Directi.com an ICANN accredited registrar announced on its blog last week that is had suspended 175,000 domain names for “Registrar Abuse”.
“””””Directi, has have recently taken to track down and stop abusive domain names and registrants from abusing Directi’s services.”””
According to the post 9,000 were taken down for having false whois info, over 2,000 for spam 34,000 that were part of a network of fraudulent sites.
Concerning this issue Directi stated:
When suspending domain names on receiving complaints about their involvement in abuse, HostExploit is pleased to report that, Directi, while reviewing the complaints over the past few months, even before the ‘Atrivo-Cyber Crime USA’ report, found certain trends:
- Domain names registered with the same/similar contact information (name, address patterns)
- Bulk registrations of domain names with a slight variation in the domain name e.g. 018xyz.com, 018xyza.com, 018xyzb.com, 018xyzc.com …. by abusive registrants/customers
- Same blacklisted name servers being repeatedly utilized.
- Registrations in the same customer account involved in various forms of abuse
- Based on these, we reviewed all domain names, first in the customer’s account, then in the reseller’s account and then across the databases. Based on these similarities, 35,000 domain names were identified and have been labeled as co-network.
Directi also suspended 125,000 domains that were lableled “Abusive Reseller Domains”. In this regard Directi says:
“””””””
- Over 50,000 domain names have been suspended that were either involved in abusive activity or registered by customers/registrants exhibiting persistent patterns of abuse.
- These domain names (and/or their registrants) were involved in various types of abuse, such as spamming, phishing/spoofing, malware perpetration, suspected pedopornography, financial frauds and falsified ‘Whois’ information.
- All other services utilized by any of these domain names have also been revoked.
- Over the past three months, certain resellers have been identified who have been the destination of choice for bad actors; among these are Vivids Media GMBH, Klikdomains, MyNick.name, and Webst.ru. Approximately 125,000 domain names registered through these resellers have been suspended so far.”””””””
Directi also removed privacy from over 500,000 domains saying:
- “”””””””””A large incentive for bad actors to use Directi’s services has been PrivacyProtect.org. This service has been disabled for over 27,000 abusive domain names.
- The service had been permanently disabled for all existing and new registrations through resellers/registrars that have seen high volumes of abusive registrations . This has amounted to approximately 500,000 domain names which had privacy protection canceled.””””””””
I understand that registrars have to balance their responsibilities under ICANN rules with concerns of their customers.
On the other hand I’m not sure what happens if a “innocent” domain gets caught up in this action.
If you were one of the customers effected by this action feel free to comment.
A full list of the suspended domains can be found at HostExploit.
Seems like a courageous move by Directi, they should be congratulated. Its about time a company demonstrated some leadership and responsibility. Lets see others follow their lead. A lot of bad apples have been spoiling the bunch for a long time. Any very small percentage of innocents caught in the net will have the ability to exonerate themselves.
jblack,
I agree with you completely. However, this action also shows the importance of dealing with a regsitrar you know and Moniker is by far the best in terms of getting someone on the phone who can fix the problem in my opinion.
Make sure you know your registrar personally, not just your username and password.
I’d say Moniker and Fabulous are the top choices for any professional domain investor who does not own their own registrar:)
This take down by DirectI just goes to show you how out of control things were over there. What a mess.
Nice move – Directi.com.
Keep up the great work – all this Criminals Should have their names listed at an online database so people worldwide can see the SCUM.
Directi.com – is a Company of ethics – a rare find.
” Life’s two most important words: THANK YOU.”
Very good move by directi . Just what is need to control spamming & spoofing in false names. The only precaution should be taken that innocent domainers are not denied privacy.
Personally that’s okay for me as I never take privacy setting for my names. I think that why should we hide ourselves just to save ourselves from spam. Use good spam filters instead !!!
Derecti stole a couple of domains from me awhile back by denying me access to my account in order to pay the renewal fees. I tried to renew the Domains by telephone after they expired and this was denied. As far as my dealings with Directi — they are crooks.
As anyone knows, there is no shortage of sleaze bags in the domain business. It is choked with them. All it takes is a credit card and any a-hole becomes a “domainer”. And everyone also knows that a good portion of the Whois is nonsense.
Good for them. They should have the domains yanked.
I tend to be a bit on the cynical side when I see such moves. Having had the Washington Post highlight Directi’s connections with some of these iffy operations, Directi had to be seen to do the right thing. Sometimes it takes this kind of PR disaster to motivate change. The interesting thing will be to see if all this encourages ICANN to take action. ICANN’s staggering incompetence was demonstrated in how it dealt with domain tasting. While internet users get burned, ICANN doesn’t so much fiddle as provide a full symphony orchestra.
And did Directi state they would be returning all adfeed revenue they pocketed with 175,000 abusive domains?
Stephen
No I didn’t see that in the press announcement.
Hmmmm….
You know those news stories that always pop up about some US politician who seems to be “pushing hard” for some moral position, and then they get caught with their hands (or more) in the very sugarpot they’ve been “posturing” against? Those posers going so far as actually putting people in jail (immoral hypocrites) or writing legislation against the “crime” (manipulating hypocrites)? Well, that type of “image control plus power mandate” is alive and well in every type of business industry. You can find it by just researching deep and spending time to find out the real facts behind any company’s sudden “move” to present themselves as the ‘good guy”.
I’m just saying… good research and analysis is the best way to weigh the information and get down to the true “intent” of a company’s proud announcement of “moral fortitude”.
Not pointing any fingers here…