Registrars Still Ignoring ICANN Rules 122
stry_cat writes "Over a year ago ICANN moved to clean up misbehaving registrars like GoDaddy. They released this scary sounding advisory. However, over a year later, problems remain. One company is now publicly complaining. Some of the biggest registrars are slammed for their actions. 'Register.com is one frustrating company. The ICANN policy clearly prohibits blocking a transfer of a domain name that has expired but not yet been deleted. Despite that, a customer trying to transfer a three-day-expired Register.com domain name told us last week that they refused to give him the necessary code to allow him to transfer — unless he pays them to renew it first. ... GoDaddy (and their reseller arm, Wild West Domains) have a different problem: They still block transfers for 60 days after a registrant's contact update, even after the ICANN update specifically prohibited doing so. They freely admit it, too. ... We see a similar problem with many transfers from Network Solutions.'"
Rules can be ignored (Score:5, Insightful)
Laws, less so.
Who sets the rules? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is something between scary and funny.
It's like the IRS complaining because too many people don't pay due taxes.
I'm not sure about the legal framework, but either ICANN has no way to enforce the rules (then it should refer to a different authority), or if they has such power, then go ahead and ban the guilty ones from providing the service.
Re:ICANN in Charge? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't they take disciplinary action against offenders?
Too much money involved. You don't want to upset those who are feeding you money now don't you?
Try this: Don't get suckered in my the marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview (Score:3, Insightful)
The only reason ICANN is ignoring it is because GoDaddy and Network Solutions are one of the largest registrars and bring them lots of money. If it was some small registrar, you would be sure they would receive complaints from ICANN.
Re:Try this: Don't get suckered in my the marketin (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a near perfect market, in the economic sense. The barrier to entry into the registration business is almost nil, it's all just some data processing. And as economics tells us, as a market approaches 'perfection', profit margins approach 0%. So it's not surprising that some registrars are resorting to shady business practices; the only people who can make money in the registration business are those who are willing to do a little lying and cheating.
Re:Rules can be ignored (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview (Score:4, Insightful)
You are more than welcome to create your own root domain, and do what you want. Nobody makes you use the structure controlled by ICANN.
Re:ICANN in Charge? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're assuming that other companies won't pick up the business left behind by a punished offender.
Given the amount of money involved in domain names, I'm guessing ICANN can safely take disciplinary actions without losing a dime in the process.
Re:Internet Domains are under free market purview (Score:3, Insightful)
More like To Big To Piss Off
Re:Perhaps ICANN needs the force of law. (Score:5, Insightful)
but, if Godaddy and ICANN cannot sort out their differences, and with ICANN being the authority the Gov't put in charge, then, the Congress needs to take this matter up
Do you really want congress deciding who gets what web page?
Re:Consequences (Score:2, Insightful)
ICANN needs to figure out an enforcement policy. Perhaps it should order the root servers to stop accepting new registrations from registrars not following the rules.
But it should announce that some time before, so that innocent people registering domains know to avoid those registrars.
Re:Ignoring The Elephant In the Room (Score:3, Insightful)
And on the flipside, that evil spamming domain is pulling contact information from people who *do* have legit info in the fields. Is it any wonder why people don't want real data in their whois record?
Re:ICANN in Charge? (Score:2, Insightful)
Given the amount of money involved in domain names, I'm guessing ICANN can safely take disciplinary actions without losing a dime in the process.
Until, that is, the bit about registrars losing accreditation means customers without a techie background (or without a techie department to handle such matters) suddenly lose service to their domain names. They go to the registrar to see what's up and, instead of being given a technical/political description that they'll instantly tl;dr (note previous assertion of "customers without a techie background"), they're given the quick summary: "ICANN killed your websites"*.
Then out come the letters to [INSERT LOCAL HIGH-RANKING POLITICAL FIGURES HERE], which would rekindle the arguments to disband/decentralize/de-Americanify ICANN that keep coming up, and, well, long story short, "safely" isn't the adverb I'd use to describe their ability to take disciplinary actions.
*: If they're sleazy enough to do the sorts of things listed in this article, I can trivially assume them to be sleazy enough to do something like that out of spite. Maybe I'm just too cynical.
Re:Consequences (Score:3, Insightful)
Good luck with that, the registrars pretty much run ICANN.
Re:Perhaps ICANN needs the force of law. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, in face of who would decide it otherwise: HELL YES!
At least in theory, we could replace the government. But replacing any company? Never!
Re:Try this: Don't get suckered in my the marketin (Score:1, Insightful)
The cheapest legit Registrars I've found were just over $10. The ones cheaper than that don't offer any privacy.
I'd never use a registrar like GoDaddy. Their privacy is totally fake - anyone can phone in and get your info.
Not everyone is looking for domain name privacy. I think it's sketchy to order online from a company that hides their domain name registration. I think it's an indicator of legitimacy when a business lists their correct name, address & contact info on a domain name registration.
No enforcement (Score:3, Insightful)
Rules and Laws without Enforcement are not worth the paper they're written on.