Home / Blogs

ICANN Culls Three More Domain Name Registrars

Michele Neylon

ICANN has announced that three more domain name registrars have lost their accreditation due to non-compliance with the RAA.

The three registrars have been informed that their agreements with ICANN will not be renewed.

South American Domains (NameFrog), Simply Named and Tahoe Domains have been sent letters by ICANN outlining the decision and the reasons for it.

So what now?

On the plus side, as ICANN's compliance team is becoming more active in pursuing non-compliant registrars the processes for handling the domains held by de-accredited registrars is becoming more finely tuned.

Expect to see an announcement very shortly asking for other registrars to takeover the various portfolios, though this time round they are incredibly small.

According to the latest figures I was able to access the breakdown would be as follows:

So why did they lose their accreditations?

  • Namefrog did not have a whois server
  • Simply Named wasn't escrowing registrant data and hadn't paid their ICANN fees
  • Tahoe no data escrow and owed fees to ICANN

In related news, Lead Networks are now seeking arbitration!

By Michele Neylon, MD of Blacknight Solutions. Visit the blog maintained by Michele Neylon here.

Related topics: Domain Names, ICANN, Internet Governance

WEEKLY WRAP — Get CircleID's Weekly Summary Report by Email:

Comments

It is good to see published policies implemented consistently Suresh Ramasubramanian  –  Aug 10, 2009 7:52 PM PST

I heartily look forward to some further actions of this sort.

Name Frog Stephen Douglas  –  Aug 11, 2009 4:20 AM PST

When Namefrog was feeding Snapnames their expiring domains, I bought some of them (without looking at who the holding registrar was for the domains at the time). After I purchased the domains from Snap, I quickly discovered the inability to manage those domains (Namefrog was using Logicboxes' clumsy interface, if I remember correctly). It was torture trying to transfer those domains away from Namefrog. I don't remember if I lost any domains back to them, but it was obvious to me at the time that they were making it hard for domain owners to renew/transfer domains NF thought were valuable, in order for them to resell them on Snapnames or other auction platforms.

It's been several years since I've had to deal with NF, but any registrar that has the name of an animal, "monkey, frog, hippo, etc", stay away!  I'm glad ICANN FINALLY removed them. Geez, only took them three years to do it!

Fallout from the end of Domain Tasting and reduced PPC revenue? John McCormac  –  Aug 12, 2009 1:50 AM PST

I was comparing the growth in the main TLDs for 01/January/2009 - 01/August/2009 with the 01/January/2008-01/August/2008 and there is an indication that the growth rates are slowing down. The .com was only at 51.86% of the 2008 figure. The .net is only 35.87% of the 2008 figure. The .org is curiously at 62.22% of the 2008 figure.

The end of the Domain Tasting in .com and .net seems to have had an effect. Many of these drop registrars may no longer be needed. This coupled with the falling PPC revenue would make a lot of the domains being dropped non-viable for parking/PPC.

Good Show Virendra Gandhi  –  Aug 18, 2009 7:08 AM PST

Why not cull all of them and have just one dot suffix.

That comment doesn't make any sense.I was Michele Neylon  –  Aug 18, 2009 7:14 AM PST

That comment doesn't make any sense.

I was talking about _registrars_ NOT registries

To post comments, please login or create an account.

Related Blogs

Related News

Topics

Industry Updates – Sponsored Posts

.ORG COO Discusses Priorities With DailyVista, Pursuit of .NGO Domain

StarHub to Acquire '.starhub' New Top-Level Domain

ARI Registry Services Signs 21 Contracts in the First Week of New TLD Applications

MarkMonitor to Exhibit at Internet Tech Policy Exhibition and Reception to be Held on Capitol Hill

Sedari Signs With Dot Moscow Bidders

.ORG, The Public Interest Registry Welcomes Nancy Gofus As Chief Operating Officer

Minds+Machines Works with .bayern

The New Domain For Japan, JP.NET, Launches With Exclusive Invitation to Trademark Owners

Being a .PRO When Choosing a Registry Services Partner

Afilias Acquires Registry Services Corporation, .PRO

Thoughts on Applying for a Generic Top-Level Domain

Sedari Launches "Guess the Numbers Game" for New TLD Program

dot Brand Makes Its Debut: Afilias Advises Companies to Act Now for Successful TLD Applications

Facets of gTLD Registry Technical Operations - Registry Services

Technology and Finance Industries to Dominate New gTLD Applications

.CO Internet Selects Sedo to Broker Previously Unreleased .CO Domain Names

Sedari and NCC Launch Programme to Assist New Registry Operators

Afilias Says "No" to SOPA

.CO Internet Recognized as World Finance 100 Business Leader

2011: A Year in Review, from the Yes2DotAfrica Campaign

Hot Topics

Verisign

Security

Sponsored by
Verisign
Afilias

DNSSEC

Sponsored by
Afilias
Minds + Machines

Top-Level Domains

Sponsored by
Minds + Machines
dotMobi

Mobile

Sponsored by
dotMobi
Neustar UltraDNS

DNS

Sponsored by
Neustar UltraDNS