Taking Domain Control Back from the Registrar?

Patrick Clinger asks: "I run a large community Web site, and today I woke up to find that one of my domain names (proboards21.com) was disabled by my unnamed registrar -- my name servers were changed to NS1/NS2.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM and I no longer have access to that domain in my control panel. I am in no way involved in any spam activities, and the registration for my domain expires in 2007. I would expect at least a courtesy call or an email letting me know what happened, but neither was provided by the unnamed registrar. What can you do when suddenly a registrar goes off and takes control of your domain when there was no violation of your agreement with them? What is to prevent any registrar from taking over any domain when they feel like it? Right now my domain is in limbo, waiting for them to hopefully restore it to the correct name servers."

Comments

Kind of in the same boat

[clintp]

My registrar just went out of business. Of course before they did, mysteriously, all of the contact information -- except billing -- was switched to them. And so I've got a couple of stranded domains that I can't move anywhere, at any price.

Proving "ownership" is turning out to be harder than expected.

Live and learn.

[gklinger]

I'm not sure there is anything you can do other than ask them to reinstate the domains unless you want to take this to court but that takes money and perhaps even more importantly, time. I'm not even sure suing them would get the results you want. It depends on what you agreed to when you registered the domain. It's vitally important to read all the fine print when making a business arrangement (like registering a domain). I think the rights and responsibilities outlined in the contract should be the prime factor when choosing a register, not price. All of that aside, a registrar suspending a domain for 'abuse', real or imagined, is ridiculous.

Register your own domain

[autarkeia]

How about don't let your webhost register domains for you, and don't give your webhost administrative contact status in your domain? Do it yourself at a registrar that respects your rights, like GANDI.

Re:Register your own domain

[ar32h]

Sure, and be subject to France's restrictive speech laws.
At least I have a reasonable expectation with Go Daddy that they will not suspend my domain without a good reason.

Bad things happened, that's not a reason to erase inanimate, historical, objects from history.
Insert whole free speech defend though I disagree speech here.

I would also like to note that I have personal experience with some proboards.com users abusing the send message to all members capability. Their use of the send to all function meets some definitions of spam. You know what? the particularly annoying user just might have been hosted on proboards21.com. I'm not sad to see that they have been stopped, even though I disagree with the method used.

I had something similar happen.

[AtariAmarok]

I had something similar happen. I registered a domain with a fly-by-night registrar. They took the money and closed down. I actually managed to find his home phone #. His mother (?) answered and actually said that the guy just got out of jail again.

Anyway, I explained this to the registrar upstream from the scam company, and the upstream registrar unlocked it for me, without having to have any communications with the jailbird. My money was lost, but I was able to move the domain elsewhere.

Re:Did you read this?

[Unordained]

the $250.00 non-refundable re-activation fee doesn't seem to come with anything along the lines of "to be paid only if you actually screwed up." godaddy seems to make this determination entirely on their own, with no notice before rendering their verdict. no appeal?

oh, wait, i use godaddy. damn. if you really hated my website(s) you could probably send an abuse letter to godaddy. if they're having a bad day, they might not bother investigating ... that could be bad. don't get any ideas.

Gandi

[TheSHAD0W]

https://www.gandi.net/contract.en.txt

"The Client owns the Domain Name registered. Gandi simply acts on the Client's behalf."

No, I'm not affiliated with Gandi, but I do use them for my registration services. They're the only company who makes such a statement in their contract (AFAIK).

More Details

[pclinger]

I got more details from GoDaddy as I talked to their abuse department on the phone. This is what they told me:

1) Some person (a person I do not know) sent out an email to a bunch of people with their newsletter, and included a link to their message board that was hosted by ProBoards.
2) Another person received a copy of that email, and took it as spam (it may have been -- although the email looks like a newsletter).
3) That person SpamCop report, and contacted GoDaddy regarding it.
4) I deleted that message board account about 2 days prior to GoDaddy disabling my domain name.
5) GoDaddy disabled the domain because it was "associated" with spam.

Now let me make this clear if you don't understand it: Some person out there on the Internet sent an email to another person out there on the Internet and because that email mentioned my domain name in the body of it, my domain was disabled for being associated with spam.

