Re: [ga] Re: ICANN & transfers

[Gary Osbourne <gro@direct.ca>]

At 09:37 PM 30/07/02 -0400, vinton g. cerf wrote:

>It looks so me as if we need something more
>refined than dis-accreditation as the principal
>tool providing incentive to adhere to contract terms.

By all means. That could conceivably take years.

In the meantime, could you tell me how often you have
used the un-refined tool of disaccreditation? If it
is greater than zero, could you please provide a pointer
to a list of once ICANN accredited registrars who have
fallen from grace? It is possible that some consumers
aren't aware of whom is accredited at this particular
point in time, which could lead to problems.

I note for example, the case of one bondillc.com
Although it isn't unique (Vint Cerf and Dan Halloran
have received various emails from Richard Henderson
of England regarding others over the past almost 3
months with no substantive response fron the former
and none at all from the latter), it is actually
becoming more common under the  current hands-off
administration.

Bondillc seems to wink in and out as an ICANN
accredited registrar everytime there's a new .info
or .biz landrush. It used to be a .biz accredited
registrar according to NeuLevel during the .biz 2b
rollout but presently doesn't appear to be:
http://www.neulevel.biz/partners/registrars.html

It later appeared as an apparently ICANN accredited
registrar during the recent Afilias ,info LR2, and
is presently listed here in the alphabetical list:
http://www.afilias.info/register/find/alphabetical
The page states:
This page last updated: 27-September-2001
although I find that date suspect.

ICANN's own list of ICANN accredited registrars:
http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html
Page Updated 30-Jul-2002

does not appear to list them, nor were they listed
when I have checked approximately every two weeks
for the past three months.

Bondillc.com itself apparently claims to be ICANN
accredited:
http://www.bondillc.com/
Stating:
BondiLLC.com
Domain Registration!
ICANN ACCREDITED!

I invite you or anyone to try to register a
name through them. I was unable to despite
repeated attempts on a few occasions. I
certainly couldn't during the .biz 2b name
registration period as their web page at the
above address during that period stated simply:
Bondillc Coming soon.

I have saved that as a complete web page and
also done a dated .jpg screengrab, as I have
done with all pages I reference here, as well
as others, there is more to this story. Of
course the date settings on any system can be
faked so I invite other interested individuals
reading this to do so independently as it is
possible the web pages may shortly change.

Despite being inaccessible to the public, and
despite its ICANN accreditation being open to
question, bondillc appears to have managed to
register quite a number of the most desirable
.biz 2b and .info LR2 names through registrar
access to the respective registries.

Bondillc.com is apparently registered to a
lawyer in Houston, Texas. Once one reaches
certain of their inner pages, they lead to:
Parava Networks, Inc. d/b/a RegistrateYa.com
and nAAme.com
which ICANN itself lists as accredited. Parava
is also based in Houston, Texas. Also
bondillc.com mail goes to mail.parava.net at
65.210.194.18
Bondillc.com's nameservers are:
ns1.parava.net
ns2.parava.net
and there are far more connections between
these two registrars, but this is already
turning into a book so I hope I have made
my point. Indeed, there is much, much more
to this story and it is still unfolding.

I expect to provide a fuller report via
ICANNWatch and/or some other venue in the
near future. I also reiterate that this is
not the only such case, Richard Henderson
has repeatedly pointed out others.

The individual behind bondillc.com is allegedly
one Marc Ostrofsky also of Houston, Texas. He
is a domain speculator perhaps best known for
selling business.com to eCompanies for $7.5
million a couple of years ago. In the time
one might reasonably expect ICANN to come up
with more refined tools I fully expect others
might like to become registrar speculators,
indeed some already have. If you expect that
all of them will be well-behaved in the
meantime, about transfers or anything else,
well, I have some oceanfront property to sell
you that I'll show you at low tide.

Now, if bondillc are not ICANN accredited,
then I suppose one cannot reasonably expect
ICANN to disaccredit them. :) OTOH, if they
are, or were, ICANN accredited, please advise.

In addition, to repeat, could you tell me how
often, if ever, an ICANN accredited registrar
has been disaccredited? If there have been any
such disaccreditations, is there a public list
of them, and if not, why not? It seems to me
if there isn't a definitive and always current
list of ICANN accredited registrars that is
authoritative, then even the threat of
disaccreditation is hollow. Ditto for if a
non-accredited registrar can get registrar
access. Thanks, -g

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