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Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

status.gandi.net

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Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#291

Post by throw_14JAS »

tialaramex wrote: post #255
Verdex wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I may have just found myself a new hobby. Search for incredibly unique (and worthless to me) domains to see if I can get people to squat on them. Heck, it could be a game ... I could get all my friends to make bingo boards ... or maybe see if I can think of some scrabble like rules.

The squatters do a thing called "Domain tasting". They buy domain X and then they put generic advertising, maybe keyword based, on a cheap bulk hosted site. They measure for a few days - is this bringing in lots of revenue? If not, they cancel the purchase, using a "grace period" available to users of the registry in case of mistakes - the purchase is unwound and they are refunded the fees. Domain X is now available…

There are slight transaction costs of $0.18 - $0.20 that is not refundable. Miniscule, but it prevents some domain tasting at scale.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#292

Post by the8472 »

duxup wrote: post #165
EnderMB wrote: post #28

Oof, this Twitter thread looks particularly bad, especially the response from the official Gandi account. https://twitter.com/andreaganduglia/status/12151991477012316... While I appreciate that there are real people behind these companies that are probably having a really rough time right now, the criticism that Gandi are getting as a company is justified - and if Gandi are truly a "no bullshit" company they need to…

The number of people who have control of social media accounts for companies who do not understand how to relate to people / basic customer service / can predict how their post will be received is shocking. I worked at a company of 5K+ people and one of the folks in control of the twitter account(s) would come to me with questions. Now I applauded them for coming to me for technical questions before posting, that was…

> can predict how their post will be received

That's an AI-hard problem and remains unsolved.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#293

Post by ljm »

Operyl wrote: post #225
moralestapia wrote: post #87

Whoops, so long with the "no bullshit" policy. I stopped using them a while ago but for a different reason. I used to use their website to check availability/whois for domains that I was interested in buying. If it was available I didn't buy it at the time but until I finished the website/app whatever I was going to put there, this took me a few months obviously. It happened to me that when I was finally ready the do…

They never had a real "no bullshit" policy. When I had my domains with them, I had been asked to verify my identity 34 times in 12 months. 34 separate fucking times. Because "ICANN says so" or some stupid shit (their words, not mine). It stopped the moment I moved to Google Domains, where they asked once and never again. EDIT: And, to make things worse, each time I was threatened with the "confiscation" of my domain,…

Jeez. Like most experiences I suppose, it's hit and miss. They've promptly resolved every problem I've had and I've bought plenty of domains through them.

They're still my go-to provider.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#294

Post by fernandotakai »

icebraining wrote: post #242
ben509 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The customers are being stupid and rude: assigning blame, asking redundant questions, making threats. Nothing in any of the twitter threads I've seen has any potential to solve any problems, they're yelling thinly veiled abuse at support. The industry standard is sucking up to them and groveling, and it's led to customers being very badly behaved. The trouble is no one has a good working alternative to the industry s…

The alternative is simple: always behave professionally, and if they are abusive, point at the ToS that forbids that and fire them as customers. Here I'd just avoid engaging one-on-one at all, just broadcast the situation status.

i mean, this is customer support 101. always be respectful even when your customer is angry -- they are probably angry for a reason.

answering with memes is the absolute opposite of this, specially when your customer has all the reasons to be angry.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#296

Post by EGreg »

mystcb wrote: post #274
swarnie_ wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ireallylikechicken.com owner. I'll give you 20 for it?

Only a 100% markup? I am sure it will be worth more than that in the future ;)

That’s what they said about Bitcoin last year

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#297

Post by duxup »

the8472 wrote: post #292
duxup wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of people who have control of social media accounts for companies who do not understand how to relate to people / basic customer service / can predict how their post will be received is shocking. I worked at a company of 5K+ people and one of the folks in control of the twitter account(s) would come to me with questions. Now I applauded them for coming to me for technical questions before posting, that was…

> can predict how their post will be received That's an AI-hard problem and remains unsolved.

if positiveReception < 100 postMemes = 0

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#298

Post by fencepost »

Shalle135 wrote: post #11
petee wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, for a company that boasts "no bullshit", only offering a month after destroying data and backups seems a little tone deaf Edit: in fairness, I'm not sure how exactly you would quantify such a loss anyway...

It sounds like they didn’t have any backups at all but rather relied on a active-active replication link to a secondary storage. Edit: who knows it may be related to the HPE issue. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/hardware/hp-warns-that...

Perhaps they were depending on snapshotting and were not prepared for some kind of hardware failure taking out the entire storage system.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#299

Post by benhurmarcel »

albedoa wrote: post #290
craze3 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened to me with GoDaddy and Namecheap before, which is why I switched to using Gandi for all my domain searches... Now I'm regretting it! But as @Jasper_ said, this could be a problem with the domain name registry selling/leaking that info (AKA all their 'is_available' queries), and not the registrar.

I was always told that Namecheap does not engage in this practice. It's a single data point, but I instructed a client to search for domains on Namecheap last year since they were undecided. I just didn't want them to use GoDaddy, and I warned them why. They settled on a domain but registered it months afterwards. It was still available.

I have the same story with Gandi. Searching for a domain (several times even, on a .com) and was still available months later.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#300

Post by K0SM0S »

jandrese wrote: post #97
moralestapia wrote: post #87

Whoops, so long with the "no bullshit" policy. I stopped using them a while ago but for a different reason. I used to use their website to check availability/whois for domains that I was interested in buying. If it was available I didn't buy it at the time but until I finished the website/app whatever I was going to put there, this took me a few months obviously. It happened to me that when I was finally ready the do…

Domain registrars giving away domains to squatters when people search for them is a time honored practice. The advice I've seen is to not search for the domain first, just register it outright from the start. The domain registration business is run with all of the integrity and customer focus of TicketMaster.

On Namecheap they have a "save for later" button per domain in your cart, so you can just pile them up for later.

Never had even 1 of my "saved for later" being squatted, for several years now, so I really have to trust and commend namecheap in that regard.

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