We have several major problems with these hosts, and that will become clear when you read what this web-host has been up to over the years. It includes 'Trademark Infringement' / a Parked Domain Service that only serves the Domain host Name.Com / Domain tasting and a policy to pursue money at the detriment of the client / a secret deal made with the court over the hijacking of 40 names wrongly acquired and more.
THEY ALSO ACQUIRE YOUR PASSWORD WHEN PAYING THROUGH PAYPAL WHICH COULD BE USED FOR FRAUDULENT PURPOSES BY THIS COMPANY.
It could possibly lead to them or others visiting your account and pursuing transactions not approved or made by you, in other words, contributing to your vulnerability to be robbed....they do compromise your security.
It should be noted that this firm hid behind a statement saying that they did not comment or discuss matters relating to our enquiries into the hijack incident involving Bill Mushkin who formed Domainsite and Name.com. and the secret court deal made to conceal and brush this event under the carpet. Dismissing the matter only made things worse so we scanned the Internet to find out about the new owners.
Not letting off Bill Mushkin that easily, we will shed some light on this new company and the Domainsite connection to their acquired Name.com.
HOWEVER, THERE IS SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE PLACING A WEBSITE OR BUYING ONE FROM THIS COMPANY -- and this isn't surprising really. NAME.COM is a sort of ROGUE LANDLORD with no scruples whatsoever. They turn a blind eye to domain theft and routinely have some websites hijacked, as we found out from some trying to make a formal complaint. NAME.COM web hosts is just a money market with a landlord that lets out rooms for a fee without any guarantee of tenancy or protection for the tenant. Its one important aim is to make money and do very little for it, and we will tell you more about that later with things that lift the veil of a company that swallows other domains to boost its portfolio with promises to customers that they can't keep.
NAME.COM and DOMAINSITE, who runs things now? it is a mystery company which goes by the name of 'THE RIGHTSIDE GROUP' and we will tell you more in the next item that we have for you from our major investigative file on this secretive group.
NAME.COM CAN THEY BE TRUSTED?
The simple answer is NO, this so-called hosting company has only one reason to exist, and that is to get as much cash as it can for doing very little. It is run by a very secretive new financial dubious company, The Rightside Group who bought the Name.com in 2013, (watch out for Demand Media here there are some points that don't add up, keep your eye on the dates).
Numerous reports gathered momentum as early as 2010 with reports of DNS 'Hijacking' by Name.com while Bill Mushkin was in charge? DEMAND MEDIA is noted as getting Name.com on January the 7th 2013, and following this thread, there was a small notice saying that 'they had separated from the RIGHTSIDE GROUP in 2014?
Amazingly, when one searches for information on The Rightside Group, one hits a brick wall and the mystery deepens. A link we found in the far reaches of this web tells us that a Rightside Group page doesn't exist, which is unusual in itself. Yet, we pushed on and found this piece, ICANN mention that The Rightside Group/Demand Media in 2017 belong to (United TLD Holdco Ltd).
If you're getting a little confused now, you ought to be, because they said they'd parted company in 2014, so you're either looking at a lie, or something more sinister in the world of the Internet and 'domain tasting' as these guys are buying things up in order to make huge profits out of the public.
The Rightside Group is operated by CHARLESTONE ROAD REGISTRY INCORPORATED?
Further investigations show us that this secretive group who use the banner of NAME.COM to do their 'Public' business, are buying and selling large concerns on the Internet at an alarming rate, picking up domains cheaply and selling dear, for short or medium length situations, grabbing the profit as quick as they before they offload it. The company actually declares they are into re-selling domains and registrations in the USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland and the Cayman Islands, two of which are mentioned as tax havens and feature in the Panama Papers Scandal. They also acquire, monetise, and sell domain names for its own portfolio of names.
A deeper search reveals that there are troubles emerging for this domain buying group. And most of these seem to feature DONUTS INC. (they do domains also)
A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT against Rightside has been filed in The County Court US by Bronstein, Gewirtz and Grossman investigating potential claims against the Directors on the Board of The Rightside Group Ltd.
But they are not the only ones, The Law Offices of Vincent Wong has notified the Investors, of an investigation of The Rightside Group Ltd in connection with the Donuts Inc. They are investigating the Board of Directors of The Rightside Group Inc for possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of State Law in connection with Donuts Inc.
And strangely enough we go back to 'dates' because we find that in 2016 Donuts Inc were seeking to acquire entirety of Rightside Group Ltd holdings.
But this is not the end of this saga -- The mystery deepens.
June 14/2017 -- Attorney Willie Briscoe is investigating the sale to Donuts Inc. It was revealed that from the sale (Donuts acquire Rightside Group/Name for $213 million) Rightside Group shareholders will only receive $10.60 for each share owned, which is virtually no premium over the 52 week high, and lower than at least one analyst estimated at the value of $11.50 a share. The investigation is concentrating on whether Rightside's Board of Directors is acting in the shareholders interests?
And, Harwood Feffer LLP, New York are investigating potential claims against the board of directors of the Rightside Group Ltd (28/6/2017)
We cannot find any recommendations or tributes to this group, or any blurb revealing who they really are, but we'll stay on it until we do get that information.. Even though they run surveys on their performance, they do not give space to a 'complaints system' nor count them as being relevant to their main aim of accumulating money.
We have now found a list of the Board of Directors of The Rightside Group Ltd.
CEO -Director - Taryn Jogi Naidu
President - Bruce A Jaffe
Chief Finance Officer - Tracy Knox
Senior Vice President -- Matthew Delgade
Senior Vice President -- Jeff Echaus
Address - 5808 Lake Washington, Boulevard NE, Suite 300, Kirkland WA 98033
We shall stay on this and see where it all leads!
