When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning

After having spent a frustrating day trying to prove my identity and get a response back from various Internet domain registrars and hosting providers I use for several websites I maintain, it struck me that the whole domain registration business is pretty young. It's a bit strange to see how a certain industry develops: does it turn into a huge, respected area of business with giant corporations, like the telecommunication industry, or does it turn into an industry full of two-bit operators and the occasional more recognized brand name, like the domain registration industry?

Much like gym memberships and cell phone resellers, there's something about this kind of industry that attracts sleazy behaviour. At least part of that is the "take your credit card number and sign a cryptic contract" subscriptions that are the de facto standard in these lines of business. And the obstacles that they put in your way when you do decide to cancel, well, it confounds reason how people can operate businesses in this manner. I've had managers actively avoid speaking to me, in hopes that I'd leave and miss a cancellation deadline. I've had people claim they had no office and no direct phone number so that I couldn't reach them without going through a chain of powerless customer support agents and salespeople that acted as a human buffer. And in this latest attempt to cancel some domains I own that I don't use, I'm finding that my registrar has buried the cancellation website in a frequently asked questions sub-site, where you actually have to search for "cancel" before you can find the link to the cancellation site. Further, the site tells me that the cancellation forms should be faxed in to the number on the forms but the forms don't even list a number! And if you do a search for "fax", it results in multiple possible numbers.

That would be bad enough, but because the email address I registered with them a few years ago is one I no longer have access to, and even though I've changed it through their website to one I do have access to, the activation emails are still not being sent to my new address. So I'm forced to get support through their billing and tech support email addresses, because they don't really offer phone support for the package I signed up with (a "too good to be true" 3 year free hosting offer -- I now see where the catch was). It's despicable behaviour, frankly, and it does astound me that businesses can operate like this.

Then again, even big, respectable businesses aren't really: Enron, Worldcom, Tyco. It's amazing, but perhaps not surprising, how people will cast aside ethical behaviour in the quest for money!