[NA-Discuss] OnlineNic's real address

[John Levine]

> pretty easy system to game -- has ICANN done anything about this? How 
> can you be an accredited registrar and not list a legitimate physical 
> address as your primary place of doing business?

It is my impression that ICANN's compliance department doesn't consider 
verification of a registrar's address to be part of its job.  Onlinenic 
has always provided a California address although it's long been common 
knowledge that they are located in China.  Given how big they are, I'm 
kind of surprised that they don't even appear to bother to pay a small 
retainer to a US agent to be a credible mail drop.

Although they're certainly doing a better job on compliance than they used 
to (in the sense that something is better than nothing), they haven't yet 
faced up to the reality that every clause of the RAA and of the registry 
agreements sets out a commitment that ICANN needs to audit, that 
regulating the registrars and registries is an integral part of their 
public interest mission, and that they need to scale up the size and 
sophistication of their compliance efforts appropriately.

I doubt that ICANN wants to act like the FTC, but it's increasingly 
obvious that they can't avoid it.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor
"More Wiener Schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.