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.'"

Comments

Internet Domains are under free market purview

[Anonymous Coward]

Socialist attempts by ICANN to regulate and introduce market inefficiency in the domain-registration business are tantamount to introducing price controls.

Milton Friedman's free market efficiency theory proves that 100% market efficiency arises as a result of zero regulation, and our goal as denizens of the internet is to pursue maximal free market efficiency in order to further the interests of the public good.

Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview

[sopssa]

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.

Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview

[eln]

The entire purpose of the Domain Name System is, or was, to enforce structure in naming on the Internet. When it was under the purview of the old Network Solutions, under the guidance of the NSF, domains were well-organized, expensive enough to deter squatting, and TLDs actually meant something.

Under ICANN, the whole system has descended into chaos. It's laughable to see ICANN trying to exert any sort of control over the registrars now, when they've spent the last 10 years doing whatever the hell the registrars wanted them to. The whole system is broken, and ICANN has no effective authority to do anything about it. Some sort of regulation with teeth is badly needed, and ICANN is completely unequipped for that sort of thing. Their feeble attempts to assert authority this late in the game are laughable.

Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview

[X0563511]

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.

Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview

[Chris Mattern]

More like To Big To Piss Off

Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview

[Otto]

The simpler and less damaging way is simply to revoke their new domain registrar capabilities. If the servers start rejecting their registration requests, then they'll clean up their act damn quick.

Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview

[eln]

GoDaddy's massive marketing apparatus generates more domain registrations than would otherwise exist. They convince people to buy domains they would not otherwise buy. The total number of registrations would likely go down without them, which would directly impact ICANN's revenue stream.

Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview

[dgatwood]

Piss them off anyway. GoDaddy is a bunch of leaches on the face of the Internet. Although I've never used GoDaddy for providing domain names (I'm very picky about who I trust with something that important), I tried using them for hosting and SSL certs recently. My GoDaddy experience was so bad that I actually wrote my first Slashdot journal entry about it. The gory details are chronicled here.

Godaddy is absolutely the most inept company I have ever dealt with; they make Fry's employees look knowledgeable, caring, and competent. They make Brooklyn camera shops seem above board. They sell services, then back out of the deal, screw up the refund afterwards, oversell their shared hosting servers, don't monitor what people do with them (allowing a few customers to cause multi-minute site outages), don't respond to customer complaints other than suggesting ways for you to pay them more money, require you to do things that defy the laws of physics in order for them to pay attention to your complaints... basically, they have single-handedly changed what the "S" stands for in ISP. They are to ISPs what the BOFH is to a proper IT manager.

I think it would be absolutely AWESOME if ICANN revoked their registrar status. It's not Chapter 7, but it would be a good start.

Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview

[NJRoadfan]

One word can sum up ICANN's "control" of the system... RegisterFly.

Rules can be ignored

[nurb432]

Laws, less so.

Re:Rules can be ignored

[eln]

ICANN gets most (all?) of its money from the registrars it's supposed to be policing. There's an inherent conflict of interest there.

Re:Rules can be ignored

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, under rule 1222.3 subsection (g), a registrar can suspend the transfer of a domain to another registrar. To do so, the suspending registrar must notify the authority via email with the subject header "ICANN haz domane tranfurr blokking?" Naturally, the duration of the transfer delay depends on the cuteness of the enclosed lolcat.

Re:Rules can be ignored

[eln]

The fact that they get paid per domain of course is what gives them the motivation to dramatically increase the TLD space to the point where the whole concept of a TLD is completely meaningless. This also is a flawed part of the system.

The thing with the registrars, though, is that ICANN is effectively at the mercy of the registrars due to how the whole system is set up. ICANN can't just unilaterally block a major registrar, because then that registrar's customer's will be adrift, and of course the registrar will tell all of them that it's all ICANN's fault their domains don't work anymore. So, ICANN gets massive pressure from the registrar's customers (who are all losing millions per minute of course) to fix their domains, and ICANN has little choice but to comply. If they take a hard line, those customers may eventually move to another registrar, but they'll carry a lot of bitterness toward ICANN, and maybe they start lobbying their Congresspeople to pull ICANN's charter.

