I. NARALO Q&A - This is an opportunity for At-Large and members of the community to pose questions directly to ICANN Staff concerning Compliance issues.
- Question 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? - Question from At-Large Members concerning Registrar responsibility for abuse handling:
- Question from community member concerning repeated access to DNS by known abusers:
- Question from community member concerning illicit use privacy services:
- Question from community member concerning the validity of privacy services:
- Question from community member about abuse occurring within ccTLD domains:
- Concern from community member about perceived intimidation by ICANN Staff:
II. Review of Compliance Newsletter
