Slashdot Mirror
ICANN Moves Against GoDaddy Domain Lockdowns
An anonymous reader writes "ICANN is finally taking action against Domain Registrar GoDaddy's controversial 'lockdowns'. GoDaddy has long had a policy of 'locking down' domain names for 60 days after a customer updated their contact details. This put customers in a Catch 22 position: ICANN requires customers keep their contact details up to date, or risk having the domain forfeited. Yet during the lockdown period the customer is prevented from transferring the domain from GoDaddy to another registrar. If the lockdown ran over the domain's expiry date, customers were forced to renew with GoDaddy or lose the domain. ICANN proposes to ban this practice. ICANN who is charged with overseeing the Internet has long been accused of giving domain registrars a free ride. But recently after ICANN failed to discipline Network Solutions over a front-running scam, they found themselves both on the wrong end of a lawsuit by lawyers Kabateck Brown Kellner. Is ICANN's action a signal of increased vigilance in policing registrars, or is it a PR move paving the way for a complete removal of US Government oversight?"
I always use 1&1 Internet, which has excellent support and is extremely well priced. For hosting, Joyent is your friend.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Network Solutions does this as well. I had to update my e-mail address in my contact information in order to transfer a domain to another registrar. NS locked the domain down for 60 days because of the update. The 60 days would have lasted beyond the expiration of the domain name, meaning I had to renew through NS or risk having someone (possibly NS!) buy it first and charge me more to get it back.
It took two or three encounters with their support staff and the threat of a complaint to ICANN to get the lock removed so I could continue with the transfer.
Actually, IP address allocations are handled by ARIN (http://www.arin.net/) and other regional registries (like RIPE http://www.ripe.net/) and the NRO (http://www.nro.net/). If you consider them the Phone Company, then ICANN is simply the Yellow and White Pages.
I'm soured on 1&1 too. At work, we have one domain (our primary one) on Netsol, and the rest of the names on 1&1. Unfortunately, 1&1 bounced an email to us and put us in collections and never bothered to give us a phone call.
:)
We only found this out when we wanted to consolidate all our domains with 1&1. (Of course, I found that our 10-year old domain had the contact info from our old ISP!)
Because of the transfer screwup, we kept it status quo with one name on NS and the others on 1&1. It was such a hassle with 1&1 that I am thinking seriously about consolidation again, only to Netsol instead! (and that is saying much!)
I'd like to see reforms at ICANN, so I don't have to worry about being screwed when some registrar is bought out by someone or when some different set of suits is put in management.
P.S. Direcnic is not the cheapest, but I use them personally and I have no reason to switch. Besides, considering their location, they have disaster preparedness down pat.
insecure.org put up a nice list at nodaddy.com when their domain was yanked. It looks like it is still there.
http://nodaddy.com/#alternatives
ARIN, RIPE, etc, get their addresses allocated to them from IANA. IANA is run under ICANN (ye, gods, too many acronyms). Basically, they manage the IP addresses of the 'net in much the same way that they manage the DNS of the 'net: they're the high-level policy folks, but not the ones you get numbers or names from.