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Formerly massive drop-catcher faces ICANN probe
Pheenix, which used to operate a network of hundreds of accredited registrars, now faces potentially losing its last remaining accreditation, due to an ICANN probe.
ICANN told the US-based company in a breach notice last week that it faces additional action unless it fixes a bunch of problems related to domain transfers and Whois before May 14.
According to ICANN, for over a year Pheenix has been declining to provide data showing it is in compliance with the Expired Registration Recovery Policy and the Transfer Policy, related to dozens of domains.
Pheenix was told about at least one such disputed domain as far back as February last year, but ICANN says it’s been unresponsive to its outreach.
It’s also failed to implement an RDAP server, which ICANN has been nagging it about since October 2019. RDAP, the Registration Data Access Protocol, is the successor protocol to Whois.
A quick spot-check reveals that the disputed names are traffic domains once belonging to legitimate organizations, usually with inbound Wikipedia links, that were captured after the organization in question folded and its domains expired. Most were repurposed with low-quality content and advertising.
That fits in with Pheenix’s registrar business model. It was until a few years ago a huge drop-catching player, with over 500 shell accreditations it used to gain speedy access to dropping domains.
But it dumped almost 450 of these in November 2017, and another 50 the following April.
Since then, Pheenix’s primary IANA number (the coveted “888”) has been associated with fewer and fewer domains.
It had 6,930 domains under management at the end of 2020, down from a November 2017 peak of 71,592.
It hasn’t recorded any new domain adds in any gTLDs since April 2020.
According ICANN’s chronology of events, it’s sent dozens of emails, faxes and voicemails over the last year, related to multiple domain names, and it’s only received a single email in response. And that was in May 2020.
Thanks for covering this, Kevin. Enjoy your work.
Incidentally, the owner of Pheenix also owns FreshDrop.com
FreshDrop.com is offline as of April 26, 2021
Thanks Samer.