[NA-Discuss] Response to the ICANN Complaince Letter to Myself

[Garth Bruen at KnujOn]

Folks,

I have just sent a response to Stacy Burnette's public letter to
me(http://www.icann.org/en/correspondence/burnette-to-bruen-08dec10-en.pdf).
As many of you know the issues I have been raising were reported in June
to compliance staff. I note that response from Ms. Burnette is welcomed
because it is all we asked for originally, a declaration from the
department of what is compliant and what is non-compliant.

-Garth


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Dear Ms. Burnette,

Thank you for your response, albeit in an unexpected location, in the
ICANN Compliance pages. To my knowledge, this is the first time a
non-contracted party has been admonished within the Compliance area; I
will consider it a distinction. While I would encourage a robust debate,
a direct response to the report by ICANN press relations or a
“counter-point” rebuttal article at the venue (CricleID) would have
been expected. Using the Compliance area to address a public reporter in
a similar manner as non-compliant Registrars may set a dangerous
precedent for your office. Alternatively, it may provide a path to
transparency as more responses to public complaints are posted in this
space.

I am disappointed in the fact that only “nine registrars appeared
non-compliant” is being celebrated when all nine violations were
reported to compliance staff nearly six months ago. That only now is
ICANN following up with the normal process is an embarrassment.

As for some particular items cited in your response, there are problems
with what you consider “inaccurate.” First, the termination COMPANA
LLC is not posted publicly within the Compliance area at ICANN.ORG so it
would be impossible for us to know it was a moot issue. Additionally,
the lack of this public disclosure points to a deficit in transparency. 

Until recently, the InterNIC directory listed the home page of YNOT
DOMAINS as “myorderbox.com”, which is still an inoperable site. The
clarification is suitable. 

As for ONLINENIC, this is a more serious situation. Their address is not
readily available on their site, nor is listed at "contact us", "company
info", "support" or "about us.” Buried within the site is this
address: “909 Marina Village Pkwy #236 Alameda, CA” which is a UPS
box and the third purported California address for ONLINENIC in as many
years. ONLINENIC’s first purported address was determined to be an
empty lot. The second purported address is associated with a business
registration which has been suspended by the California Secretary of
State. ONLINENIC’s real address is likely: “7F International Trade
Building, 388 South Hubin Road, Xiamen China” which is far from
California’s Bay Area. While ICANN considers this compliance some
would call it concealment and others an effort of anti-transparency. 

As for the remainder, there is no correction required since they did not
display their address. The theme of our article concerns the slow pace
of disclosure. The fact that these Registrars, by your admission, are
party to a contract ten-year’s out of date and apparently excluded
from ICANN consensus policies. Once again, the apparent success touted
in your memo is that Compliance has no power over their contracted
parties in this area. While it may temporarily be seen a failure of
Garth Bruen, it is in fact a serious loss for the whole community.

In response to your question about reinstated Registrars I point to the
termination reversal of A Technology Company, of which you are already
aware. A Technology co. was issued a non-renewal by ICANN on June 30,
2010 for failure to pay accreditation fees. The termination was reversed
thirteen days later after the fee was paid. As you will recall they were
still manipulating the WHOIS record for their website and not posting
the business address after being accredited under the 2009 RAA. They
were in fact non-compliant for a month and this was only corrected
because KnujOn raised the issue. Incidentally, A Technology co. was
allowed to cure its breaches after approximately 61 days which is well
beyond the 15-day period stated in the RAA. As another example I would
point to Naugus Limited LLC (naugus.com), a Registrar terminated in 2009
(http://www.icann.org/correspondence/burnette-to-goodwin-09oct09-en.pdf)
which has apparently been re-instated and accredited under the new RAA.
If they are in fact accredited they are in violation of RAA 3.3.1 for
linking their WHOIS to a third-party paid WHOIS service. As you stated
all prior to renewal Registrar’s websites are checked for compliance,
but this issue was apparently overlooked. 

