ICANN Fumbles...Again

[Gerry]

Dominator,

If you are a registrar and it is reported to you that one of your domain name holders is responsible for sending out 100 million spam emails and you do nothing to act, do you think (as the registrar) it is not your problem?

GoDaddy and its reseller arm, Wild West Domains, offer free email accounts with up to 100 email addresses PER DOMAIN registered.

It would seem to me that as a registrar, I would investigate immediately rather than have the FTC and other consumer watchdog group on my back.

For you to proclaim domains should be independent - well, it simply is not going to happen. If I have 1000 domains at GoDaddy I now have 100,000 email addresses.

And with the instant site builder (also a free service) I know have 1000 spam sites.

So when the web hosting company is GoDaddy, then what?

Leave em alone? Is that what you are saying?

 

[dominator]

Leave em alone? Is that what you are saying?

I wrote: "This should be stopped"

(not "leaving alone" - if you do not understand english, it is just the opposite)

but not by registrars

the spam mails should be stopped
and somebody provided the infrastructure to send them

but not the registrars, they only provided the domains
why should they investigate emails (if they do not host them)?
it would just create many problems to innocent domain owners

and the last thing:
do not buy spammers' products and you will destroy them
they exist only because they earn money

 

[Leading Names]

Doc,

Thank you for posting this intel -- as always, you are ahead of the curve. ICANN is secretive and slow — perhaps, it will be replaced at some point.

On September 25, 2006 the ICANN Board of Directors and the U.S. Department of Commerce renewed their "Affirmation of Responsibilities"

Here is their Agreement (it will terminate on September 2009)

Obama appointed a conservative Republican, Judd Gregg, to lead the U.S. Commerce Department -- lets see if the Agreement with ICANN is renewed, modified or rejected this September.

It needs to change. ICANN are useless. The sooner US oversight of the internet ends, the better.

- Rob

 

[Gerry]

I wrote: "This should be stopped"

(not "leaving alone" - if you do not understand english, it is just the opposite)

but not by registrars

the spam mails should be stopped
and somebody provided the infrastructure to send them

but not the registrars, they only provided the domains
why should they investigate emails (if they do not host them)?
it would just create many problems to innocent domain owners

and the last thing:
do not buy spammers' products and you will destroy them
they exist only because they earn money

Amazing, you want to tell me about understanding English and lecture me on reading your exact words.

Go back two posts.

that "somebody provided the infrastructure to send them" is the registrars by offering all these nice little enticements...free email, free site building.

"why should they investigate emails (if they do not host them)?" is simply contradicting your own words and points.

That IS my very point!

They do host and they should investigate and should shutter the ones deemed to be responsible.

Innocent domain owners have NOTHING to worry about.

Yeah, this whole spam issue is about protecting the innocent domain owners.

And telling the forum (or me) not to give into the spammers is just going to make them disappear.

Sure, why not...it worked with the tons of junk mail I receive annually and the DO NOT CALL list that is totally ignored.

Spam email would not exist if there was not a final resting place...in other words a site to land on.

Spam is nothing more than that...a message sent unwanted.

Do you think spam exists because of email?

Or does it exist as a means to convey a message to entice you to go to their site?

The site is the issue. IF the sites are shut down then spam would dramatically drop until they open up a new site hosted on a new domain name at potentially the same or a different registrar.

With that said, rather than me paraphrase you or the article in reference, how about reading, for yourself, the entire article in the Washington Post and taking from it what you will.

That is if you read and understand English.

 

[katherine]

It needs to change. ICANN are useless. The sooner US oversight of the internet ends, the better.

Depends on what will replace US oversight. Things could get worse.

Innocent domain owners have NOTHING to worry about.

Wait, it is my understanding that if I make a frivolous complaint to godaddy to the effet that you spammed me they will charge you $39 for the inconvenience of dealing with that complaint. Guilty until proven innocent. Am I wrong or is this the godaddy way of handling spam/abuse complaint ?

 

[dominator]

if the registrars host, then they are hosters
and then they have to deal with it, of course

if the email was sent from the registrar or he provides the name servers (free email, free website)
then he is as responsible as any other hoster
in this point i agree with you, dot com

and also, shutting down (via name servers) is ok, but deleting (the domain) is something else

 

[Gerry]

Wait, it is my understanding that if I make a frivolous complaint to godaddy to the effet that you spammed me they will charge you $39 for the inconvenience of dealing with that complaint. Guilty until proven innocent. Am I wrong or is this the godaddy way of handling spam/abuse complaint ?

I have no idea why you are quizzing me over this.

