Beware of Domain Name Slamming

The problem is that the email is slippery, and purposefully so. You are being lured based on two main motivators: saving money and fear of losing your name(s). It's not clear that you are making the change other than just paying lower fees, especially since we KNOW that people generally don't read chunky paragraphs or "terms and conditions" on webpages. To me, it's the equivalent of this happening over the phone:

Telemarketer: "Hi, this is Earthlink. You use us for your internet service. Your domain names are expiring soon, and if you don't renew them, you will lose them. Would you like to save money on your domain names?"
Customer: "Yes! That sounds great, and no I don't want to lose them!"
Telemarketer: "OK, let's take your information down and we'll set you up with Register.com. That's the only way we can offer you this special savings."

In this case, it's Earthlink and Register.com, but it could be ANY registrar with or without a partner company in the middle. I even got POSTAL mail that said basically the same thing, but was NOT from Earthlink or Register.com. It was from another company I never heard of, and was trying to scare me into "renewing" through them so that I don't lose my about-to-expire names. How many people would fall for this, especially with fear and greed (essentially) as motivating factors? I think plenty.

What's being done to try to keep names from being slammed?
Companies like Network Solutions are implementing systems where you have to authorise a transfer by email. For example, I recently transferred a name from Network Solutions to ItsYourDomain.com, who I use sometimes because they have very low prices and their website and system are good enough for the names I own as investments, business ideas, or for trademark protection. I started the transfer on ItsYourDomain.com. First, they verified it with the Administrative Contact on the domain name via email. That was me, so I was able to use the link and code they supplied to OK the transfer. Next, it was sent to Network Solutions to review. They also sent me an email asking if I am trying to transfer this particular domain name. I am offered two links, one says YES (transfer the name), and the other says NO (do not transfer the name). The NO link is first :), but they did make them both very clear. I chose YES,

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