Add to all of this that the number of domains registered is heavily dependent on the amount of marketing these registrars do to try to convince people they need their own domain names, and it becomes apparent that ICANN is really completely beholden to the registrars, even though they technically have the ability to shut them all down.

Re:Rules can be ignored

[xouumalperxe]

Shouldn't ICANN already have all the backbone it needs? Oh, wait...

Who sets the rules?

[brasselv]

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.

Re:ICANN in Charge?

[TypoNAM]

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?

Try this: Don't get suckered in my the marketing

[teknopurge]

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.

Consequences

[jpmorgan]

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.

Re:Consequences

[maxwell demon]

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.

Re:Consequences

[Eil]

Good luck with that, the registrars pretty much run ICANN.

Re:Try this: Don't get suckered in my the marketin

[jpmorgan]

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.

Re:ICANN in Charge?

[mwvdlee]

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.

Re:Perhaps ICANN needs the force of law.

[vertinox]

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?

Eu will screw them soon

[unity100]

wait until eu commissions take the matter into their hands when there are enough complaints. they brought microsoft onto the line about browsers. they can straighten up these shit too. jurisdiction issues ? what's wto good for ? i would be happy to see godaddy taught some manners.

Re:Try this: Don't get suckered in my the marketin

[basementman]

I tried to order a domain from GoDaddy once, after clicking through six pages of crap addons at checkout I decided the marginal savings wasn't worth it and moved to NameCheap.

Ignoring The Elephant In the Room

[damn_registrars]

The most profitable moves that registrars make in violation of ICANN rules are the ones that are almost never punished. Consider all the registrations that are issued with incomplete or outright bogus registration data, and how little ICANN has done about the registrars who are repeat offenders of that.

There is a reason why your favorite evil spamming domain has bad registration data, and there is a reason why it will stay that way.

Re:Ignoring The Elephant In the Room

[Coffee Warlord]

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?

Re:ICANN in Charge?

[Captain Spam]

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.

Re:Try this: Don't get suckered in my the marketin

[BikeHelmet]

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.

The upside to this.

[ACMENEWSLLC]

If you are registered with a reputable registrar...

Say your registration for yourdomain.com expires and you've forgot about it because you were out on vacation for the last month and didn't see the e-mails.

With Network Solutions, they will keep that expired domain around for me to renew, even after it expires. So I don't loose it to a cyber squatter.

I've seen this with domains I've deliberately let go.

If they aren't allowed to do this, then I'm screwed if I forget to renew one of my domains.

I'm with the registrars on this one. It is a nice security feature.

Re:Try this: Don't get suckered in my the marketin

[TubeSteak]

And as economics tells us, as a market approaches 'perfection', profit margins approach 0%.

Economic (supernormal) profit approaches zero.
Normal profits are the opportunity cost of your time/money/labor/etc.
Since they are considered a cost, normal profits are maintained even in a perfect market at equilibrium.
[/nitpick]

Re:Perhaps ICANN needs the force of law.

[Hurricane78]

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!

hmmm...

[kojikeneda]

hmmm.. sounds like someone didn't read their own links. When you change the registrant at Godaddy it asks you to confirm that you won't be able to transfer the domain name.As stated in the ICANN policy " A registrantâ(TM)s objection to transfer is not valid unless it is obtained voluntarily.". No one makes you change the registrant prior to transferring the domain name. Simply change it after you make the transfer.... duh.

got screwed by register.com and paypal

[meisdug]

I got an ad in the snail mail from register.com offering a free domain registration, no further commitment. However, you need to provide a credit card so they could continue billing after the first year....at a rate of about $50 per year. I had a debit card about to expire in a couple months, so I thought, great, I'll take this free domain name, transfer it somewhere cheaper within the first year, and just let nature take it's course with register.com. I had little trouble getting the authorization code to transfer, just some extended hold time on the phone. But, what really got me, was after the first year when they billed my card, my expired card, and it went through. My card was a debit card from Paypal. I contacted them and they refused to correct that charge to my expired card saying it was a recurring charge and basically that expiration dates don't matter. I was pissed.

No enforcement

[Aceticon]

Rules and Laws without Enforcement are not worth the paper they're written on.