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Registrars Still Ignoring ICANN Rules
stry_cat writes "Over a year ago ICANN moved to clean up misbehaving registrars like GoDaddy. They released this scary sounding advisory. However, over a year later, problems remain. One company is now publicly complaining. Some of the biggest registrars are slammed for their actions. 'Register.com is one frustrating company. The ICANN policy clearly prohibits blocking a transfer of a domain name that has expired but not yet been deleted. Despite that, a customer trying to transfer a three-day-expired Register.com domain name told us last week that they refused to give him the necessary code to allow him to transfer — unless he pays them to renew it first. ... GoDaddy (and their reseller arm, Wild West Domains) have a different problem: They still block transfers for 60 days after a registrant's contact update, even after the ICANN update specifically prohibited doing so. They freely admit it, too. ... We see a similar problem with many transfers from Network Solutions.'"
Laws, less so.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is something between scary and funny.
It's like the IRS complaining because too many people don't pay due taxes.
I'm not sure about the legal framework, but either ICANN has no way to enforce the rules (then it should refer to a different authority), or if they has such power, then go ahead and ban the guilty ones from providing the service.
"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." (Oscar Wilde)
Why don't they take disciplinary action against offenders?
Too much money involved. You don't want to upset those who are feeding you money now don't you?
This space is not for rent.
Those $0.99 domain registrations? Companies make their money up other places - like selling you addons, making it difficult to move, etc. Try using a smaller domain provider that has their system automated and doesn't pay people to come up with new ways to lock you in. Everything from requiring you to make other purchases after 12 months to only providing the domain registration with another pay service, that was free in the beginning. It's a shameless plug, but we do domain registration for our clients but it's more for convenience than anything.
Website Hosting
The only reason ICANN is ignoring it is because GoDaddy and Network Solutions are one of the largest registrars and bring them lots of money. If it was some small registrar, you would be sure they would receive complaints from ICANN.
It's a near perfect market, in the economic sense. The barrier to entry into the registration business is almost nil, it's all just some data processing. And as economics tells us, as a market approaches 'perfection', profit margins approach 0%. So it's not surprising that some registrars are resorting to shady business practices; the only people who can make money in the registration business are those who are willing to do a little lying and cheating.
You are more than welcome to create your own root domain, and do what you want. Nobody makes you use the structure controlled by ICANN.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
You're assuming that other companies won't pick up the business left behind by a punished offender.
Given the amount of money involved in domain names, I'm guessing ICANN can safely take disciplinary actions without losing a dime in the process.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
More like To Big To Piss Off
but, if Godaddy and ICANN cannot sort out their differences, and with ICANN being the authority the Gov't put in charge, then, the Congress needs to take this matter up
Do you really want congress deciding who gets what web page?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
ICANN needs to figure out an enforcement policy. Perhaps it should order the root servers to stop accepting new registrations from registrars not following the rules.
But it should announce that some time before, so that innocent people registering domains know to avoid those registrars.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
And on the flipside, that evil spamming domain is pulling contact information from people who *do* have legit info in the fields. Is it any wonder why people don't want real data in their whois record?
Given the amount of money involved in domain names, I'm guessing ICANN can safely take disciplinary actions without losing a dime in the process.
Until, that is, the bit about registrars losing accreditation means customers without a techie background (or without a techie department to handle such matters) suddenly lose service to their domain names. They go to the registrar to see what's up and, instead of being given a technical/political description that they'll instantly tl;dr (note previous assertion of "customers without a techie background"), they're given the quick summary: "ICANN killed your websites"*.
Then out come the letters to [INSERT LOCAL HIGH-RANKING POLITICAL FIGURES HERE], which would rekindle the arguments to disband/decentralize/de-Americanify ICANN that keep coming up, and, well, long story short, "safely" isn't the adverb I'd use to describe their ability to take disciplinary actions.
*: If they're sleazy enough to do the sorts of things listed in this article, I can trivially assume them to be sleazy enough to do something like that out of spite. Maybe I'm just too cynical.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Good luck with that, the registrars pretty much run ICANN.
Well, in face of who would decide it otherwise: HELL YES!
At least in theory, we could replace the government. But replacing any company? Never!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The cheapest legit Registrars I've found were just over $10. The ones cheaper than that don't offer any privacy.
I'd never use a registrar like GoDaddy. Their privacy is totally fake - anyone can phone in and get your info.
Not everyone is looking for domain name privacy. I think it's sketchy to order online from a company that hides their domain name registration. I think it's an indicator of legitimacy when a business lists their correct name, address & contact info on a domain name registration.
Rules and Laws without Enforcement are not worth the paper they're written on.