ICANN says “no impact” from TMCH downtime

The 10-hour outage in the Trademark Clearinghouse’s key database had no impact on domain registrations, ICANN says.
We reported earlier this week that the TMCH’s Trademark Database had been offline for much of last Friday, for reasons unknown.
We’d heard concerns from some users that the downtime may have allowed registrants to register domain names matching trademarks without triggering Trademark Claims notices.
But that worry may have been unfounded. ICANN told DI:

The issue occurred when two nodes spontaneously restarted. The cause of this restart is still under investigation. Although both nodes came back up, several services such as the network interface, TSA Service IP and the SSH daemon did not. All TMDB Services except the CNIS service were unavailable during the outage. From a domain registration point of view there should have been no impact.

CNIS is the Claim Notice Information Service, which provides registrars with Trademark Claims notice data.

Momentous denies link to “illegal” pharmacy gang

Momentous says CEO Rob Hall is NOT the man behind a registrar devoted almost exclusively to running “illegal” online pharmacies, after the US Congress was told he was a few hours ago.
In written testimony to Congress today, LegitScript president John Horton linked Hall to an “illegal online pharmacy network” called 4rx.
Horton said that the people running 4rx, which he said sells prescription drugs without a license, are also running the ICANN-accredited registrar Crazy8Domains
He went on to produce Canadian corporation records naming Hall as the sole director of the registrar.
I had a bit of a Google and found that Crazy8Domains says it’s based in a building in Ottawa that appears to have been once owned by Momentous.
But Rob Villeneuve, CEO of Momentous registrar Rebel, told us today that Crazy8Domains has not been part of Momentous for years. He said:

the Momentous group sold that Registrar over two years ago, and ICANN approved the sale. Mr. Hall and Momentous are no longer involved in Crazy8Domains in any way. We are unsure why the Industry Canada records have not been updated, and we have today notified Industry Canada of their error.

While Momentous may not be involved with Crazy8Domains, Horton presented some compelling evidence that it’s basically just a puppet registrar for an online pharmacy outfit.
It also goes by the name Kudo.com.
The contact name for the registrar listed by ICANN is Sabita Limbu, who is also listed in Whois as the registrant of domains such as indianpharmaonline.com, offshorerx1.com, and cheapestonlinedrugstore.com.
These sites offer hundreds of generic varieties of drug that purport to treat every condition under the sun, from erectile dysfunction to cancer.
Prescriptions do not appear to be required, and there’s a US toll-free number in case there was any doubt whose citizens are being marketed to.
Whether that’s illegal or not, I couldn’t possibly comment, but Horton told Congresspeople today that there are no countries where it is legal to sell prescription drugs without a license.
According to Horton, Crazy8Domains only has 18 domains live at present, and 15 of them are pharmacies:

In short, for all practical purposes, the ICANN-accredited registrar is the illegal online pharmacy, and the illegal online pharmacy is the ICANN-accredited registrar.

This means it would be virtually impossible for an outfit like LegitScript to get them taken down — any complaints made to ICANN would simply be referred to the registrar, which is in this case also the registrant.

GoDaddy getting out of NASCAR, whatever that is

GoDaddy is dropping its sponsorship of a NASCAR racing car, largely because Johnny Foreigner doesn’t have a clue what NASCAR is.
The company has been sponsoring Stewart-Haas Racing and driver Danica Patrick since 2007; Patrick is a spokesperson appearing in many commercials.
But now GoDaddy says it is dropping the deal at the end of the 2015 season in order to diversify its marketing in growth markets overseas.
It is currently negotiating to keep on Patrick as a spokesperson separately.
NASCAR is a pretty US-centric pass-time, with little recognition overseas. I recall seeing Patrick’s face on a London Underground billboard a few years ago and wondering what on Earth Go Daddy was thinking.
GoDaddy chief marketing officer Phil Bienert said in a press release yesterday:

NASCAR has been a tremendous domestic platform to help us achieve an 81 percent aided brand awareness domestically, but at this stage, we need a range of marketing assets that reach a more globally-diverse set of customers.

