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Tech giants gunning for AlpNames over new gTLD “abuse”

Kevin Murphy, March 7, 2018, 07:30:02 (UTC), Domain Registrars

A small group of large technology companies including Microsoft and Facebook have demanded that ICANN Compliance take a closer look at AlpNames, the budget registrar regularly singled out as a spammers’ favorite.
The ad hoc coalition, calling itself the Independent Compliance Working Party, wrote to ICANN last week to ask why the organization is not making better use of statistical data to bring compliance actions against the small number of companies that see the most abuse.
AlpNames, the Gibraltar-based registrar under common ownership with new gTLD portfolio registry Famous Four Media, is specifically singled out in the group’s letter.
The letter, sourcing the August 2017 Statistical Analysis of DNS Abuse in gTLDs (pdf), says there “is a clear problem with one particular contracted party”.
AlpNames was the registrar behind over half of the new gTLD domains blacklisted by SpamHaus over the study period, for example, the letter states.
The tiny territory of Gibraltar also frequently ranks unusually highly on abuse lists due to AlpNames presence there, the letter and report say.
The ICWP letter also says that the four gTLDs .win, .loan, .top, and .link were used by over three quarters of abusive domains over the SADAG study period.
The letter calls the abuse rates “troublesome” and says:

We are alarmed at the levels of DNS abuse among a few contracted parties, and would appreciate further information about how ICANN Compliance is using available data to proactively address the abusive activity amongst this subset of contracted parties in order to improve the situation before it further deteriorates.

It goes on to wonder whether high levels of unaddressed abuse could amount to violations of new gTLD Registry Agreements and Registrar Accreditation Agreements, and to ask whether there any barriers to ICANN Compliance pursuing breach claims against such potential violations.
The ICWP comprises Adobe, DomainTools, eBay, Facebook, Microsoft and Time Warner. It’s represented by Fabricio Vayra of Perkins Coie.
Other than the letter (pdf), the Independent Compliance Working Party does not appear to have any web presence, and a spokesperson has not yet responded to DI’s request for more information.
The SADAG report also singled out Chinese registrar Nanjing Imperiosus Technology Co, aka DomainersChoice.com, as having particularly egregious levels of abuse, but noted that this abuse disappeared after ICANN terminated its RAA last year.
AlpNames has not to date had any public breach notices issued against it, but this is certainly not the first time it’s been singled out for public censure.
In November last year, ICANN’s Competition, Consumer Trust, and Consumer Choice Review Team (CCT) named it in a report that claimed: “Certain registries and registrars appear to either positively encourage or at the very least willfully ignore DNS abuse.”
AlpNames seems to have been used often by abusers due to its bargain-basement, often sub-$1 prices — making disposable domains more cost effective — and its tool that allowed up to 2,000 domains to be registered simultaneously.
If not actively soliciting abusive behavior, these factors certainly don’t make abuse any more difficult.
But will ICANN Compliance take action in response to the criticism leveled by CCT and now ICWP?
The main problem with the ICWP letter, and the SADAG report it is based upon, is that the data it uses is now rather old.
The SADAG report sourced abuse databases only up to January 2017, a time when AlpNames’ total gTLD domains under management was at its peak of around three million names.
Since then, the company has been hemorrhaging DUM, losing hundreds of thousands of domains every month. At the end of November 2017, the most recent data compiled by DI shows that it was down to around 838,000 domains.
It’s quite possible that AlpNames’ customer base is no longer the den of abuse it once was, whether due to natural attrition or a proactive purge of bad actors.
A month ago, in a press release connected with a $5.4 million buy-out of an co-founder, AlpNames chairman Iain Roache said he has a “10-year strategic plan” to turn AlpNames into a “Tier-1” registrar and “bring the competition to the incumbents”.

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Comments (10)

  1. Max says:
    March 7, 2018 at 9:03 am

    “The tiny territory of Gibraltar also frequently ranks unusually highly on abuse lists”
    yes just as in rankings of smuggling, tax evasion, fiscal fraud, drug trafficking, etc.
    What else to expect from this wonderful nest of pirates?

    Reply
  2. Jovenet Consulting says:
    March 7, 2018 at 11:31 am

    We have details about what is happening behind the scene. We’re happy to help 🙂

    Reply
  3. Ben pedri says:
    March 15, 2019 at 1:43 am

    Alp names has left the universe domains can not be renewed and are dropping icann and verisign are doing nothing to fix problem even the website is gone .will be sending out superfaces to all fortune 500 compan8es to start .letting them know that their brands can possibly be lost .This can be the beginning of the end for domain names .This is worse than a bank default at least there the fdic gets your money back .Pleade spread the word about default of domain and icanns refusal. To get involved in the scandal

    Reply
  4. Steward says:
    March 15, 2019 at 8:57 pm

    Wow
    Thanks for sharing, there’s a small typo toward the bottom “Bur will ICANN Compliance take action in response to the criticism leveled by CCT and now ICWP?”
    what does it take to do to become a Tier 1 Registrar and web host?

    Reply
  5. Jake says:
    March 27, 2019 at 12:42 pm

    I have/had two domains with Alp Names. Now I cannot log in. How do I tranfer my domain or where can I log in to see it?

    Reply

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