The email did NOT originate from my servers, it was not sent by me or a member of my staff. It is just like if I opened up my mail program and sent an email to a hundred people mentioning somewhere in the email "slashdot.org" and then /.'s registrar disables their domain by changing their name servers.

To top the entire situation off, GoDaddy charged me a $250 fee to get my domain name back! I am now looking to transfer my domain names to a new registrar, so time to start looking - and time to start considering legal action.

Re:More Details

[squiggleslash]

Why should he be modded down? He didn't accuse you of anything, he said having the domain suspended isn't the last of your problems, which - if your IP is going to be blacklisted (whether part of a netblock or not) - certainly is going to be the case.

If nothing else, as you are offering services to uncontrolled third parties, you do need to look into building a relationship both with your registrar and with the more reasonable parts of the anti-spam community, so that you are considered the primary focus for the resolution of complaints rather than third parties. This almost certainly means monitoring the net.admin.net-abuse groups, informing relevent parties when you deal with spammers, etc.

I'm not saying that because I necessarily think it's just that the onus is on you to prove you're an honest player. But, living in the real world, that's exactly the case. The fact you're finding out at this late stage that the netblock on which your servers reside is the subject of a block suggests to me that you haven't been pro-active. While you're offering services to uncontrolled third parties, it is in your interest to be pro-active, otherwise this kind of crap is going to become routine.

It sucks. Certain parts of the anti-spam community are, to put it mildly, not interested in anything other than getting into a masturbatory rage about anyone remotely connected with spam, however unintentional and uncontrollable, but remember that the more unhinged they are, the more damage they can do.

Re:Godaddy

[pclinger]

If you read my message, I never said my server was used as a spam relay -- it wasn't. My servers are locked down, I don't leave them as open relays. I'm not an idiot.

GoDaddy disabled my domain because some person sent an email to another person, and mentioned my domain in that email. It is as simple was that. The email did not originate from my servers. The email had nothing to do with me, except it mentioned the URL of one of the over 500,000 message boards that ProBoards hosts.

Don't make accusations when you don't know the facts.

Re:suspicious

[pclinger]

The nameservers are still wrong. If you read my other thread you will see that I had to pay them $250 to get my domain back. Now the domain shows up in my account at GoDaddy, and I submitted a request to change my name servers back to the correct setting. Until those changes propogate, I still have people who are not able to access their accounts.

Registrant:
ProBoards.com
21532 Calle Otono
Lake Forest, California 92630
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: PROBOARDS21.COM
Created on: 17-Mar-03
Expires on: 17-Mar-07
Last Updated on: 24-Feb-04

Administrative Contact:
Clinger, Patrick whois@proboards.com
ProBoards.com
21532 Calle Otono
Lake Forest, California 92630
United States
9494630329 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Clinger, Patrick whois@proboards.com
ProBoards.com
21532 Calle Otono
Lake Forest, California 92630
United States
9494630329 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM
NS2.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM

Re:objection, nonresponsive.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what the first poster was trying to say, is that GoDaddy has gotten to where they are because they are cheap, and that you get what you pay for: in this case, the short end of the stick when it comes to notification about a domain suspension; no due process

In his own roundabout way, the first poster was parroting what the pundits have forecasted: the demise of the service economy as we know it, and its replacement with a new "experience" economy wherein people purchase the goods and services that leave them feeling most content overall even if the experience carries a slight premium.

Further, the first poster proved the Torricelli principle and explicated Hegel's philosophy of dialectical materialism.

GNAA forever.

Re:Hey, I know what you can do.

[Andy Smith]

Acually public pressure is one of the few things that *does* work nowadays.

If a company will behave in this way then do you really think they'll respond well to polite e-mails and phone calls? No, they have to be faced with a cold, hard loss of business and a bad reputation.

My first thought when I read the story was: Glad to see this guy is getting some help but what about all the thousands of other people in similar situations who *aren't* being featured on Slashdot?

The domain registration system is horrible, quite possibly the worst part of online life with the exception of spam. If you run a business online then literally you can wake up one morning and find that your entire livelihood has been brought to a halt by one person, who you've never met and never talked to, deciding to suspend your domain.

Note that this has never happened to me. If I sound bitter it's because I find the situation utterly frustrating and unjust, even though I have not been a victim of it myself. Yet.