ICANN just announced that the domain name registered at two de-accreditated registrars were being transferred to NamesBeyond.com.
The two registrars which were de-accreditated are Planet Online Corp’s and Name For Name, Inc.’s.
“ICANN has authorized the bulk transfer of Planet Online Corp’s gTLD domain names to NamesBeyond.com (“NamesBeyond”) due to a compliance action taken by ICANN that resulted in the de-accreditation of registrar Planet Online Corp.
“ICANN has also authorized the bulk transfer of Name For Name, Inc.’s .com and .net names (which represent all gTLDs currently sponsored by Name For Name) to NamesBeyond as the result of the termination of Name For Name’s registry-registrar agreement with Verisign Inc.
“The affected gTLD registries are processing the bulk transfers. Former registrant-customers of Planet Online and Name For Name should soon receive notices from NamesBeyond of the transfer.”
“Customer questions about the transfer should be directed to NamesBeyond, using the contact details provided below. Additional information about these bulk transfers is provided below.”
FAQs
Q. Why were these transfers authorized by ICANN?
A. Planet Online’s Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) was terminated by ICANN on 6 July 2012 because of Planet Online’s failure to comply with the requirements of the RAA. (The notice of termination is posted at http://www.icann.org/en/news/correspondence/burnette-to-zolfonoon-12jun12-en.pdf [PDF, 222 KB]) As a result, Planet Online is no longer permitted to register or manage gTLD registrations.
Name For Name’s Registry-Registrar Agreement (RRA) with Verisign to register .com and .net names was terminated by Verisign on 16 July 2012. Name For Name currently has only five gTLD registrations under management, all in com and net. ICANN has notified Name For Name that it is in breach of its RAA with ICANN, which will be terminated on 2 August 2012 if the breaches are not cured. (The notice of breach is posted at http://www.icann.org/en/news/correspondence/burnette-to-taame-12jul12-en.pdf [PDF, 250 KB].)
ICANN authorized these bulk transfers pursuant to the Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy to ensure that the registrant-customers of these registrars would not be harmed by their registrars’ discontinued ability to manage the registrations.
Q. How was the gaining registrar selected?
A. ICANN followed its De-Accredited Registrar Transition Procedure (see http://www.icann.org/en/processes/registrars/de-accredited-registrar-transition-procedure-01oct08.pdf [PDF, 119 KB]) to identify a gaining registrar for Planet Online. Through this competitive process, NamesBeyond was selected. Due to the small size of Name For Name (5 domain names) NamesBeyond was asked to also accept these names.
Q. Will NamesBeyond attempt to contact the affected registrants? What should former Planet Online and Name For Name customers do?
A. Former customers of both registrars should receive a notice of the transfer and instructions for continued management of their names from NamesBeyond. Affected customers who do not receive notices from NamesBeyond should check the web page prepared by NamesBeyond for this bulk transfer at http://www.namesbeyond.com/planetonlinebulktransfer for additional information and contact details.
Q. Do registrants have to pay a fee for the bulk transfer?
A. No, there is no cost to registrants for the bulk transfer. Unlike a normal inter-registrar transfer, the registration terms will not be extended by a year. Accordingly, it is important to contact NamesBeyond if your registration will expire soon in order to maintain your registration.
Q. Why do former Planet Online and Name For Name customers need to contact NamesBeyond?
A. Neither Planet Online nor Name For Name participated in the bulk transfers therefore did not forward billing information to NamesBeyond. Accordingly, all registrants must provide updated billing information or transfer their names to other registrars.
Q. What if affected registrants want to select a different registrar?
A. Registrants will continue to be able to transfer their registrations to other registrars under the Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (see http://www.icann.org/en/transfers/). Note that NamesBeyond may deny transfers for the first 60 days following the bulk transfer, at its discretion. This 60-day period is permissible under the Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy and is intended to help protect registrants. The registrant may need to renew names that will expire during the first 60 days following the transfer to NamesBeyond by contacting NamesBeyond at:
+ 1 877 321 1356 (Toll Free)
+ 1 817 564 2994
+ 1 215 750 2660
support@namesbeyond.com or
info@namesbeyond.com
Q. How will Planet Online and Name For Name customers know if a message purportedly from NamesBeyond is legitimate?
A. The message from NamesBeyond should direct you to its website hosted at http://www.namesbeyond.com or refer you to other contact information provided above. If you believe a message purportedly from NamesBeyond is not legitimate, you should navigate to their web page directly, at http://www.namesbeyond.com/planetonlinebulktransfer. For general advice about avoiding phishing email messages, you may also wish to refer to the materials prepared by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (see http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html).
Last time I checked (about November, 2011) the registrar NamesBeyond also was not in compliance with ICANN policies. Namely, it was always hard to obtain authcodes from NamesBeyond. As per the Policy on Transfer of Registrations between Registrars, “Registrars may not employ any mechanism for complying with a Registered Name Holder’s request to obtain the applicable “AuthInfo Code” that is more restrictive than the mechanisms used for changing any aspect of the Registered Name Holder’s contact or name server information”. Nevertheless, while DNS and contact management are realtime and online at NamesBeyond, authcodes are not. One should submit a support ticket to obtain the code. As the result, NamesBeyond would often first try to advise on “special offers for domain transfer-In”(!) and on their “reseller rates” replying to the ticket, with no authcode provided. Only after the second ticket they’d give the code. Since support tickets are not required for “changing any aspect of the Registered Name Holder’s contact or name server information”, NamesBeyond is not in compliance with ICANN rules itself.
Instead of giving them more registrations, ICANN should have terminated NamesBeyond’s own accreditation long time ago…
Not sure if NamesBeyond changed their illegal policies in 2012 as the last snapnames catch I had through them was in 2011
That really stinks about having difficulty getting the proper authorization codes especially if you have a customer that needs the domain transferred over like it should be. I guess ICANN is doing what it needs and was set up to do.