Taking Domain Control Back from the Registrar? 101
Patrick Clinger asks: "I run a large community Web site, and today I woke up to find that one of my domain names (proboards21.com) was disabled by my unnamed registrar -- my name servers were changed to NS1/NS2.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM and I no longer have access to that domain in my control panel. I am in no way involved in any spam activities, and the registration for my domain expires in 2007. I would expect at least a courtesy call or an email letting me know what happened, but neither was provided by the unnamed registrar. What can you do when suddenly a registrar goes off and takes control of your domain when there was no violation of your agreement with them? What is to prevent any registrar from taking over any domain when they feel like it? Right now my domain is in limbo, waiting for them to hopefully restore it to the correct name servers."
Kind of in the same boat (Score:5, Interesting)
Proving "ownership" is turning out to be harder than expected.
Live and learn. (Score:5, Interesting)
Register your own domain (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Register your own domain (Score:5, Interesting)
At least I have a reasonable expectation with Go Daddy that they will not suspend my domain without a good reason.
Bad things happened, that's not a reason to erase inanimate, historical, objects from history.
Insert whole free speech defend though I disagree speech here.
I would also like to note that I have personal experience with some proboards.com users abusing the send message to all members capability. Their use of the send to all function meets some definitions of spam. You know what? the particularly annoying user just might have been hosted on proboards21.com. I'm not sad to see that they have been stopped, even though I disagree with the method used.
I had something similar happen. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, I explained this to the registrar upstream from the scam company, and the upstream registrar unlocked it for me, without having to have any communications with the jailbird. My money was lost, but I was able to move the domain elsewhere.
Re:Did you read this? (Score:2, Interesting)
oh, wait, i use godaddy. damn. if you really hated my website(s) you could probably send an abuse letter to godaddy. if they're having a bad day, they might not bother investigating
Gandi (Score:5, Interesting)
"The Client owns the Domain Name registered. Gandi simply acts on the Client's behalf."
No, I'm not affiliated with Gandi, but I do use them for my registration services. They're the only company who makes such a statement in their contract (AFAIK).
More Details (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Some person (a person I do not know) sent out an email to a bunch of people with their newsletter, and included a link to their message board that was hosted by ProBoards.
2) Another person received a copy of that email, and took it as spam (it may have been -- although the email looks like a newsletter).
3) That person SpamCop report, and contacted GoDaddy regarding it.
4) I deleted that message board account about 2 days prior to GoDaddy disabling my domain name.
5) GoDaddy disabled the domain because it was "associated" with spam.
Now let me make this clear if you don't understand it: Some person out there on the Internet sent an email to another person out there on the Internet and because that email mentioned my domain name in the body of it, my domain was disabled for being associated with spam.
The email did NOT originate from my servers, it was not sent by me or a member of my staff. It is just like if I opened up my mail program and sent an email to a hundred people mentioning somewhere in the email "slashdot.org" and then
To top the entire situation off, GoDaddy charged me a $250 fee to get my domain name back! I am now looking to transfer my domain names to a new registrar, so time to start looking - and time to start considering legal action.
Re:Godaddy (Score:5, Interesting)
GoDaddy disabled my domain because some person sent an email to another person, and mentioned my domain in that email. It is as simple was that. The email did not originate from my servers. The email had nothing to do with me, except it mentioned the URL of one of the over 500,000 message boards that ProBoards hosts.
Don't make accusations when you don't know the facts.
Re:suspicious (Score:4, Interesting)
Registrant:
ProBoards.com
21532 Calle Otono
Lake Forest, California 92630
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: PROBOARDS21.COM
Created on: 17-Mar-03
Expires on: 17-Mar-07
Last Updated on: 24-Feb-04
Administrative Contact:
Clinger, Patrick whois@proboards.com
ProBoards.com
21532 Calle Otono
Lake Forest, California 92630
United States
9494630329 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Clinger, Patrick whois@proboards.com
ProBoards.com
21532 Calle Otono
Lake Forest, California 92630
United States
9494630329 Fax --
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM
NS2.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM
Re:objection, nonresponsive. (Score:1, Interesting)
In his own roundabout way, the first poster was parroting what the pundits have forecasted: the demise of the service economy as we know it, and its replacement with a new "experience" economy wherein people purchase the goods and services that leave them feeling most content overall even if the experience carries a slight premium.
Further, the first poster proved the Torricelli principle and explicated Hegel's philosophy of dialectical materialism.
GNAA forever.
Re:Hey, I know what you can do. (Score:4, Interesting)
If a company will behave in this way then do you really think they'll respond well to polite e-mails and phone calls? No, they have to be faced with a cold, hard loss of business and a bad reputation.
My first thought when I read the story was: Glad to see this guy is getting some help but what about all the thousands of other people in similar situations who *aren't* being featured on Slashdot?
The domain registration system is horrible, quite possibly the worst part of online life with the exception of spam. If you run a business online then literally you can wake up one morning and find that your entire livelihood has been brought to a halt by one person, who you've never met and never talked to, deciding to suspend your domain.
Note that this has never happened to me. If I sound bitter it's because I find the situation utterly frustrating and unjust, even though I have not been a victim of it myself. Yet.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)