired .com/net domains are re-registered immediately by cyber-squaters and AdSense fiends. Allowing these skuz-buckets to register hundreds of thousands of domains a day, testing their typo-traffic-potential, and then deleting hundreds of thousands that don’t make at least $7 a year. Allowing these skuz-buckets to actually only require a domain to make 42 cents a year to be profitable… even the domains they intend to keep, they go ahead and delete every five days. And then immediately re-register. That way, they’re never out the $7/year.. they’re only out the interest they could be earning on the money they have to keep with Verisign in order to keep their zillions of domains in perpetual register/delete/re-register limbo!
In practice, the noble goals that the AGP hoped to solve are just not very big problems. If you’re a “legit” domain-registering entity and you typo a domain: you’re out a few bucks. It’s your fault, c’est la vie. If you’re a registrar and you’re being massively frauded every day (as we are), you quickly develop techniques to find and fight fraud and you prevent suspicious domains from even getting registered in the first place.
The AGP as it is now hardly ever saves us any money from fraud, because the vast majority of bunk registrations we catch before we even submit them, and the rest we don’t catch until long after the five days have already passed!
There is a bright side to all of this! Thanks primarily to Network Solutions’ ballsy new policy, ICANN decided last week to finally end Domain Tasting!
Hooray! This is good news for the Internet, bad news for Google!
Good thing I sold all my Google yesterday and bought Yahoo!
Good thing I wish I sold all my Google yesterday and bought Yahoo!
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I noticed how those sleazy domain tasters have increased there activity lately. Now they are targeting every expired domain, and are cycling through the registrations.
I was watching an expired domain, and noticed how it changed registrar between Capitol Domains and Belgium Domains every 5 days for weeks.
Comment by DreamHost Promo — February 1, 2008 #
Doesn’t Fedex do ALL its processing in Memphis?
Comment by Steven Fisher — February 1, 2008 #
FedEx does that…I did a similar thing…I had someone ship me a box using Express Saver and it took exactly 3 days for it to arrive…I called up and asked them about it and was told that it would have been faster if I’d shipped the box ground…it would have arrived in 1 business day.
Comment by Shane W. — February 1, 2008 #
It’s kind of sad that you mistake FedEx’s major logistics innovation (pushing nearly everything through one hub to reduce route complexity) for simple product sabotage.
Comment by Mike — February 1, 2008 #
When friends talk about silly domains I find it fun to do a search on Network Solutions and then tell them the next day “Look someone is trying to get it!” Of course they don’t know about the tasting thing, so it’s fun to make them think someone took their idea =P
Comment by Tim — February 1, 2008 #
Try UPS next time, they route “fastest” way and as long as you are within 1 zone of the destination, it is always next day service, and thats with Ground service, which is usually never above $7 per package.
Comment by Curtis — February 1, 2008 #
Yeah, Fedex does seem to cause delays on purpose.
I had something shipped Saver from somewhere that was only 1 UPS Ground day away… so I figured I’d get it the next day.
Company sent the tracking info that night and when I looked it up, it had a scheduled delivery date of 3 days later. That seemed pathetic, considering they’re just letting UPS make them look bad in that area.
On the second day, the driver delivered it and I was actually thrilled that Fedex only took 2 days to deliver something that was 1 day away.
I mentioned it to the driver and she said that it was scheduled for the next day, but since it was just sitting there at the terminal, and her truck was light, she went ahead and grabbed it.
So when they’re not shipping back and forth across the country to cause delays, they just let boxes sit around on the floor until they’re ripe enough to deliver. To me, that’s just irresponsible. The longer they unnecessarily hold a package, the more time it has to get lost/damaged/stolen.
Fedex is still awesome for the fast stuff (including Saver for cross country), but I hate their Ground service so much that I can’t bring myself to use any of their services anymore.
But as bad as Fedex Ground is, I’m pretty sure I’ll always hate Netsol more than them. :P
Comment by Mike — February 1, 2008 #
You should crop the image with the map a little.