GoDaddy said it has presence in 37 countries in 17 languages and “is positioning to fortify its presence in Asia by the end of this year.”
From 2010 to 2012, the company had an Asia-based celebrity spokesperson in actress/singer/model DI.
In related news, I’ve just noticed that GoDaddy no longer uses a space between Go and Daddy in its brand, so DI’s house style will be adjusted accordingly.

NetSol’s free .xyz bundle renews at $57

Network Solutions is charging a total of $57.17 for renewing the .xyz domain names and associated services it gave away for free as part of .xyz’s controversial launch last year.
A little over a year ago, NetSol found controversy when it pushed hundreds of thousands of .xyz domain names into its customers’ accounts without their explicit consent.
The offer, which required customers to opt out if they didn’t want it, included a year of private registration and a year of email.
The move allowed XYZ.com, the .xyz registry, to report itself as the largest new gTLD registry.
It’s been the subject of some speculation how renewals would be treated by NetSol, but now we know.
Customers, at least in cases reported by DI readers, are being sent renewal notices for their .xyz bundles in the same mailshots as for their .com domains.
Clicking the “Renew” button in these emails takes registrants to a NetSol page on which they can select which of their products they would like to renew.
All, including the .xyz products, are pre-selected for renewal but may be deselected.
Pricing is set at $15.99 for the .xyz domain, $15.99 for the private registration and $25.19 for the email service. That’s a total of $57.17.
Here’s a screenshot of the shopping cart with the pricing (I’ve redacted the domain). Click to enlarge.

The original email sent by NetSol to customers last June, said:

We want to show you how much we appreciate your loyalty by rewarding you with complimentary access to a 1-year registration of a .XYZ domain, one of the hottest new domain extensions. .XYZ domains are proving to have broad appeal and also be extremely memorable. In addition to your complimentary domain, you’ll also receive Professional Email and Private Registration for your .XYZ domain – free of charge.
…
If you choose not to keep this domain no action is needed and you will not be charged any fees in the future. Should you decide to keep the domain after your complementary first year, simply renew it like any other domain in your account.

The fine print read:

Offer applies to first year of new registrations only. The offer is not transferable and is only available to the recipient. After the complimentary first year the .XYZ domain name and its related services shall expire unless you actively renew the .XYZ domain name and its related services at the then-current rates.
Please note that your use of this .XYZ domain name and/or your refusal to decline the domain shall indicate acceptance of the domain into your account, your continued acceptance of our Service Agreement located online at http://www.networksolutions.com/legal/static-service-agreement.jsp, and its application to the domain.

There’s concern from some registrants that customers may renew their .xyz services without really understanding how they ended up in their account in the first place.
.xyz currently has over 857,000 domains in its zone file.
XYZ.com CEO Daniel Negari was recently quoted as saying that roughly 500,000 of those were not freebies.
The company is being sued by .com registry Verisign for using its reg numbers in “false advertising” that seeks to compare .xyz to .com.

Three registrars suspended by ICANN

ICANN has enforced the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement against three more registrars, suspending their ability to sell gTLD domain names.
Canadian registrar Namevault, along with Signdomains and Times Internet of India, cannot sell domains or accept inbound transfers from April 21 to July 20, according to ICANN compliance notices.
Namevault’s suspension came after it got its third compliance strike in a year, this time relating to its failure to provide records about domain stronglikebull.com, which was at Namevault from 2008 but is now at Go Daddy.
Times Internet has failed to implement a Whois service, despite being first warned about its failings last September, ICANN says.
Signdomains was originally issued a breach notice due to its failure to pay over $3,000 in accreditation fees. It also does not display pricing information on its web site, according to ICANN. Neither breach has been rectified.
The three registrars have not many more than 10,000 names under management between them, according to latest registry reports.
They’re the first three registrars to have their RAAs suspended in 2015. Three other registrars have been terminated since the beginning of the year.

Identify.com terminated

ICANN has terminated the accreditation of defunct registrar Identify.com.
The company received its final compliance notice (pdf) last week and will lose its contractual ability to sell gTLD domains April 17.
Not that many will notice or care.
According to the notice, ICANN has been informed that the company is no longer in business.
Identify.com does not currently resolve to a web page, at least for me. According to registry reports, it had just six domain names under management in November.
Back in 2011, its DUM was measured in the low hundreds. Most transferred out or deleted in the meantime.
According to the notice, the registrar failed to provide information about its dealings with the owner of a specific domain name, patschool.com.
According to DomainTools, that domain has never been registered with Identify.com.
It’s ICANN’s third registrar termination in 2015.

