[ga] The continuing unlocking of .biz2B names

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

The Registry rules for .biz stipulate that names should not be bought
primarily for re-sale/warehousing. When widespread concerns (and evidence)
were sent to Jeff Neuman, he announced that thousands of names would be
"locked" pending investigations. In the past 6 weeks, many of these names
have been unlocked (after the initial public furore had died down).

The public concern was because these names were meant to be available to the
general public worldwide for legitimate business purposes, and the integrity
of the Neulevel registry rules and processes was under threat.

One case (out of many) which I happened to look at tonight for an update...

I notice that all remaining "locked" domains of DomainCollection.com through
iHoldings have now been unlocked. Presumably Jeff Neuman is satisfied that
these names were not bought for re-sale. I make no comment. Each person can
review any of these cases for themselves.

562 .biz2B names were registered through the Registrar iHoldings d.b.a. Dot
Registrar

Of these 562 names, 455 were registered for DomainCollection.com and on
their WHOIS details for each domain it said: "THIS DOMAIN IS FOR SALE" ...
um ... why?

Examples of these names were:

120 registered under the name Cambridge, for DomainCollection.com, such as
ergonomic.biz

98 registered under the name Highlands, for DomainCollection.com, such as
erie.biz

72 registered under the name Coventry, for DomainCollection.com, such as
examination.biz

165 registered under the name Newcastle or International Newcastle, for
DomainCollection.com, such as eselect.biz or faxing.biz

However, for example, with faxing.biz, the registrant name has now been
changed from "Newcastle" to Fardeem Raajeshwari of Delhi

Or in the case of erie.biz, the registrant name has been changed from
"Highlands" to Edward Stock of Limerick

Or in the case of ergonomic.biz, the registrant name has been changed from
"Cambridge" to Kike Johnson of Stockholm

Or in the case of eselect.biz, the registrant name has been changed from
"Newcastle" to Alfonso Nunez of Madrid. He has also now got examination.biz
which was previously registered to "Coventry"

Sample WHOIS lookup:

http://www.whois.biz/whois/servlet/WhoisServlet?WHOIS_QUERY=faxing.biz&TYPE=
DOMAIN&Search=Submit+Query

In everyone of these names, the statement "THIS DOMAIN IS FOR SALE" has now
been removed from the WHOIS

Another interesting fact - "just one of those things" I guess - is that
around 90% of the names I've checked are now registered to lots of different
people all round the globe using hotmail addresses. Such a high incidence of
hotmail addresses is quite unusual if you compare it against a sample of
other domain name registrant e-mails.

Anyway - as I say, no accusations but I find it interesting and I'd love to
know Jeff Neuman's take on it.

Richard

PS It is a continuing concern to me that Dan Halloran refuses to acknowledge
any mail I send him, with enquiries or concerns about ICANN-registrar
affairs. As you probably know (because it's been well-publicised) I have now
waited over 90 days for a reply from Dan in one case (and 120 days in the
case of a second mail) and I find this failure to respond more or less
inexplicable. The correspondence was neither flippant nor trivial, and I
would still like responses to the details of my questions and concerns
wherever possible. Openness and dialogue is important, and ICANN have
recently given assurances that they want to improve on this front. I don't
expect an overnight reply, but I tend to think that 90 days is long enough
to wait! ;)

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