You are correct, Geotrust is not to send these emails. 

There was a flag that was accidentally not disabled, but this was 
remedied about 1.5 months ago. About 100 messages got sent inadvertently.  

They should no longer be happening at all.
Can you tell me when this was sent? I want to double check.

Thanks,

Kim Phelan
Product Manager
Tucows, Inc.


-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of T. Jagger
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 1:03 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Geotrust sending cert renewal notices to customers in advance
of resellers' notices


Howdy,

For some reason I thought that Geotrust was supposed to refrain from 
directly contacting our customers for certificate renewals.  In our 
resellers2 RWI we have end-user renewal notice customization that begins 
with a 60-day renewal notice, however Geotrust is contacting customers 
prior to that with the following renewal:

<quote>

*** This email was automatically generated from a non-response mailbox. ***

Renewal Notice for [customer's hostname here]

Dear GeoTrust Customer,

Your GeoTrust True BusinessID certificate will expire in 88 Days! It is 
important that you renew your certificate as soon as possible to ensure 
your website is securely handling credit card transactions and 
collecting sensitive information through your website.  Please note that 
GeoTrust acquired Equifax Secure Technology in September 2001.

GeoTrust will add up to 3 months to your new certificate to allow you to 
renew today without losing any of your existing certificate validity 
period. Renew your True BusinessID certificate today and GeoTrust will 
give you 12% off a two-year certificate!

HOW DO YOU RENEW?

To renew your certificate, please do one of the following:

1.  If you are GeoTrust Reseller/Partner, please Log In to your 
GeoCenter account and select the Placing Orders option.  Renew 
certificate through the normal process.  Our systems will automatically 
recognize the domain as a renewal, and provide you with this special offer.

2.  If your service provider purchased this certificate, please contact 
them directly to take advantage of this offer.

3.  If you purchased the certificate from www.geotrust.com, click on the 
following URL and select one of the renewal options:

     http://www.geotrust.com/webtrust/renewal

4.  Or contact us through our customer support center, 
http://www.geotrust.com/customer_support, for renewal suggestions.

Please note that a certificate signing requests must be generated from 
your web server.  If your SSL certificate was originally obtained 
through your ISP, then you must contact them immediately and they will 
generate a new request on your behalf.  If your web server is Microsoft 
IIS 5, then you MUST generate a new Certificate Signing Request (CSR).

In an effort to continue to provide excellent customer service, a member 
of our team will attempt to reach the contacts listed on your website as 
a final reminder.

If you have already renewed your certificate, please disregard this notice.

Thanks for choosing GeoTrust again!

Sincerely,

Rapid Response Unit @ GeoTrust

For Support, FAQs and other information, please go to 
http://www.geotrust.com/customer_support

</quote>

Although they ever so briefly mention purchasing from a "service 
provider" this certainly does not help the customer know where to renew, 
especially considering this notice is coming almost a month prior to our 
renewal notice, and given embedded URLs in the message my guess is 99% 
of the customers receiving this message will opt to renew through it.

Also please note the part where it says "... a member of our [Geotrust] 
team will attempt to reach the contacts listed on your website...".

I thought this was the kind of cheesy direct marketing to our customers 
was not allowed by Tucows.  Can you look into this please?

Thanks,
Todd Jagger

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