[To: council[at]gnso.icann.org; liaison6c[at]gnso.icann.org] [To: ga[at]gnso.icann.org; announce[at]gnso.icann.org] [To: regional-liaisons[at]icann.org] http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-25nov08-en.htm 281,000 Domains to be Transferred from EstDomains to Directi 25 November 2008 An estimated 281,000 domain names held by EstDomains will be transferred to ICANN-accredited registrar Directi Internet Solutions following the termination of EstDomains' registrar accreditation yesterday. Customers of EstDomains will be contacted directly by Directi and receive notice of the transfer plus instructions for continued management of their names. There will be no cost to the registrants for this transfer. EstDomains was informed on 28 October 2008 that ICANN was terminating the company's accreditation due to its president's conviction for credit card fraud, money laundering and document forgery. ICANN stayed that termination following correspondence with EstDomains. However, after further investigation, ICANN decided to go ahead with the termination, effective yesterday, 24 November 2008. In accordance with the De-Accredited Registrar Transition Procedure, ICANN put out a request for statements of interest from registrars interested in receiving a bulk transfer of the names formerly managed by EstDomains. As part of that procedure, EstDomains is permitted to designate a gaining registrar. It chose to use that option and identified ICANN-accredited registrar Directi. ICANN reviewed that request and approved it. Registrants with names registered through EstDomains should contact Directi for customer service. Directi has set up a specific webpage to deal with the transfer, available at: http://directi.com/estbulktransfer. Also below are answers to some common questions regarding the bulk transfer. Related links: Contact information on the transfer from Directi: http://directi.com/estbulktransfer ICANN decision to continue with termination of EstDomains (12 Nov): http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-12nov08-en.htm ICANN decision to stay termination following correspondence with EstDomains (29 Oct): http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-29oct08-en.htm ICANN notice of termination of EstDomains (28 Oct): http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-28oct08-en.htm De-Accredited Registrar Transition Procedure: http://www.icann.org/en/processes/registrars/de-accredited-registrar-transit... Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy: http://www.icann.org/en/transfers/policy-12jul04.htm Q&A Q. Why did ICANN authorize the bulk transfer? A. EstDomains' Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) was terminated by ICANN due to RAA compliance issues. As a result, EstDomains is no longer permitted to register or manage gTLD registrations. In order to protect the customers of EstDomains, ICANN initiated that De-Accredited Registrar Transition Procedure and determined that the bulk transfer would promote the community interest. Q. Will Directi attempt to contact the affected registrants? What should current/former EstDomains customers do? A. Former customers of EstDomains should receive a notice of the transfer and instructions for continued management of their names from Directi. Affected customers who do not receive notices from Directi should contact Directi directly, using the control panel provided at http://directi.com/estbulktransfer. Q. Do registrants have to pay a fee for the bulk transfer? A. No, there is no cost to registrants for the bulk transfer. Unlike a normal inter-registrar transfer, the registration terms will not be extended by a year. Accordingly, it is important to contact Directi if your registration will expire soon in order to maintain your registration. Q. When will the transfer begin? A. Today. ICANN has acted as soon as possible after the termination date and after all the transition procedures have been followed. Q. When will the bulk transfer take place? A. The affected registries have already begun taking steps to effectuate the bulk transfer. The process is expected to be complete by 1 December 2008. Q. How will the domain registrant data be handled? A. EstDomains will provide the full registrant details to Directi. In the event there are any issues with the data, ICANN has a full backup of the data through its data escrow system. Q. What if former EstDomains customers want to use a different registrar? A. Registrants will continue to be able to transfer their registrations to other registrars under the Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (see http://www.icann.org/en/transfers/). Note that Directi may deny transfers for the first 60 days following the bulk transfer, at Directi's discretion. This 60-day period is permissible under the Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy, and is intended to help protect registrants. Names that will expire during the first 60 days following the transfer to Directi should be renewed by the registrant by contacting Directi using the control panel provided at http://directi.com/estbulktransfer. Q. How will EstDomains customers know if an email message purportedly from Directi is legitimate? A. For general advice about avoiding phishing email messages, you may wish to refer to the materials prepared by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (see http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html). If you believe a message purportedly from Directi is not legitimate, you should navigate to their web page directly, at http://directi.com/estbulktransfer. This file last modified 25-Nov-2008 Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org