Comment by Pirahna — February 1, 2008 #
Typo: “on it’s way back” –> “on its way back”
Comment by Trevor — February 2, 2008 #
uaua, a new design for the comments…
looks nicer.
Comment by BUGabundo — February 2, 2008 #
If DreamHost wants folks to explore if domain names are available, they should add that functionality much earlier in their sign up process. You don’t even get to check if it’s available until you’ve answered a bunch of questions, clearly indicating intent to sign up. If you’re just looking for a domain name, you’re kinda forced to use other companies services. Put a domain name search right there on the first page of dreamhost.com let me search without requiring me to start signing up for service.
Comment by Jill — February 2, 2008 #
It’s c’est la vie not ce la vie. :)
And I think I just used ‘host’, ‘dig’, or ‘nslookup’ to check if the domain we wanted was free. Vive la *nix!
Comment by Mr.Lobotomy — February 3, 2008 #
if all you want is a domain name:
http://dreamhost.com/domains.html
Comment by jim — February 3, 2008 #
So if I get this right, ICANN now requires a fee for adding domains including during the AGP (Add Grace Period).
This would stop the business of cancelling and then renewing a domain during the AGP (as it now costs money to do so and it’s no longer profitable).
However, domain tasting is still possible, right? (The business of registering a domain when it’s being tested by a client.)
Comment by Koen — February 4, 2008 #
I live in Memphis, so I get the other benefit. I can choose the cheapest air shipping through FedEx and it’s almost always the quickest because all their air cargo travels through here.
Comment by Jeremy — February 4, 2008 #
A month ago I posted a few entries at one of my blogs about FedEx. It took them three weeks to get a package from Dallas to Albuquerque - they went from Dallas to L.A. to Denver to Albuquerque. I’ve never seen such incompetence in a shipping company. http://www.modestopinions.com has the full story.
Comment by Daniel M. Clark — February 4, 2008 #
Yup, fedex can be a bit strange. I ordered a Macbook, had it sent from Cork, Ireland, to Dublin, Ireland (about the width of California) and for some utter unknown reason, EVEN to the fedex people, it went to memphis, LA and NY before even getting back to where it started.
It took 5 days, which is sort of impressive i suppose, considering how far it went.
Comment by Cian Mac Mahon — February 5, 2008 #
LOL Fedex - no matter what everything goes through Memphis. We had a sites a 1 hour drive from each other shipping packages that were being routed through Memphis. Their solution to that craziness was to just send someone back and forth in a car with the package instead. And yes, if the delivery date on the package is 2 days from now they will hold it at the location before delivering it a day early.
Comment by Flolly — February 9, 2008 #
That Fed Ex bit is so stupid it hurts my head.
Comment by Tab — February 10, 2008 #
I worked Fedex during college at an airport where the freight goes through it final sort before leaving. All Envelopes, First Overnight and hazardious materials go to Memphis no matter what. Believe it or not they do truck overnight stuff though. We usually had 5 to 7 truck delivering overnight freight to destination usually if it’s within a few hours of driving. It’s how they sort stuff.
Allot of 2nd day air actually is shipped to the destination overnight too. But sits in que or under some instances held for higher priority freight.
Comment by frank rizzo — March 25, 2008 #
Thats truely said.
Leo F. Swiontek
Comment by Leo F. Swiontek — March 29, 2008 #
The thing about stupidity is, the more stupid your product is, the more competitive it is in the market place. To a point. As long as you don’t go past that point, you’re sitting pretty. Case in point… holding a package to prevent delivering it a day early. If you delivered X% of your packages a day early, this modifies the market place’s perception of the service and skews the perceived value of the different shipping options. It is to your benefit to maximize the number of customers who will choose the more expensive (quicker) shipping option. Some companies do stupid stuff like this because they’re smart. Some do it because they’re stupid. Whatever the reason, there is an optimum level of stupidity for a product that will make it most competitive in the marketplace. Just to give you another random example: The so-called ‘modern’ automobile. ’nuff said.
As for shipping - I’ll take FedEx stupid over UPS stupid any day of my lifetime…
Comment by Elliot — April 13, 2008 #