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  1. Question(s) from At-Large Members concerning unsolicited domain sales marketing: The Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) has a special provision prohibiting the use of WHOIS record data for "commercial advertising or solicitations." The Chair has been receiving multiple complaints from At-Large members concerning deceptive marketing of domain purchases or transfers from unknown "registrars" sent to the contact address in their WHOIS. In one example "Asian Domain Registration Service in China" sent a notice to a domain owner falsely claiming the domain owner's trademark was being used in domain purchases and that the domain owner should purchase the domains with "Asian Domain Registration Service in China" to avoid their trademark from being abused. This is in fact a well documented scam. In a second example an At-Large member and domain owner received several emails claiming a similarly named domain string was pending sale should be re-registered through the linked service. In one email the service was called "Ourbestnames" in another it was called "Jackdomains" with the actual service being called "Active Domain (Re)Sale." The business address posted for these services is 2710 Thomes Ave Cheyenne WY which is widely documented as being associated with shell companies and fraud. The name of the entity behind these services is "Great Value Domains LLC ." No records have been found so far validating the existence of "Great Value Domains" in California, Nevada, Delaware or Wyoming.  There is zero transparency on their sites as to which Registrar they resell for. According to RAA 3.12.3 "Reseller shall identify the sponsoring registrar upon inquiry from the customer," but an email to their contact address was returned with the message "Recipient address rejected: User unknown in virtual alias table." Our specific questions for ICANN Compliance are as follows:

    A. How and Where can members of the community report violations of 3.12.3 and 3.3.5?
    B. How and Where can members of the community monitor the status of such complaints?
    C. What is ICANN Compliance doing to handle such clear abuses of the registration system?

  2. Question(s) from At-Large Members concerning Registrar responsibility for sponsored names: The Registrar Accreditation Agreement explicitly states the conditions under which a domain reseller must operate, specifically that the reseller must not represent itself as the sponsoring Registrar.  It has been reported to the Chair that an At-Large member attempted to report a phishing email to the sponsoring Registrar and was referred to the domain reseller who rejected the complaint out of hand. By conferring its duties to a reseller and abandoning responsibility the Registrar is in effect denying its sponsorship and representing the reseller in the role of Registrar. Our specific questions for ICANN Compliance are as follows:

    A. How and Where can members of the community report attempts by a Registrar to deny sponsorship and assign contractual responsibilities to a reseller?
    B. How and Where can members of the community monitor the status of such complaints?

  3. Question from community member concerning repeated access to DNS by known abusers: QUESTION: Over the past two years, one researcher, tracked and documented more than 6,000 phishing and cybercrime related emails from the SAME DOMAIN and IP ADDRESS OWNER. (During 2011, about ONE every SIX minutes) They reported this block owner and registrar 23 times to the "NIC" complaint reporting system that ICANN set up. (ICANN refers all complaints to these forms) The system says : "we will respond in 45 days" When the response comes back 45 days later, it says that "No problems have been detected" and to "click" on the link for more info. The link goes back to the original form and starts over. QUESTION IS : Can ICANN demonstrate that their system has had ANY positive effect on cybercrime use of ICANN issued and approved IP blocks ? If so : WHY has the SAME cybercrime cartel been allowed to use the SAME IP blocks, and registrar to register hundreds of NEW domains over a period of TWO YEARS... continuing as we speak TODAY? (FS)
    Question from community member concerning illicit use privacy services: 1) does the whois privacy services, that almost always are used to cover spamming registrant, are legal? (registrant data must be clearly shown in whois port 43 ... somewhere is written) 2) How can normal users (but also knujon) has access and check the real registrant data to check if they are real of clearly fake?
    Question (s) from community member about abuse occurring within ccTLD domains: The InterNIC Complaint form (AKA "Registrar Complaint Form", AKA "Registrar Problem Report Form") has a radio button labeled "ccTLD" as an issue. This is extremely misleading as ICANN does not handle ccTLD Compliance issues. The ICANN website has a page with the Compliance area entitled "ccTLD Compliance Program." This is extremely misleading since there is no program. The first line of this page states: "ICANN does not have contract authority to take compliance action against ccTLD operators." Our specific questions for ICANN Compliance are as follows:

    A. Can the "ccTLD Compliance" pages be transformed into a referral list where members of the community may directly access ccTLD administration information, thus sparing Compliance Staff the need to respond to such complaints and also giving the community an real avenue for redress?
    B. How and who can the community engage to develop a comprehensive and responsible mechanism for ccTLD compliance?
    C. Can the "ccTLD" issue item on the complaint form be removed or modified for the sake of clarity?


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