All, Seems ICANN's review process of non-US registrars has shown some weaknessess and lack of good a proper oversight. Only the "Worst" Chinese registrars?! Hummmm? Anti-spam service Knujon has released reports highlighting how certain registrars in the US and abroad have consistently failed to live up to certain WHOIS-related obligations under ICANN's Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) specifically, the http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/05/most_spam_sites_tied_to_a... requirement that people or company registering domains provide valid contact information. Now the firm is http://www.thestandard.com/Will-ICANN-take-action-against-worst-Chinese-regi... requesting that ICANN shut down the worst alleged offender, Xinnet Bei Gong Da Software. According to Knujon, none of the WHOIS records in a sample of 11,000 alleged spam sites registered through Xinnet and reported by Knujon to ICANN's Whois Data Problem Report System were corrected in a six-month period ending in May 2008 and the Chinese registrar continues to register about 100 spam sites per day. In many cases, http://weblog.infoworld.com/stratdev/archives/XinNet_failuretocomply.pdf says the Knujon document (PDF), Xinnet does not have 'any Whois record data for review while the sites are still active' and the spam sites further promote 'seal abuse' by posting bogus BBB, Verisign, and other trusted industry seals. ICANN says it is investigating. ICANN has just posted a http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-18jun08-en.htm draft revised RAA that is open for public comment until August 4. However, the wording of Section 3.7.8, governing registrars' obligations to check and correct domain owners' contact information, hasn't changed. Regards, Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders strong!) "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" - Abraham Lincoln "Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt "If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B is less than PL." United States v. Carroll Towing (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947] =============================================================== Updated 1/26/04 CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS. div. of Information Network Eng. INEG. INC. ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com My Phone: 214-244-4827