While you consider our claims about Registrar terminations being mostly
related to money “baseless”, I invite you to review the 14
terminations from 2010. Thirteen we terminated chiefly for failure to
pay fees. One, as you mentioned, was terminated for insolvency.
Insolvency is the inability to pay debts, hence their inability to pay
ICANN accreditation fees. Yes, there are other violations cited and
breach notices issued for additional problems, but the outcome of these
breach notices is not made public regularly which is why the only
terminable violation remains failure to pay fees. 

Regretfully, I must also cite that address disclosure is but one problem
area reported to compliance staff by KnujOn nearly six-months ago. To
reiterate some of the issues (sent separately yesterday) we are
concerned about:

(A) Registrars without Apparent Functioning Web-Based WHOIS

“3.3.1 At its expense, Registrar shall provide an interactive web page
and a port 43 Whois service providing free public query-based access to
up-to-date (i.e., updated at least daily) data concerning all active
Registered Names sponsored by Registrar for each TLD in which it is
accredited.”

EnetRegistry, Inc. (enetregistry.net): Website does not resolve
New Great Domains, Inc.(newgreatdomains.com): No content
VocalSpace LLC (DesktopDomainer.com): “Login Screen” Only
Premium Registrations Sweden AB (premiumregistrations.com): Login screen
only
Alfena, LLC (alfena.com): Links to Domaintools.com – a paid WHOIS
service

The following Registrars have a “Domain Look-up” service which only
reveals whether or not the domain is available, this is not a WHOIS
service:
Add2Net Inc. (lunarpages.com)
Bottle Domains, Inc. (bottledomains.com.au)
Digitrad France (digitrad.com)
DomainSpa LLC (domainspa.com)
NetRegistry Pty Ltd. (netregistry.com)
Nominalia Internet S.L. (nominalia.com)
Sedo.com LLC (sedo.com)

We could not locate the web-based WHOIS engine for these Registrars
Porting Access B.V. (portingxs.com) 
VentureDomains, Inc. (upc360.com)
Verelink, Inc. (verelink.com)
Hosting.com, Inc. (Hosting.com)
Zog Media, Inc. (zognames.com)

Domainz Limited (domainz.com): Returns: "Your request could not be
completed", see below
And Autica Domain Services Inc. (autica.com): Only thin WHOIS.


(B) Registrars Not Displaying Fees and Deletion Policies

“3.7.5.5 If Registrar operates a website for domain name registration
or renewal, details of Registrar's deletion and auto-renewal policies
must be clearly displayed on the website.”

“3.7.5.6 If Registrar operates a website for domain registration or
renewal, it should state, both at the time of registration and in a
clear place on its website, any fee charged for the recovery of a domain
name during the Redemption Grace Period.”

Domain Services Rotterdam BV (tellus.com): Only reseller information
available
Premium Registrations Sweden AB (premiumregistrations.com): Policies not
posted, “member login”
UltraRPM, Inc.(metapredict.com): No conspicuous terms link
VentureDomains, Inc. (upc360.com): Policies not posted
Zog Media, Inc. (zognames.com): No conspicuous terms/policy link


(C) Terminated Registrars Still Selling gTLD Domains and/or Claiming
Accreditation

AfterGen, Inc. dba JumpingDot (jumpingdot.com) was terminated by ICANN
June 10, 2009
(http://www.icann.org/correspondence/burnette-to-bourov-10jun09.pdf) but
is still claiming ICANN accreditation. 

Lead Networks Domains Pvt. Ltd. (leadnetworks.com) was issued a letter
of Non-Renewal
(http://www.icann.org/correspondence/burnette-to-malik-14jul09-en.pdf)
on July 14, 2009. Are they still in court-ordered receivership? They are
not listed in the InterNIC directory. 

Broadspire Inc. (broadspire.com) has not been listed in the directory
for some time and while there is no termination document there is a note
on an ICANN page that Broadspire is “NO LONGER ACCREDITED”. However,
this company still sells gTLDs and claims ICANN accreditation.

In conclusion, I also hope this is constructive as I am concerned about
what appears, from outside ICANN, to be the disintegration of
compliance.


Sincerely and seriously, Garth Bruen