new.net domains

is it legal ?

[digitalbrain]

few days back a company selling .usa domains using the browser plugin was shutdown by court and ftc stating that it was a scam

[keytlaw.com...]

one more company new.net is doing the same , is it also a scam ?

[richlowe]

new.net is not a scam. This company is attempting to set up an alternative domain structure allowing for domain extensions such as .shop and so on. Users are required to install a plug-in onto their system to allow the alternative structure to become visible.

I believe what this company is doing is silly, but to my knowledge they are not a scam.

Richard Lowe

[mack]

Very interesting article digitalbrain.

There have been a lot of similar case of companies offering domains that have not been aproved but, offering a domain that cant be used??? some people realy are gullable.

[Knowles]

Asking your users to put a plug in even before they get to your site is kind of silly and probably wont work. People are already paranoid enough about being online now we are going to have to set up gateway pages with a .com/net/org/etc just to feed them a download so they can go to .shop.... why not just use the gate way page as the site instead of the gateway? Thats asking way to much out of people.

[Lisa]

If search engines can't crawl the domain then what is the point. Not to mention that new.net domains can't do email. It is a total scam in my book.

[Brett_Tabke]

Well, it works with 125million people and is supported by EarthLink, NetZero, Prodigy, and quite a few other isp's. Althought I don't think it will every take off, I don't think it is anything close to a scam. Given Icann's failure to do anything meaning full with tld's, I'll support any alternative there is. I bought a dozen when they first came out and then resold them.

[Lisa]

While not a legal scam. They do make some claims that don't hold up to scrutiny. I also don't believe that new.net went about the process properly. They tried to strong-arm their extensions into the world. If every corporation decided to launch domain extensions left and right the world would be in trouble. There has to be one authority that can global coordinate the root system. To turn their back on every ICANN registrar and just start peddling their names to the public is not going to make the TLD community accept them.

Letter from Daniel Scott Schecter to ICANN Board (16 July 2001) [icann.org]
Letter from Jeffrey A. LeVee to Daniel Scott Schecter (23 July 2001) [icann.org]

I think Jeffrey A. LeVee response back to new.net says it pretty well. The question as to when new.net closes its door is only a matter of time. No search engines index those new.net domains. And no traffic will be the death of any site.

The claim of 125 million people seems way to high! Maybe 40 Million Tops. But nowhere near 125 Million. And those 40 Million are only large ISP that have enabled there DNS. It doesn't mean those ISP's clients would even visit those sites. The other way to visit a new.net site is to use IE and download a piece of software that translates addresses. I did it a few times. But I always uninstalled. I was just checking out the system. I bet new.net now claims that every single download means someone is capable of reaching those sites. Oh wait, I just check their site. They claim that for every download that equals 1.5 people. Here is the reason they give, "A Report on Americans’ Access to Technology Tools and other sources which estimate 2.1 users per household". So they are multiplying downloads by 1.5. Talk about deceptive and inflation. People reinstall and move to new computers all the time. So just because someone downloads software doesn't mean they use it or even still have it installed anymore. I would like to see their DNS stats and how many domain they resolve a day. Why are they using all these false stats?

new.net in summary:
- Not SSL capable
- Not email capable
- Not Search Engine crawl-able
- Limited to a few large ISP's customers (But not AOL or MSN the biggest)
- Limited to IE users that download a plugin
- Very Deceptive
- A scam in Lisa’s Book

I have been watching the domain industry for years. Way before ICANN was even around. These alternate root systems have been popping up every other year and trying to launch their own root system. new.net is not the first to try something like this. They will fail in the end just like their predecessors. Watch for the footnote in the news when they go out of business. They will not be the last company to tries and fail at this. Just wait a few years and another company will do the same thing again.

<edited for grammer>

[edited by: Lisa at 5:00 am (utc) on June 28, 2002]

[richlowe]

Their domains are expensive as well - even more expensive than netsol. So if you want to buy into a silly scam which is not indexed by search engines which no one knows about when will fail in a year or so which costs you MORE than network solutions, then go ahead and buy one of these.

Richard Lowe

[dauction]

Brett, I also registered new.net domains ..around 30.

They are a scam in my book because they claim you can be whatever.shop, whatever.inc , whatever.sport etc...

When in reality ..you cannot be ..NO SEARCH engines will accept new.net domains UNLESS you add the full extension (even pay SE's !)

whatever.shop.new.net ..

We were told over and over again that they were working on "it" but they never were able to get any search engines to list them..

so in reality all were were really registering were in fact sub-domains that would be SEEN by everyone using ANY search engine as sub-domains.

I was a large supporter of new.net and also re-sold a handful during the intitial "excitement"..but as time went by it became clear that new.net domains would never (forsee able future) be listed in any major SE as anything other than a sub-domain..
I have let rest of them expire ..I did not even want to sell them..

The other problems continue:email and no decent proxy support , and company still refuses to say how many domains were even registered ..a bad sign from the git go IMO.

That said ..New.Net did help ignite a fire under ICANN's rear

In wish it had turned out different for them..