Watch Out for Dotster’s Idiotic Subdomain Policy
I finally got to the bottom of my subdomain problem. A recent commenter pointed me to my registrar’s–that’d be Dotster–registration agreement. It’s more than 11,000 words long, so you’ll forgive me if I didn’t read it carefully.
Item 6.5 (just search for ‘wild’) has this to say about subdomains:
DNS Wildcard. In the event you utilize Dotster, Inc.’s DNS management services and fail to configure a wildcard DNS for your domain, Dotster, Inc. may insert wildcard DNS records to resolve subdomains of your domain that would not otherwise resolve. Dotster, Inc. may point those subdomains to a web page that may contain advertisements and other materials selected by Dotster, Inc. in Dotster, Inc.’s sole discretion. This may include, but is not limited to, third-party website, third-party product and service offerings, and/or Internet search engines.
In other words, “Dear Customer: Unless you read this and take steps to fix it, we’re going to abuse your trust for extra revenue.” Bastards. If it weren’t such an enormous pain in the butt, I’d move this domain elsewhere immediately. You can be certain I won’t be registering any other domains with them.
If you’re a Dotster customer, you probably have no idea how to resolve this issue. Happily, this knowledge base article explains how to insert a wildcard entry into your DNS.
UPDATE: Hmm…I can’t seem to link to documents on Dotster’s site. You can find the registration agreement in the footer of any page, and the knowledge base article is, as you’d expect, in the knowledge base.
June 1st, 2007 at 6:38 am
Links to document not found (feel free to delete this comment afterwards).
June 1st, 2007 at 11:39 am
I’m switching hosting providers over the next few weeks for much the same reason. My hosting company was wonderful until the original owner retired, but I’ve seen many signs of slippage since then. The final straw was when I discovered by accident that all the 404 pages on all my sites had mysteriously acquired pop-under ads and banners for a site called 4o4notfound.com, which I did not authorize, nor did my clients. It took two weeks for someone to respond to my complaint, and though they’ve fixed it now, I’m offended enough by their presumptuousness to head out the door.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Kirsten: Don’t be afraid to name those doofuses (doofi?) if you’re so inclined.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:09 pm
That’s not just evil — that’s guy-in-a-white-suit-with-a-fluffy-cat- and-giant-illuminated-map-of-the-world evil.
Dugg hard with a vengeance.
June 1st, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Well, I didn’t mean to name them at first, because up until recently I didn’t have anything bad to say about them. They used to be called Ace of Space, and when Sharon was running the place they were the most perfect host you could ask for - incredibly responsive, practically no downtime; any time you had a problem or question she’d respond, it seemed, within minutes.
After she left, they renamed themselves Hostutopia. Now it takes a lot longer to get a response about anything, and it seems like when I do have a question, every response comes from a different individual, so it’s never one person trying to solve the problem but a handful taking turns.
To be fair, their uptime and reliability has still been fine, and one of the problems I had at one point turned out to be my fault, not theirs. But a few things like this made me leery, and I feel like it’s time to move on, now, before I start having actual hosting problems.
June 1st, 2007 at 8:15 pm
http://www.baremetal.com
Domain registrars of the kickass variety. I’ve used them for literally hundreds of domains, and they are responsive, provide personal attention, Victoria-based, and cheap.
Darren, is Dotster that difficult to get out of? In most circumstances, just changing the domain protect status at your current registrar, and initiating the transfer at your new registrar, should get it done. I’ve never had the pleasure of logging into Dotster’s control panel, however….
June 2nd, 2007 at 11:03 am
Those are some sneaky tactics there. I’m glad you got it figured out.
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Darren :Shame on you to go with Dotster in the first place..
June 4th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Duh! Almost all registration companies do this. It’s your domain and if you dont know how to manage one then dont buy one. Setting up simple cnames and or not using there nameservers resolves that. I’ve also called and talked to their tech support and they have no problem helping you remove it. If your gonna have a take, dont suck.
June 4th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Hey IT guy, whether all companies do this or not, it’s still a malicious practice. Plus, most non-IT guys are probably not familiar with concepts such as cnames, etc. just like how some IT guys may not have a good grasp of english grammar (see http://www.theretheir.com/).
And just like we don’t stop IT guys from using the English language, we also shouldn’t make things difficult or obscure for non-IT guys to register and host domains.
(sure, being a grammar nazi is a form of elitism but hey, you started it.)
June 4th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
No, actually, ITGuy, not all companies do this… in fact, not even close. And your comment smacks of the self-serving sophistry that con artists use: if their marks were stupid enough to fall for the ruse, they deserved to get fleeced.
I’m with Chris: the web isn’t just for the IT priesthood. A huge part of what’s powering the revolution in online self-expression is the removal of barriers like unnecessary technical complexity, arcane terminology…
… and snobbery.
June 5th, 2007 at 4:37 am
Holy Wick. That is terrifyingly evil.
easydns.com - I HIGHLY recommend! :-)
June 6th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Somehow, by pure luck im sure, you figured out how to slap together this blog. But you cant figure out how to google the word cname? And you cant take half the time Im sure it took you to come up with a response regarding grammer, to call and ask them to help you do it? Grow some stones, stop crying long enough to fix the problem instead of blaming your lack of knowledge on simple domain on another company. I beleive they have a saying for this. If you cant cook, stay out of the kitchen. It’s people like you that create unnecessary hold times for people who need help and not cheese to go with their whine.
June 6th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Oops! my appologies. Your canadian. Should of known. Im sorry, I promise I wont waste any more of my time. You rant as well as you canadians play hockey. Maybe we can show you how to manage your domains after were done handing you your stones back in the stanley cup.
June 7th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
What a lovely and polite conversation this has become. Thanks guys!
June 28th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
You can request to have your domains put on an opt-out list for their DNS wildcard.
January 11th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
[…] sub domains for a domain he has registered with Dotster he was greeted by a page of ad links. It turns out that Dotster have a clause buried deep in the registration agreement which permits this. As Darren […]
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:16 am
I just had a bunch of my customers’ names dumped into Dotster from another registrar, which is a long story and I won’t go there, but I’ve found Dotster to be reasonably responsive so far. Moving a name away from them is pretty easy. Unlike some registrars which hide the link for getting an authorization code for transfer out, Dotster puts it in plain view on their DN management UI.