.tk registrar gets ICANN breach notice

OpenTLD, the registrar owned by .tk registry Freenon, has received an odd contract-breach notice from ICANN.
The company apparently forgot to send ICANN a Compliance Certificate for 2014, despite repeated pestering by ICANN staff.
It’s the first time I’ve seen ICANN issue a breach notice (pdf) for this reason.
A Compliance Certificate, judging by the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement, seems to be a simple form letter that the CEO must fill in, sign and submit once a year.
Coming back into compliance would be, one imagines, five minutes’ work.
As well as being an ICANN-accredited registrar, OpenTLD is part of Freenom. That’s the registry that repurposes under-used ccTLDs with a “freemium” model that allows free registrations.
Its flagship, .tk, is the biggest ccTLD in world, with over 30 million active names.

Google leaks 282,000 private Whois records

Google has accidentally revealed registrant contact information for 282,867 domain names that were supposed to be protected by a privacy service.
The bug reportedly affected 94% of the 305,925 domains registered via Google Apps, an eNom reseller.
The glitch was discovered by Cisco and reported to Google February 19. It has since been fixed and customers were notified yesterday.
Google acknowledged in an email to customers that the problem was caused by a “software defect in the Google Apps domain renewal system”.
It seems that anyone who acquired a domain with privacy through Google Apps since mid-2013 and has since renewed the registration will have had their identities unmasked in Whois upon renewal.
Names, addresses, emails and phone numbers were revealed.
Due to services such as DomainTools, which cache Whois records, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. The information is out there for good now.
It’s a pretty major embarrassment for Google, which recently launched its own registrar.

Europeans digging new gTLD more than Americans?

Are European registrants more likely to register new gTLD domain names than those in the US and elsewhere?
That’s the view of Tucows, which sees more new gTLD action from its European OpenSRS resellers than it does from others.
In a blog post last week, OpenSRS blogger Gustavo Arruda noted that Americans are still stuck in a .com mindset:

Our European resellers are leading the charge. We expected the European market to be more open to new gTLDs and that prediction proved correct. It’s a market used to ccTLDs so having a couple hundred more new gTLDs was not a big deal.
North American resellers are lagging behind. It continues to be a very .COM-centric market that is still skeptical about too much choice.
South American and Asian resellers complain about the English-centric nature of new gTLDs. A lot of the new gTLDs we have launched do not make sense in these markets so adoption has been slow.

The post came as OpenSRS recorded its 100,000th new gTLD domain sale.
One reason for the Euro-slant in the market could be the relatively good performance of city gTLDs, most of which are European, and which are easily grasped concepts for buyers familiar with ccTLDs.
Hover, Tucows’ retail registrar, is geo-targeting which TLDs it offers visitors. As DI is based in London, I get offered .london domains prominently when searching for domains there.
The only US geo-gTLDs available to date are .vegas and .nyc.

Two legit registrars held to account for lack of abuse tracking

ICANN Compliance’s campaign against registrars that fail to respond to abuse reports continued last week, with two registrars hit with breach notices.
The registrars in question are Above.com and Astutium, neither of which one would instinctively bundle in to the “rogue registrar” category.
Both companies have been told they’ve breached section 3.18.1 of their Registrar Accreditation Agreement, which says: “Registrar shall take reasonable and prompt steps to investigate and respond appropriately to any reports of abuse.”
Specifics were not given, but it seems that people filed abuse reports with the registrars then complained to ICANN when they did not get the response they wanted. ICANN then was unable to get the registrars to show evidence that they had responded.
Both companies have until February 12 to come back into compliance or risk losing their accreditations.
Domain investor-focused Above.com had over 150,000 gTLD domains on its books at the last official count. UK-based Astutium has fewer than 5,000 (though it says the current number, presumably including ccTLD names, is 53,350).
It’s becoming increasingly clear that registrars under the 2013 RAA are going to be held to account by ICANN to the somewhat vague requirements of 3.18.1, and that logging communications with abuse reports is now a must.