I am not that upset over this, I just thought I would comment on it as another negative thing that shines an ugly, unprofessional light on out industry. We need more polish if we expect to shine!
Unwelcome Spam…Phishing?
Not that these are that uncommon, I just did not expect it from a company this size. Got a spam message regarding one of my domains today. They wanted to give me a friendly reminder that my domain is expiring in 42 days. “Well thank you.” They also went into detail that my domain was registered with “A different registrar,” not HostMonster and would need to contact them. Unless of course I would like them to handle it and they provided convenient links for transfer.
Understand the Strategy, Slimy Tactics
I recognize that this can be a legitimate marketing tactic, the WhoIs data, where my info was harvested from, is out there and public info. I don’t have a huge problem with using it to get customers. What I do have a problem with is the fear language they used and the steps they took to hide identities/coding in the email itself. From the body of the email:
Please note that if your domain name expires, your website, email addresses and other important services that HostMonster.Com provides for you WILL NO LONGER WORK PROPERLY.
Shame on them. For someone who doesn’t know any better, this is an attempt to scare and get transfers to them. (More helpful TRANSFER links and phone numbers provided as well) They also addressed the email to some random gmail account (not mine) in the address bar but had my email address all through the actual code. I see this as either lazy programming or another attempt to hide behind a “mistaken” email sent, trying to around spam laws if challenged. Just be upfront if you are going to send and email and say, “We see your name is expiring and want to offer an incentive to get you to switch to us.” They just lost a potential customer for life because there are too many others out there who don’t do this kind of thing.
Attention To Detail
It is also a red flag that they do not pay attention to the little details, something critical if you want to run a hosting company. Footer—“© 2005 Hostmonster.com. All rights reserved.” 4 years and no update? Really?
March 1st, 2009 at 11:51 am
I think you are over-reacting. We have one account with hostmonster and as you say they state that the domiain is “registered with “A different registrar,” not HostMonster and would need to contact them.”
They may offer to transfer the domain to them, and I would not do that because I don’t like having the domain at the same place that I host my site. But they are the only host I know of that provides this SERVICE. That’s right, I consider it a service to have them warn me about domains that are expiring.
You see, often times people will register a domain and later change email addresses and forget to update the information on their domain. Later, they may not get the renewal emails and if the domain expires, they could have their site and email stop working just as that email said. Then if they don’t realize that, they could also lose the domain.
I hate Phishing and spam, but in my opinion, these messages from hostmonster are neither and are a service that I wish more hosting providers would offer their customers. Of course, I do think you should be able to turn it off if you don’t want these notifications, but I have not even looked to see if that is possible.
I hope this clears up any misunderstanding about those emails.
March 1st, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Fair enough Chris. But this is still considered spam. Unsolicited/requested Mass emails from a company I have never done business with or provided an email address to. The SERVICE you refer to is simply harvesting public whois data and using that for an unsolicited sales pitch. That is against the law!
(CAN-SPAM Act of 2003)
*It bans false or misleading header information. Your email’s “From,” “To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.
*Use scripts or other automated ways to register for multiple email or user accounts to send commercial email
I was really just commenting that it was slimy that they used a fear message and had a deceptive tone in terms of it’s content. (Your services with Host Monster will not work–where not services existed.
FYI. I also notice that someone must have read this posting (Is it you chris?:) Do you work for Host Monster/Blue Host?…because the date was corrected on their homepage. Cheers.