Paul,
As of right now I'm not prepared to comment on our recent outage in this forum. That said, I do want to discuss your assertion that Register.com is a source of spam. Spam mail is something we take very seriously. As a business we do not send spam email and we have procedures in place to address spam sent by our customers. If you're seeing spam involving us, and haven't gotten any traction from our abuse desk (abuse@register.com), I'd like to know about it. I've privately emailed you my phone number, please give me a call, so we can discuss this further.
Charles J. Knipe wrote:
Paul,
As of right now I'm not prepared to comment on our recent outage in this forum. That said, I do want to discuss your assertion that Register.com is a source of spam.
It's pretty well-known that register.com has been a source of spam, and that complaints to them have been ineffective. If you're here to tell us that the problem has recently been fixed, or that you're working on fixing it, people will be happy to hear that. If you're here to tell us that there never was a problem and that we're all just imagining it... you'll need these:
http://www.spectorracing.com/catalog/category_477_UNDERWEAR_SParco_Racing_Underwear_page_1.html
Carmyth fabric has a higher flame resistance than any previous material
It's pretty well-known that register.com has been a source of spam, and that complaints to them have been ineffective.
Albert,
I don't know about Register.com's opinion but I dare say the statement above isn't very helpful to me as an admin.
When you say "has been a source of spam" is there a time frame involved? Was this in the last week? Month? Year? When you say "register.com" has been the source do you mean a) their netblocks b) their mail servers or c) partners acting on their behalf?
You also state that complaints have been ineffective. Again is there a time frame? Did anyone get back to you? Did they investigate? Did they give you a reason for ignoring or doing nothing about your complaint?
I ask this not because I want to know but because if someone from the company came here to address the issue then perhaps we should give them as much information as possible (After all- you have a contact now) Simply saying that "it's pretty well-known" doesn't really help.
I frankly doubt they would bother posting here with "let us know" if they had no intention of looking into it- this isn't exactly a group likely to be pacified by empty promises. (It's also possible that in the past the right people never found out- or that there are new people there who take the issue more seriously).
will be happy to hear that. If you're here to tell us that there never was a problem and that we're all just imagining it... you'll need these:
I don't think they are going to claim there was never a problem- unfortunately sometimes the marketing folks don't consult or listen to their technical folks- it's happened at a lot of companies. That said- I haven't had spam from a register.com netblock in a long time. Then again maybe I've just been lucky.
-Don
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It's pretty well-known that register.com has been a source of spam, and that complaints to them have been ineffective.
I don't know about Register.com's opinion but I dare say the statement above isn't very helpful to me as an admin.
When you say "has been a source of spam" is there a time frame involved? Was this in the last week? Month? Year?
I've received spam from them in the past month (actually I got two). When this thread started I went back to see if I could find them but unfortunately I no longer had copy.
When you say "register.com" has been the source do you mean a) their netblocks b) their mail servers or c) partners acting on their behalf?
The spam I got was directly from register.com. It came with a register.com return email address, pointed to a register.com web site and came from an IP address the resolved to *.register.com (I will admit I didn't confirm the netblock belonged to them). I've never done any business with them and the spam was for a domain name "renewal" for a domain registered elsewhere. In other words, it was a classic whois scrapped spam.
You also state that complaints have been ineffective. Again is there a time frame? Did anyone get back to you? Did they investigate? Did they give you a reason for ignoring or doing nothing about your complaint?
I submitted both spams to spamcop and the appropriate abuse addresses would have been notified in both cases. I got no response from either of my submissions. As for a "reason for ignoring" my complaint I really couldn't say since, well they ignored me.
I ask this not because I want to know but because if someone from the company came here to address the issue then perhaps we should give them as much information as possible (After all- you have a contact now) Simply saying that "it's pretty well-known" doesn't really help.
As I've previously said, this isn't like its some sort of borderline case where someone in one part of the company is doing something that someone else doesn't know about. These guys are pretty hard core. I'd say I get 20-30 emails a year from them for various domain names I'm a contact on. I've also received USPS spam which is another story but no less unethical since they are all these BS "renewal" type letters. They might not be "Domain Registry of America" but they are hardly innocent.
