ICANN Asked To Shut Down "Worst" Chinese Registrar

Ian Lamont writes "Anti-spam service Knujon has released reports highlighting how certain registrars in the US and abroad have consistently failed to live up to certain WHOIS-related obligations under ICANN's Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) — specifically, the requirement that people or company registering domains provide valid contact information. Now the firm is requesting that ICANN shut down the worst alleged offender, Xinnet Bei Gong Da Software. According to Knujon, none of the WHOIS records in a sample of 11,000 alleged spam sites registered through Xinnet and reported by Knujon to ICANN's Whois Data Problem Report System were corrected in a six-month period ending in May 2008 — and the Chinese registrar continues to register about 100 spam sites per day. In many cases, says the Knujon document (PDF), Xinnet does not have 'any Whois record data for review while the sites are still active' and the spam sites further promote 'seal abuse' by posting bogus BBB, Verisign, and other trusted industry seals. ICANN says it is investigating. ICANN has just posted a draft revised RAA that is open for public comment until August 4. However, the wording of Section 3.7.8, governing registrars' obligations to check and correct domain owners' contact information, hasn't changed."

Comments

My prediction: Internet segmentation

[erroneus]

As it stands, I have observed some common practices of simply blocking traffic going to or coming in from IPs from certain foreign nations. For some businesses, this practice alone reduces a tremendous amount of spam without affecting normal business flows. It would also make sense for users and businesses to restrict all communications with peers outside of their borders if, in fact, it has no adverse affect to their business flows.

Ultimately, this could lead to a segmented internet where entire nations find themselves effectively cut off by policy.

I am undecided about whether or not this is a good idea, but if China and Russia won't stop their criminals, perhaps they shouldn't have a presence on the global internet. The message? Play nice or you won't be allowed to play at all! My guess is that internet sanctions would have much faster reaction than economic sanctions.

Re:My prediction: Internet segmentation

[dbIII]

The problem is that this ISP takes international registrations from spammers everywhere so blocking by a nations IP blocks is not going to help at all. Xenophobia may be comforting but is no help when the many of the criminals are likely to be in your own nation, it's better to go after them directly. As for hampering commerce with major trade partners to slow down some petty crooks that may be next door - implications are worth thinking about.

Re:My prediction: Internet segmentation

[Shatrat]

Sorry, it's hard to hear you when you're speaking from atop such a high horse. That's a pretty condescending attitude on your part as well.
We may have more spammers here, but at least we have a history of prosecuting and convicting at least some of them.
I don't really know whether China/Russia have ever convicting anyone of spamming, but TFA refers to a registrar that is either incompetent or complicit dealing with spammers and located in China.
Sometimes it's ok to criticize a country other than the USA.
Just let that sink in a little.

anti-spam kills anonymous speech

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Yet again, "ID cards" are proposed as a method to curb spam, at the expense of anonymous speech.

When are we going to actually fix our protocols?