This whole entire WP story has to do with naming who HOSTS the most spammer sites.

What you do to me or what GoDaddy does to me is totally irrelevant to the piece I posted.

I have no doubt that IF you were to make a frivolous complaint and IF GoDaddy did investigate and IF GoDaddy charged me $39.00 and found it to be nothing more than a bogus complaint...

I have no doubt that all I would have to do is call my GD rep (no pun intended) and get the charges cancelled.

And, I have no doubt that GD gets hundreds of these complaints (perhaps thousands) daily. If there is a pattern I would imagine that they (GD) would recognize this pattern and then investigate. I would imagine that a substantiated claim would be turned over to GD legal.

This whole notion that for these registrars are not responsible is hogwash.

But, their TOS is completely hogwash and they do not even honor their own conditions.

But that is another story and tale.

I can not see how we got to all these hypothetical situation when the story is simply about identifying 10 registrars who host 83% of the spam sites.

Now, as a consumer (not an innocent domainer) wouldn't you say that this headline is pretty damning of those top 10 listed?

Here is an idea...

go to the WP link and read comments posted or add comments.

Perhaps they do not have an innocent domainer's point of view.

Perhaps the consumer sitting and eating breakfast or lunch would love to hear from an innocent domainer that these registrars are not responsible when they not only host the domain but also host the email account. Or that even if they do not host the email account, those spam emails are traced back to a particular domain that the registrar hosts.

Which, by the way, happens to appear as a violation of nearly every registrar and email host I can think of.

 

[Deleted member 5660]

Registars and ICANN have nothing to do with spam or web site content. Some registrars also have hosting which is an entirely different matter. You cannot have these idiotic registars shutting down domains because (a) they generally don't know what they are doing and (b) the profit margin on domain registration is too small for them to the job. You also have Network Neutraility issues, hijackers, botnets, etc. So does Comcast.net network get shut down when you identify 10,000 botnets on their network?

 

[Gerry]

Registars and ICANN have nothing to do with spam or web site content.

Some do see it as a problem and take action.

DNS.BE Cancels 163 Domains Due to Fraudulent Use

DNS.BE cancelled 163 domain names last week by order of a magistrate, following their use for fraudulent purposes.

DNS BE had indeed been informed that several .be domain names were used in a so-called ‘fast flux network’ and were redirecting to ‘phishing’ websites.

Full Story

ICANN is not alone in this matter of "policing" the internet.

There are numerous other governing bodies to oversee this.

And lets not overlook Verisign.

Granted, all of this may be controversial to many (obviously many on DNF).

Again, how does the consumer see this?

When you have such a head line and the alleged top 10 have been identified...

and then those top ten do not take the necessary action after reviewing the report...

how do you think the consumer and the public are going to react if the followup story shows there has been nothing done to stem this?

Yeah, I want to see the likes of Bob Parson (CEO of GoDaddy), Paul Stahura (CEO/Founder Enom) and a few others in front of a Congressional Committee being grilled on why they have done nothing to combat this when they have been made fully aware of it.

Imagine the threads we will have then when we see Pelosi, Snowe, Spector, and Dole presenting new legislature before congress to further curb domaining.

Domainers are quick to scream bloody hell to any negative publicity. And I certainly consider the Registars and Parking companies domainers.

Yet we forget that we (domainers and the domaining industry) bring this bloody hell and scrutiny upon ourselves.

 

[katherine]

PS: the .be domains were deleted pursuant to a court order.

 

[Deleted member 5660]

Congressional hearings rarely amount to much other than a press release and the FTC is mostly smoke and mirrors. The "consumer" really doesn't undertsnand all the technical and legal issues surrounding the issues, they just want the spam to stop. If someone is violating the law you need to prove your case in court and get an order to shut down them down. To get a bunch a people who have no idea what they are doing running around shutting down domains is not the answer.

Look at the feel-good news releases but out by the PIR people who run .org. Have you ever dealt with those people? They have trouble getting an auth code and you want them understand fast flux DNS (which is used for spamming as well as load balancing at legitimate sites)?

 

[ilovedomains]

To get a bunch a people who have no idea what they are doing running around shutting down domains is not the answer.

I thought ICANN was supposedly the all wise orginization responsible for making sure registrars operate in an honest and ethical manner. Instead they use the Henry Paulson theory of regulation. His famous last words were:

Duh, I made a big mistake thinking these guys could regulate themselves

 

[Gerry]

PS: the .be domains were deleted pursuant to a court order.

Good lord, people. I only posted part of the story.

