RE: [ga] Still more fraud being reported...

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com>]

Title: Help

Michael Palage for Afilias sent: "We regret that he failed to contact Afilias to ascertain the facts."

 

Richard H question: So how come Afilias doesn't provide the facts when you ask them serious questions which concern their consumers?

 

Michael Palage for Afilias sent: "Afilias has expended a significant amount of resources attempting to identify inappropriate registrations"

 

Richard H question: Do you concede that it was their fault in the first place for allowing registrars to break their own Registry/Registrar rules for the .info Sunrise?

 

Michael Palage for Afilias sent: "Afilias... believes that it has used reasonable safeguards to identify a significant number of inappropriate registrations."

 

Richard H question: Why weren't the original Sunrise registrations screened for invalid dates, visibly invalid TM numbers, or lack of any TM at all? Did Afilias set in place "reasonable safeguards" to protect Landrush customers whose interests were ignored in the Sunrise fiasco?

 

Michael Palage for Afilias sent: "We suggest to Mr. Turakhia that... it would be beneficial... to verify the facts before making public comments."

 

Richard H question: Fine. So will you please verify the following facts and questions for me, or does Afilias just run away and hide when it faces awkward questions which concern matters of serious concern?

 

Q1: Yesnic submitted over 200 Sunrise Trademark claims for prime generic names. (a) How many of Yesnic's applications did Afilias challenge and, given that they have also been successfully challenged by others through WIPO, (b) did they break any Registry/Registrar rules and (c) how does Afilias justify listing them to consumers as a recognised .info registrar?

 

Q2: What justification has Yesnic offered for submitting so many challenged names?

 

Q3: If Yesnic is shown to have submitted false data, does Afilias recognise a responsibility to the general public to call into question their accreditation as a .info registrar?

 

Q4: Given the experience of the .biz 2B names release, where some registrars hijacked names by submitting "exclusive" queues limited to their own company, what does Afilias propose to do about protecting the public from similar abuses in LR2, and why hasn't Afilias responded to concerns about this? How does Afilias propose to ensure a "fair distribution" of names?

 

Q5: Afilias's Registry/Registrar rules stipulate that to sponsor a Sunrise name, registrars had to ensure that four data fields were properly entered: Trademark Name; Trademark Number; Trademark Country; Trademark Date. DomainBank submitted 93 names which lacked information in ALL FOUR of these datafields. Can you confirm this?

 

Q5: Given Hal Lubsen's association both with DomainBank AND with Afilias (as its CEO), can Afilias please confirm that the Afilias rules were indeed abused in this case? This is a matter which concerns the public because of demonstrable conflict of interest (in that these visibly ineligible applications were registered on spurious grounds - to the benefit of both DomainBank and Afilias, with both of which Mr Lubsen was closely associated). It is also a matter of public concern, because if even the Afilias CEO's registrar company was abusing the Afilias rules and submitting invalid WHOIS data, what trust can there be in the process and what does it say about Afilias's integrity?

 

(Please bear in mind that consumers lost money, because many accredited registrars charged non-refundable fees to pre-register names in anticipation of the .info Landrush. When DomainBank sponsored these 93 names in the .info Sunrise, customers lost the chance of obtaining some of these specific names in the Landrush - a product they had paid for. This loss may well have been replicated over 100,000 times in the .info Sunrise fiasco. Resigning Afilias Director Robert Connelly called it "an abomination". You of course marginalised Connelly while your own CEO seems as if he may have been implicated in the fraud.)

 

Mr Palage, will you undertake to report back on your findings and inform me and this GA community of your findings and actions - in an open and transparent manner?    

 

 

 

Thank you Mr Palage.

 

Before lecturing Mr Turakhia, perhaps you would prove that it's worth "contacting Afilias to ascertain the facts". Please answer these questions or run away and hide.

 

Regards,

 

Richard Henderson