ICANN slaps wrists and sends emails to spammers' registrars

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:19:52 -0400

In what KnujOn claims is a "victory," ICANN sent two breach notices to domain registrars Joker.com and DNS.com.cn, stating that the two companies had

"failed to comply with Section 3.7.8 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) which requires registrars to take "reasonable steps to investigate" Whois inaccuracy claims."

The two registrars, with nearly one million domains registered between them, have both been accused of allowing domains to be registered with incomplete or false WHOIS information, a clear violation of ICANN policy.

Of course, in typical ICANN fashion, violators take a long time to get their wrist slap. According to the ICANN link, violations were first discovered last November, with "Notices of Concern" sent in May, and now a "Breach Notice" was sent giving the registrars 15 additional days before "termination proceedings begin."

Joker.com already replied to the Breach Notice, claiming that the domains with false or missing information had been suspended, and ICANN's response indicated that as long as the company can show that it attempted to get the registrants to correct the information and received no response, then Joker.com is cleared. DNS.com.cn has not yet responded to the Breach Notice, but has until 15 October to do so.

ICANN may wonder why organizations like KnujOn exist and regularly publish reports about registrars who fail to comply with even the regulations ICANN can enforce, and so much criticism is directed at the organization for being "toothless." Looking at a year-long process to levy what is essentially wrist-slap for allowing spammers to register domains with false or missing information and then backing down might be a good place to start. A year is far too long to deal with the problem of spammers, who have usually moved on well before ICANN even begins their process to register other domains.

ICANN slaps wrists and sends emails to spammers' registrars

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:19:52 -0400

In what KnujOn claims is a "victory," ICANN sent two breach notices to domain registrars Joker.com and DNS.com.cn, stating that the two companies had

"failed to comply with Section 3.7.8 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) which requires registrars to take "reasonable steps to investigate" Whois inaccuracy claims."