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ICANN smacks Cheapies with the ban hammer

Kevin Murphy, September 16, 2013, 12:20:12 (UTC), Domain Registrars

ICANN for only the second time has suspended an accredited registrar’s ability to sell domain names.
Cheapies.com, which has roughly 12,000 gTLD domain names under management, will not be able to create new domains or accept inbound transfers until January 2, 2014, according to ICANN.
The 90-day suspension of its accreditation, longer by two months than the 30 days Alantron received last year, comes because it’s the third time this year Cheapies has been sent an ICANN breach notice.
The latest breach concerns the domain ebookvortex.com. Apparently Cheapies did not provide the registrant with the required authorization information when he initiated a transfer request.
In January, the company received breach notices related to its records-keeping and another instance of failing to abide by ICANN’s inter-registrar transfers policy.
It’s also being spanked for consistently ignoring or stonewalling ICANN’s attempts to resolve the situation.
Cheapies has the opportunity to rectify its problems to avoid losing its accreditation entirely. In the meantime, it also has to display the following notice “prominently” on its web site:

No new registrations or inbound transfers will be accepted from 4 October 2013 through 2 January 2014.

There’s a clear takeaway for fly-by-night registrars here: ignore ICANN Compliance at your peril.


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