Canadian Bureau Charges Registrar With Deception

Greedo writes "In a follow-up to the previous story about sleazy marketing tactics by domain registrars, the not-so-friendly folks at the Internet Registry of Canada (same folks behind Domain Registry of (Canada|America|Europe) got a wake-up call today as the Competition Bureau laid charges against IRoC and its principals under the Competition Act's misleading representations and deceptive telemarketing provisions."

Hooray!

[Sandman1971]

I received such a deceptive mail from this company a few months ago. I'm glad our governement sees this kind of 'marketing' for what it really is: fraud. It's days like these that' I'm so proud to be Canadian :)

See?

[Rick the Red]

This and the other cases mentioned prove it's possible to apply physical-world laws to cyberspace. Little need for new laws, if you explain the situation. Too bad other government agencies don't "get it" as easily.

No, I don't see.

[merriam]

This appears to be about fraudulent invoices, sent by snail mail, in the physical world. Where are "physical world laws" being applied to "cyberspace"?

Am I missing something?

god i love canada

[dirtmerchant]

you've got to respect the position of government that canada promotes. amongst other things, government exists to protect business from itself.

Renewal Vs Switch

[phorm]

As mentioned previous, I've had dealings [slashdot.org] with this group. They're nothing but a bunch of crooks.

What the really got nailed for though, was using logos which looked similar enough to the Canadian government as to indicate affiliation.
Realistically though, this was only one factor in the duping of many people who get shafted by the Domain/Internet Registry of SomeCountry.

In the letter I read, the main thing that I noticed was the constant use of the word "renew" in reference to the domain. Generally, a renewal would indicate a reinstatement with the previous agent, which likely led many people to believe the DROC was renewing their domain with the original registrar. A twice-over made it quite clear that this wasn't the case, but the only reason I looked at the letter so closely is that I had once worked for a company that hosted websites and provided domain registration, and therefore knew of these such slimey tactics.

Score one for the Canadian government, every now and again they surprise me by actually nailing slimeball companies like this oen.

Sweet

[infonography]

There is room in North America for Honest Government. Now if we can just get some of that sweet Canadian loving to head south, say to Netsol????

Re:Sweet

[dan.hunt]

As I brushed the snow of the rear window of my car with my 9 year old daughters hockey stick this morning on my way to work at the cultivator shovel factory I paused to reflect what a good thing it is that you have to confirm transfer of registar by email. Personally I am proud of the Canadian goverment slamming these guy's for tricking people. As the fellow Domain Regisrar of Canada said " I don't know how you could have confused our mailing with a invoice " OH YEAH? EH? Eh? WHERE YOU WORKING NOW LOOSER?