Here is what is states if you were to continue on by clicking the link:

DNS BE noticed the large number of .be domain names involved could indicate that the possible attack was professionally organised and could harm the .be ccTLD. The cancellation resulted from a close cooperation between DNS BE and the Belgian Federal Computer Crime Unit.

Upon discovering the fraudulent use, DNS BE immediately contacted the Federal Computer Crime Unit and passed on the domain names involved.

It was the registrar themselves who contacted the authorities.

-------------------------

 

[PapaStiz]

While I in no way, shape, or form agree with ICANN, this report is nothing more than a piece of well crafted crap.

It's on par with saying something to the effect that

"98 Percent of all crime happens on just 5 continents"

The listed registrars are some of the biggest in the world. Enom is huge, Wild West....that is GODADDY!

Yes, of course those domains are going to be tied to those registrars. It is a mathematical probability that the majority of those domains will be housed by those registrars considering that they house a greater percentage of domains overall.


Please. ICANN does enough crap on their own that we can complain about w/o having to drudge something up that is a complete farse.

And if that was not enough:

I know first hand of Enom shutting people's domains down (sometimes mistakenly) because of other people complaining of those domain names being "spam" domains.

Listen people, you REALLY don't want Enom or Godaddy or anyone else being the sole judge or jury of shutting down domains.

You don't want ICANN being the sole judge either.

Ha! Keep on looking for more regulation. You'll get it. And then don't complain when someone states you have "link spam" (read: parking page) on your domain and Enom or Godaddy has to shut it down because they are required to do so under some spam regulation that ICANN has put into place because of the all the complaining.

ICANN and the registrars do enough stupid things that you can attack them on, one one needs to make up reports such as this one in order to throw more mud.

 

[Gerry]

Congressional hearings rarely amount to much other than a press release and the FTC is mostly smoke and mirrors.

So it is okay if this hits capital hill and there are hearings because, well...it is just smoke and mirrors?

I would not want to take my chances of being over-regulated by someone or something.

Plus, as someone pointed out, is this not part of the terms of ICANN and registry agreements?

This is not just about who hosts what.

It is about domains, domaining, and spam and scams.

It is about the failure of ICANN and the failure of registries and registrars to enforce their very own basic set of rules, guidelines, and policies.

Basics.

 

[PapaStiz]

It is about the failure of ICANN and the failure of registries and registrars to enforce their very own basic set of rules, guidelines, and policies.

Basics.

Yes. Exactly. Agree 110%. More enforcement of existing rules, less additional regulations.

 

[Theo]

What, deprive ICANN of the goose that lays golden eggs?

 

[Gerry]

Ha! Keep on looking for more regulation. You'll get it.

I totally agree.

The focus of this should be on the simple fact that this damning piece was and is posted on the internet and perhaps published in the newspaper of the Washington Post.

ICANN and the registrars do enough stupid things that you can attack them on, one one needs to make up reports such as this one in order to throw more mud.

The mere fact that this report exist...

and the mere fact that this report was published and is now making the rounds on the internet should in itself be a cause for concern.

We, as domainers, have an idea and knowledge of how and who these matters work.

John and Jane Doe who are sitting and sipping their morning coffee have no clue about domains, never heard of ICANN, and has never heard of enom. They simply know when they sit down at the computer and put in an URL (lord, they wouldn't even know what that is)...all they know is when they read an article like this...they are pissed.

And if 83% of the spam origin has been identified and could be eliminated, then why isn't something being done!

Even going on the assumption that this report is not totally accurate and factual does not make it disappear off the internet and out of the minds of consumers.

 

[dominator]

What, deprive ICANN of the goose that lays golden eggs?

why can't AcroCANN or even better AcroDom replace ICANN and handle it all?

we (a non-profit organization investing only in safe hedge funds) would lower AcroDom fees, rename .biz to .bus and .mobi to .nonsense

:yes:

 

[PapaStiz]

Yeah, good points. The problem is that anything, and I mean plum anything, can be misconstrued to the point of making someone else upset.

Even if those names were deleted and gone, one could still fill out a report with percentages and problems and concerns to upset the general public.

Though I do agree. If they know which domains make up the 83%, they should do something about it instead of making some useless flippin' report.


When it comes down to it, ICANN should be more involved and be doing more things to help and less inclined to spend money on stupid crap that does not help anyone. I bet they could wipe out 90% of the spam if they used the money they otherwise would have spent on 1 conference. If that money was put towards combating spam, we would all be much better off, in everyones eyes.

The report was a farse. The problems arn't - and that likely is what gave way to such a silly report. Though I do agree, when the wash comes out --- ICANN is to blame.

Good post, btw, Doc Com.