New Portfolio MaxLock covers more and costs less.
In September I wrote about MaxLock, a new product from Moniker that improved the security of domain names by making it harder to transfer domains out.
Just recently CheckFree.com had its domain hijacked when someone logged in to CheckFree.com’s Network Solutions account and changed the nameservers. Fabulous has a free product called Executive Lock that would have prevented this hijacking.
Now Moniker has put its own MaxLock product on steroids for an attractive offering called Portfolio MaxLock. Portfolio MaxLock protects all domains in your account against transfers, nameserver changes, and several account level changes.
MaxLock had three problems as a product. First, at an introductory price of $34.95 per year it would be costly to apply it to more than a handful of domains. Second, the marketing copy was unclear if the product covered nameserver changes or just unlocks and transfers. Third, Moniker prides itself on never losing a domain, so why would you pay to protect yourself against domain theft?
The new product covers your entire account for an introductory price of $239 per year and covers all types of domain changes. The product may not make sense for domainers that buy and sell large numbers of domains as it would be cumbersome, but it is a perfect fit for any company with a portfolio of critical domains.
Public companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to protect their assets. I foresee a day when a corporate executive is sued for not taking easy steps to protect the company’s domain names.
Reece says
Really nice to see Moniker lower it’s price to $239 for the entire portfolio — much more manageable a fee for those of us with a large number of domains.
Scott Roberts says
Reasonable insurance for critical names. I have seen the CheckFree remediation plan. This was an expensive episode for them (obvious, I know). An ounce of prevention…
Jamie says
I trust Moniker the way it is without this “extra” service/cost as you stated Andrew.
If other security measures are in place, your domain names shouldn’t be in harms way. No free emails account attached to your domaion account is one of the largest. Password strength and so on.
Andrew says
Jamie, but if you were in charge of an important domain such as ATT.com or Google, you shouldn’t shy away from paying $299 for the added protection.
Soroosch says
I also trust Moniker without the ‘extras’, but I had a name hijacked, now Moniker is working on getting it back….BUT it was hijacked…prevention is the best measure.
It’s worth paying a bit extra for the security and peace of mind to know that your domains are SECURE!! My Godaddy account manager must call me and get verbal transfer authorization code(set by me) before any name is transferred out.
Reece says
Even if the domain isn’t stolen, imagine the damage which could be done to the trust and/or image a company projects if a hacker redirected your company’s domain to a malicious website — be it a website which downloaded a keylogger onto their computer or a website which served their customers adult content.
Patrick McDermott says
Andrew says: “Moniker prides itself on never losing a domain, so why would you pay to protect yourself against domain theft?”
Soroosch says: “I also trust Moniker without the ‘extras’, but I had a name hijacked, now Moniker is working on getting it back….BUT it was hijacked…”
Soroosch, are you saying your domain was taken from your Moniker.com account?
Did Moniker “lose” your domain?
Dave Zan says
More importantly, was it transferred out of Moniker? That’s actually what Moniker is mainly “bragging” about, rather than not having a customer’s account compromised in some way.
The latter is something any registrar can hardly and completely prevent from happening.
monte says
The biggest threat right now is hijacking and spoofing of email then stealing domains. we have prevented this from happening, however, it takes a great deal of human intervention as the registrar is not the responsible party if your email is hijacked and your domains are stolen that way…..this is what is happening to most other registrars and this product and MaxLock for domain prevents. Even if someone broke into your email account, they cannot push, transfer out, change dns, forwarding, or admin privileges without several security and private measures in place….only ones that you as the owner would know.
there is not another product that protects ones account as this product and service does.
Soroosch – your email was also hijacked and that is why you lost your domain from enom to ESTdomains and the thief moved that domain through moniker before you were aware of the issue….this product prevents that from happening.
Let us know if you have any questions or you can find more info on our website.
John says
I’m more than happy to pay my registrar a little extra up-front for their added expense of contacting me when I want changes or moves performed. Way to go Monte! As usual, you are the leader.
jp says
I think max lock is very fair. I also see where it takes alot of human intervention to carry out. I do however wish i could afford to do my entire portfolio. Perhaps a bulk discount on maxlock, or a special price to cover the whole account.
I am much less concearned with nameserver changes. maybe this could be an optional protection with maxlock. Id hate to have to call everytime for a dns change. id also hate to be limited to dns changes during business hours only.
Monte, what do you think?