I frankly doubt they would bother posting here with "let us know" if they had no intention of looking into it- this isn't exactly a group likely to be pacified by empty promises. (It's also possible that in the past the right people never found out- or that there are new people there who take the issue more seriously).
Well maybe this guys is serious about addressing the problem but if they are serious as a company the least they could do is respond to complaints that come via spamcop. Hell it think most spamcop complaints we get are mostly BS but I at least bother to respond to them.
will be happy to hear that. If you're here to tell us that there never was a problem and that we're all just imagining it... you'll need these:
I don't think they are going to claim there was never a problem- unfortunately sometimes the marketing folks don't consult or listen to their technical folks- it's happened at a lot of companies. That said- I haven't had spam from a register.com netblock in a long time. Then again maybe I've just been lucky.
I'd go with lucky then.
Chris
Interpreting someone else and therefore wrong, he told you that if you get
no help, contact him directly.
I think that's pretty cool, and you will be able to tell if it works or
not.
Let's try and not kill people who try and help, today.
Gadi.
The spam I got was directly from register.com. It came with a
register.com return email address, pointed to a register.com web site
and came from an IP address the resolved to *.register.com (I will
admit I didn't confirm the netblock belonged to them). I've never
done any business with them and the spam was for a domain name
"renewal" for a domain registered elsewhere. In other words, it was
a classic whois scrapped spam.
Some clarification: the information is probably not being "scraped"
via WHOIS. You're not allowed to scrape via WHOIS. Deceptive
companies who want to get around this simply buy the WHOIS records
(I should be more precise: the data that would appear in a WHOIS
lookup) from the registrar directly.
I can point you to an Email thread discussing this find, which
includes couple statements from OpenSRS's Product Manager (who in a
roundabout way admitted that anyone can buy their WHOIS database),
if you'd like.
This doesn't explain the spam, but it I really do not see any
purpose to buying a registrar's copy of customer WHOIS records
other than for mass-marketing. This is bad business in general.
As I've previously said, this isn't like its some sort of borderline
case where someone in one part of the company is doing something that
someone else doesn't know about. These guys are pretty hard core.
I'd say I get 20-30 emails a year from them for various domain names
I'm a contact on. I've also received USPS spam which is another
story but no less unethical since they are all these BS "renewal"
type letters. They might not be "Domain Registry of America" but
they are hardly innocent.
I've mentioned this on NANOG before. See the thread about why I
refuse to put legitimate contact information (Email contact information
is always valid; just not the address or phone number) in our
domain WHOIS records. The DROA is half of the reason; the other
half is what I described above.
The entire situation is depressing, solely because ICANN is doing
absolutely nothing to try and stop this sort-of behaviour (both
what the DROA does, and registrars selling their customers' WHOIS
records to whoever bids the most for it).
I submitted both spams to spamcop and the appropriate abuse addresses would have been notified in both cases. I got no response from either of my submissions. As for a "reason for ignoring" my complaint I really couldn't say since, well they ignored me.
Did you ever send a complaint to abuse@register.com and postmaster@register.com personally (so that you could actually verify it was sent and delivered)? I've never dealt with a company that didn't at least acknowledge receipt of a complaint.
-Don
Then you must not deal with very many companies.
(Not a comment on Register.com, 'cause I don't, and will never, know if they respond since I block their mail to avoid bogus renewal notices.)
Donald Stahl wrote:
I submitted both spams to spamcop and the appropriate abuse addresses
would have been notified in both cases. I got no response from either
of my submissions. As for a "reason for ignoring" my complaint I
really couldn't say since, well they ignored me.Did you ever send a complaint to abuse@register.com and
postmaster@register.com personally (so that you could actually verify it
was sent and delivered)? I've never dealt with a company that didn't at
least acknowledge receipt of a complaint.-Don
I send out several hundred complaints monthly and have acknowledgments from only
20%. Most of the acknowledgments are automated. Either I or the abuse@ system
is broken - perhaps both.
Randy