It's Official: Registrars Cannot Hold Domains Hostage Without a Court Order

Stunt Pope writes "Back when the City of London Police issued those 'takedown requests' to domain registrars, most complied. However, as previously reported here, easyDNS didn't. A bunch of the taken-down domains wanted to move to easyDNS. One problem: their registrar wouldn't let them. It took awhile, but easyDNS fought it. They've finally gotten a ruling (PDF) under the ICANN policy that ordered the hostage domains transferred."

Godaddy

[neoform]

As someone who had godaddy hold my domain hostage, this is great news.

GoDaddy had received a single complaint from an anonymous source, which was apparently enough for them to threaten to revoke my domain if I didn't pay their $200 extortion fee.

Re:Godaddy

[TWiTfan]

GoDaddy, oh man. Hard to believe that I used to actually recommend them to clients for hosting. Then they started in with those ad campaigns that made Hooters ads look like church bulletins. That alone guaranteed that I would never recommend them again, even without the accompanying rumors of assorted other sleazy practices. It's a shame too. Their hosting was reasonably-priced and pretty reliable in its day.

Re: hmm....

[Obfuscant]

I've read the summary. I've read the ruling. Have you? The summary and ruling aren't directed at the City of London and say nothing about whether the City of London was incorrect in asking easyDNS (or any other registrar) to review their terms for a possible breach. The summary and ruling deal with domain registrars who made the decision that the customer WAS in violation of their terms and thus shut them off, who then refused to release the domain name.

This should be clear from the very beginning of the ruling:

easyDNS Technologies Inc. v. PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com

It's easyDNS vs. another registrar, not easyDNS vs. City of London.

I've also read the "takedown order", which is quoted in part in the ruling itself. Maybe you should read it. It is rather clear in asking the registrar to review the conduct of the customer to see if it violates the registrar's acceptable use policy, and for the registrar to make a decision what action is appropriate.

The City of London did NOTHING that you or I could not do, and I have done many times in the past when trying to get spammers and such shut down. I've even been more forceful by saying that the registrar SHOULD shut them off, not just that they ought to review the policy to see if they think the customer is breaching it.

Yeah, the CoL went further by asking the registrar, once they had made a decision to shut the domain off, to take certain steps that would help the CoL maintain evidence of the activity for later legal action. That's not out of line, either, and it still is based on the registrar making a decision, not a demand from the CoL.

Re: hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

That is done with court orders and warants dipshit.