Andrew says
@ JP – you could probably get portfolio maxlock and select your options.
jp says
Thanks Andrew. I missed the whole “Portfolio MaxLock thing”. I signed up some domains with MaxLock back months ago before it was advertised. I don’t think the Portfolio option was available then, and I suppose I havn’t kept up.
jp says
Thought I should post this comment about some Bad Customer Service from Moniker. Since I signed up for DomainLock the first day or so it came out for a few domains, (not cheap), PortfolioLock was not yet available as an option. Since I just found out about portfolio Lock from this post, I was considering upgrading to it, since it is much more cost effective. I asked Moniker if they could give me some money back for the domain lock since the portfolio lock actually completely replaces the last service I bought, and the upgraded/portolio lock wasn’t available at the time, or perhaps I would have signed up for it. Here was their response:
“Thank you for contacting Moniker Support.
We are please to know that you like our new product the Portfolio lock. Unfortunately at this time the option to customize the restriction is not available but will definately let upper management know you are interested in such a feature.
In reference to the refund on the Maxlock, as with most of our sub-products this is non-refundable.
Regards,
Carla ”
IMHO, thats poor customer service, with an awfully rigid decision. Did they even take time to think about the situation? No offer of even a pro-rated refund, good thing I didn’t put like 30 domains in MaxLock 2 months ago. However, since with Portfolio Lock I can’t customize away the option about having to call in to change DNS, I won’t be upgrading anyway, but its nice to know that If I wanted to upgrade they were going to stick it to me hard. Moniker I’m dissapointed in you, you are usually better than this. Maybe I should have just called my Premier account rep, or whatever they call it now. Perhaps he would have had a different answer.
monte says
JP – not refunding your domain maxlock has nothing to do with customer service, its a non refundable product and service you purchased. Domain MaxLock is a different product than Portfolio MaxLock. Domain MaxLock is the ultimate protection and custom security package. It requires physical copies of your identity and security information held in a locked vault in our office and a human/security person to physically unlock your account or provide the special security instructions that you have placed with us. this includes partnership instructions in case of conflict, divorce, death, family, and other special instructions.
Portfolio MaxLock does not require the storage of such information and is an online automated sucurity product. It protects your account at an account level.
most that ordered domain maxlock are ordering portfolio maxlock to secure their whole account. we do not expect every portfolio to cover each name individually at the domain level.
If you are still unsure of the difference and what you purchased, Yes it would be a good idea to contact your Premium Account Manager!
soroosch says
it was a email breach, which led to the name being stolen. according to moniker, the name was transferred using the admin email, which isn’t exactly them ‘losing’ the name.
moniker is working with the current registrar to retrieve the name and have had pretty good communication with me throughout.
i don’t think they ‘lost’ any name…it seemed to them, that it was me requesting the transfer.
i feel it’s worth the max lock and i will be getting it.
Soroosch says
I want to be clear that moniker has had good communication AND is helping me remedy this situation…I can’t say the same for others.
Since I am confident with moniker and the security it brings, I will continue to work with them and keep names in my moniker account…again, I can’t say the same for others…..
Monte, I feel your customer svc team has done a fine job with the authorization given. My account manager worked well to keep me informed of EVERY step in this process. She even kept communication with me during her vacation because of the urgency I expressed.
Thanks for the hard work folks…
jp says
Monte – Thanks for clarification. Now that I understand that Porfolio Max Lock is not a replacement for Domain Max Lock, it is clear that Domain Max Lock is a stronger protecton, and I would like to keep it now. It would be nice though if I could get the Domain Max Lock, but as a blanket on the entire account. Sorry for jumping to conclusions, and I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. That was excellent customer service.
Andrew says
Monte, because these two products have related purposes and similar names, I recommend creating a side-by-side comparison chart on your web site that shows which products have which features.
monte says
Here is some more information on the differences – these compliment each other, not replace each other:
The MaxLock Security Suite provides security options at both the individual domain and account level. Use both MaxLock products to achieve your domain security strategy.
Domain MaxLock protects your most valuable domains from transfers or pushes out. An off-line verification process is performed by our security team prior to unlocking domains for transfers or pushes to ensure maximum protection.
This is our highest security product available for individual domains.
Portfolio MaxLock provides a double authentication process and protects all domains in your account from changes that affect your revenue stream and ownership.
To turn this lock off for a session, users must log into their account and then provide answers to their two custom security questions. Further securing all domains in your account, these security questions can never be viewed or modified online.
Now for the details-
Portfolio MaxLock
(Double online authentication using custom Q&A)
Domain MaxLock
(Security Team performs off-line verification)
Transfers out – requires offline verification by security team
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Push domain – requires offline verification by security team
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Push domain
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Transfer out domains
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Delete domains
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WhoIs contacts management
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Domain Name Servers (DNS)
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IP management
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URL forwarding management
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Email forwarding management
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Account contact management
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Account Preferences modifications
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Security Settings modifications
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Payment Methods modifications
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Domain Preferences modifications
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Account Users modifications
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Domain Contacts modifications
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jp says
Monte – Thanks for the info.