On 23 Apr 2002 at 16:16, Captain F.M. O'Lary wrote:

> I guess I'm a little out of touch, but I see nothing misleading and I sure as heck don't see anything that would lead ~anyone~ (actually reading the form) to believe it was from ~anyone except~ Verisign.

When you get this in the mail, the thing that grabs you is 
"Expiration Notice, Reply by xxxx"  and it takes up a whole area in 
bold type.  This is repeated several times in the letter. By repeating 
it, they draw attention away from who it is from, or the fact that 
VeriSign was not the original registrant.

Many web site owners don't remember the name of the company 
they originally signed up with. Designers handled that for them. 
That was two years ago.  They don't read the fine print either.  
That's why its deceptive.  Heck, even if they saw the name 
VeriSign, that's a name that has earned a lot of trust because of 
SSL.  Its deceptive alright.

Its as deceptive as Network Solutions (p.o. VeriSign now) forms 
were for making changes.  They were purposely engineered to 
make it difficult to change contacts or hosts. In the early days of the 
web, this little trick caused many small website owners to get stuck 
with a high cost hosting company. These companies knew to stay 
with VeriSign because it was another hammer to keep business.  
This trick goes hand in hand with registering the website in the 
name of the host or designer, rather than the customer that paid for 
it. This ensures a captive audience.

Paul Wilson
webguroo(at)tampabay.rr.com

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