What we do know and can tell you is an alarming story of their involvement in something that should have you doubting their advertisements and claims which bombard the web with NAME.COM their obvious flagship.
And on that note, we're going to look at Name.com, Domainsite and Bill Mushkin.
NAME.COM what inspired the Rightside Group to see this as their flagship?
Domainsite.com aka Name.com and the infamous Bill Mushkin bought this company in 2002. It had three sub-domains, including Name.com, Name.net. and Domainsite.com. In 2007, Mushkin got into deep legal trouble, and found himself in court being accused of 'trademark infringements' by Neiman Marcus. One accusation was that Mushkin provided 'false details and failed to show accurate information' when he appeared in the US District Court of Denver. Neiman claimed damages in respect of several domains wrongfully acquired, valued at $100,000 per domain name. Bill Mushkin was actually sued for $4 million, and accused of 'domain tasting'.
Kathleen Moore, who followed the trial and case for two years, said that Domainsite/Name.com were accused of 'hijacking domains' by changing the owners DNS -account passwords, and 'disabling automatic password recovery' - plus evading all requests from the authorised person via the authorised e-mail, both of record to restore the password. This was all brought out in court, much to the annyance of Name.com/Name.net and Domainsite.com. Two complaints were filed with ICANN against Bill Mushkin. The judge in the case accepted that 40 names had been infringed. This led to Mushkin wanting a 'gagging order' to prevent publicity in return for him paying out an undisclosed sum for damages to Neiman Marcus who ran a Internet Company.
RIES at Name Pros claimed that Mushkin's Domainsite.com plundered their site which disappeared in their account and blocked e-mails.
Domainsite and Paypal (e-bay) were accused of a 'joint cover-up' It was reported that Domainsite and Paypal threw away the good guide to customer service when delayed banking funds involving a 'few dollars' led to 'altered data, lies and deceit in the hope of getting away with an act of incredible selfishness. For more on this go to the link, www.ripoffreport.com
Before we go onto the item we mentioned, we now go to the penultimate paragraph of mentioning one common link between the Rightside Group/Demand Media, and Mushkin is probably John Newman the president of SNY Digital; he was around as a player at the same time The Rightside Group and Demand Media were showing interest in Name.com. He said this at the time, 'I noticed an out-of-the-way notice on a web page announcing the sale of Domainsite, so I immediately wrote and asked them what price they wanted!'
It may interest the reader when I tell you that I approached the 'Support team' at Name.com and brought up the subject of Bill Mushkin, to which they replied they didn't discuss the 'allegations' -- but these were not allegations as you can see by the court case, and Mushkin was in the driving seat of Name.com a lot longer than the Rightside Group or Demand Media. It seems that denial is the first action of these Americans, Americans who have very little history such as Cowboys and Indians. Massacre of the red Indians and the annihilation of the blacks in the deep south and Klu Klux Klan, that is their history, and that's why they pine and lust for a more appreciative past with glory.
'THE SUPPORT AT NAME.COM THAT HAS NO WARRANTY'
Here is the item we promised:
This is one of the finest examples of 'it's your fault' 'we can't help you' and 'we don't want to know' -- all which sums up certain members of their staff.
-- these are the facts and order of events in a recent case.
-- A long time customer to both Domainsite and Name.com paying around £120 a year in hosting fees on a monthly plan.
--- Early 2017, the customer's website was taken down due to a missing payment (occasioned by a Kasperky bug that affected the customer's Paypal paying system)
--- when the Name.com customer found out, payment was tendered, plus£ ?
---The website was restored after about two weeks.
--- Oct/Nov, trouble occurred with the cpanel system.
-- Name.com Support Advisor says 'It's your fault' contact your web designer.
--- Site owner finally gets at least one problem sorted.
--- However, a new problem surfaces?
--- A new website owner has copied the name of his site and added uk, and he's also pirated the entire content with sub-headings of Name.com's customer's site.
--- Even more disturbing is, that when he uploads to his site, the new material appears on the 'Pirate's site'
--- Name.com supports say ' its not anything we can do, you need to get in touch with a web designer -- and the security of your site is down to you.'
--- Looking on the cpanel, it clearly states that Name.com have this IP and domain where their customer puts the site, at a rent specified by them.
--- Surely Name.com should protect the interests of its customers?
-- And their answer is NO.
--- They just pull away and close the ticket!
--- Having to accept that he's on his own now, with a site that isn't safe or acting as it should. He begins his own investigation, especially as Name.com have said its not their problem!
-- The 'pirate' is tracked down by the site owner with Name.com, and despite having pointed out what site is causing the trouble, and a name he managed to find.
-- The customer has found out that 'the pirate -- Mr Peacher' took advantage of the period when the customer's site was 'parked' by Name.com during the issue of the missed monthly payment.
--- And although 'pirate Mr Peacher' won't say how he did it, he was able to gain entry and plunder Name.com's customer's site, and embed a system of getting new updates from the parked site as soon as the customer retrieved his site. Even more disturbing, is that the 'pirate rebel' says he can also edit at the same time the customer logs on through the cpanel, and delete anything that may expose him to his site readers.
-- So, in fact, it was Name.com's 'parking of the site' and lack of security that enabled this piracy to happen.
-- And what do they care?
NOTHING!
'JUST A BUNCH OF VILLAINS WITH NO INTEGRITY'
Greed is what motivates this web hosting platform, and they should be avoided.
We have yet another expose that reveals how they decline compensation by foul means.
We will have more soon on Name.com and The Rightside Group Ltd soon.