After writing today’s post about NetSol front running, I was contact by Shashi from NSI. Shashi watches the social media to gather feedback for NSI and that alone was a bit suprising and I was glad to hear that. Shashi and I spoke on the phone for about 45 minutes and I went over several issues and not just the front running as I see it. We also spoke about the 3 days it takes when you send in a support email and ways to improve the service they provide to protect FROM front running.

I do think the service can be good, if they do it right. Currently if you search for an available domain, and you back arrow out of there is a pop-up window (that seems super long) and has a Yes and Cancel button. I did it by accident but click Yes and that is what "holds" the domain name. So it’s not very clear. I also expressed that the domain should be Attached to the person who wants it reservered. You do not have to login to reserve the domain now, so how does NSI know WHO to hold it for? Plus they only "Hold" .com’s and no other TLD.

So after running the list that I posted earlier today, (I ran a Domain Name Servers search). Now Shashi has confirmed that NSI is still holding domain names for customers, but it should not be public info at all. Not via a DNS search etc. So he was surprised to see the list I posted. Now after checking deeper into the domains that I posted, a lot of the domains are registered, but many were registered from back in Jan 2008 or March of 2008 and show No Whois info. Just creation date, expire date, registrar. One of them was registered in March and is in Redemption Period? I did see some showing 4-8-2008 as well, but again, no name in the whois.

Now from my understanding Shashi was telling me that they do not report the held domains to the registry, but I do not see how that can be, because if somebody checked the domain at another registrar, the domain would still show available. The might be able to report it to the registry, but not include any DNS, so there really would be no way for anybody outside of NSI to know what was being held. (Which is a good thing) Now again, the customer still needs the option if they choose to register the domain with ANY registrar, but currently if you click Cancel or Call or Email are the ways to remove the Hold. Again if they "Attached" the hold To you, you should be able to log into your account and remove the hold Yourself. (Hint Hint Shashi).

So I am going to leave up the list that I posted, because all that I checked on whois are past the AGP (After Grace Period) and can not be deleted. (I didn’t check them all, but most of them). I hope to see some changes in NSI’s "holding" domains. The most important is attaching the Held domain to a customer and making it easier for them to remove the hold. This could be done with an email or making the customer sign in to "Hold" the domain, which they can also delete from there account or it would just be removed in 4 days.