Verisign – the dark force behind .com and .net domains.
Verisign, managers of the .com and .net TLDs have a lot of thanks to send to the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA).
The alleged perpetrators of a recent DNS hack, temporarily took control of Twitter, NY Times and the Huffington Post UK domains, after accessing the accounts of a Melbourne IT reseller.
“We are grateful to those Syrian criminals, as our Registry Lock product is now selling like hot cakes,” exclaimed Verisign spokesman, Varth Dader.
“We charge registrars $10 per domain locked at the Registry, and they upsell the feature for between $30 to $50 – that’s PER MONTH!” added Dader, rubbing his gloved hands with glee.
Thousands of domain owners, fearing that the same Syrian hackers will mess with their domain names, have now ordered the Registry Lock service.
But not everyone is happy by this.
“It’s ridiculous that the Registry needs to charge for a feature that must be there in the first place, for free!” exclaimed Paul Faustus, who runs a busy gaming forum. “Why do I have to be held to ransom, paying more than $500 per year for my domain so that it stays secured in place?” added Faustus.
Major corporations that opted for the Registry Lock feature since the Syrian attack incident include IBMo, Starbuckers, Sex Toys R Us and Tech Munch, with more to follow.
It is clear that ICANN must address the issue of profiting from a mere digital lock, at its next “club med” gathering in some exotic destination in the far East.
If you are looking for an affordable domain locking solution to keep your domains locked in place, click here.
