[NA-Discuss] Two Years Later Dozens of Registrars Still in the Shadows

Garth Bruen at KnujOn gbruen at knujon.com
Fri Dec 3 18:49:35 UTC 2010


Folks,

In June of 2008 KnujOn reported that 70 Registrars did not have a
business address listed in the InterNIC Registrar Directory. Only after
reporting a month later that little had changed did ICANN perform a mass
update of the directory. On further inspection we found many of the
newly disclosed addresses were phantom locations, false addresses, and
PO boxes. This lead to a push to amend the RAA and require Registrar
location disclosure and resulted in RAA 3.16: "Registrar shall provide
on its web site its accurate contact details including a valid email and
mailing address." However, policy without policy enforcement is useless.
So far ICANN compliance has failed to enforce this rule even after being
provided with extensive evidence in June, 2010. In fact, several
Registrars cited five months ago for not posting their address have been
allowed to renew their accreditation without complying. 

The following Registrars still do not disclose their address on their
website as required in RAA 3.16 and are in continued violation: Active
Registrar, Inc. (activeregistrar.com), COMPANA LLC (budgetnames.com),
Directi Internet Solutions Pvt. (publicdomainregistry.com), DOTALLIANCE
INC (dotalliance.com), EVERYONES INTERNET LTD. (resellone.net), NICCO
LTD. (nicco.com), RESELLER SERVICES INC. (ResellServ.com), UK2 GROUP
LTD. (uk2group.com), VOLUSION, INC. (volusion.com), YNOT DOMAINS CORP
(myorderbox.com), PREMIUM REGISTRATIONS SWEDEN
(premiumregistrations.com), AB CONNECT (hosteur.com), FUNPEAS MEDIA
VENTURES, LLC DBA DOMAINPROCESSOR.COM, DomainContext, Inc.
(isregistrar.com), NEW GREAT DOMAINS (newgreatdomains.com), ONLINENIC
INC. (onlinenic.com), OPEN SYSTEM LTD. (turbosite.com.br), OWN IDENTITY
INC (ownidentity.com), PACNAMES LTD (pacnames.com), QUANTUMPAGES
TECHNOLOGIES (ownregistrar.com), ULTRARPM INC. (metapredict.com), WEBAIR
INTERNET DEVELOPMENT (webair.com), ZOG MEDIA, INC. (zognames.com),
NAMEHOUSE, INC. (namehouse.net). The good news is that most of the 400
plus unique Registrars clearly provide their address in the home page
footer, a CONTACT US, or ABOUT US link and several Registrars cited in
June have since done so. Some Registrars bury the address in legal
documents, while we do not consider this compliant ICANN provides no
clear direction on where the address should be posted. 

OnLineNIC is particularly troubling since their purported public
location is an empty lot in California with their true location being in
China, but only privately disclosed to ICANN. OnLineNIC's own domain
registration has been cited multiple times by KnujOn as being false. 

Additionally, KnujOn has discovered that nine Registrars have
non-functional contact email addresses posted in the InterNIC directory:
RU-CENTER, Best Bulk Register (also has a breach notice for failure to
pay fees), Dynamic Network Services, Europe Domains, Homestead Limited,
HTTP.NET, Namescout, Hostmaster.ca, Nameshare Inc, and Universo Online.
Details of the email failures along with other results will be published
in our supplemental report on Monday December 6th. 

RAA 3.16 is not the only unenforced contract obligation. In fact, most
of the RAA is unenforced with the exception being the Cardinal Sin of
failing to pay ICANN fees. KnujOn will actually detail an unprecedented
case in which a Registrar termination was reversed after back fees were
paid. 

While Registrars control the content of their websites, ICANN really is
to blame for the failure to enforce the RAA and the anti-transparent
practice of having one Registrar directory for public consumption with
bad information and another internal list for their use. 


Full article:
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20101203_two_years_later_dozens_of_registrars_still_in_the_shadows/

-Garth

-------------------------------------
Garth Bruen
gbruen at knujon.com
http://www.knujon.com
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/4/149/724
Linkedin Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1870205
Blog: http://www.circleid.com/members/3296/
Twitter: @Knujon
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