OnlineNic's real address
Cybersquatting registrar OnlineNic has gone out of its way to hide its primary business address. On ICANN's list of accredited registrars it only posts this info: Carrie Arden Tel: 510-769-8492 Google's residential phonebook shows this phone number registered to: Rex Liu 2251 Mosley Ave,Alameda, CA 94501 Rex is cited as an onlinenic technical contact here: http://www.ratite.com/whois/whois.cgi?domain=registrar+ONLINENIC. Hint: note the large number of Xiamen, China phone numbers Meanwhile, OnlineNic's support page provides a mailing address at 351 Embarcadero E. Oakland, CA 94606 Unfortunately, their office isn't there either -- for an investigative report (complete with pictures) see http://dotsnews.com/domain-name-news/184 So where is their primary place of business? See the link below: http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/pro1/pdf/rop_exhibit_a5.pdf
pretty easy system to game -- has ICANN done anything about this? How can you be an accredited registrar and not list a legitimate physical address as your primary place of doing business? ________________________________________ From: na-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [na-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Danny Younger [dannyyounger@yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 12:27 PM To: na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org Cc: ga@gnso.icann.org Subject: [NA-Discuss] OnlineNic's real address Cybersquatting registrar OnlineNic has gone out of its way to hide its primary business address. On ICANN's list of accredited registrars it only posts this info: Carrie Arden Tel: 510-769-8492 Google's residential phonebook shows this phone number registered to: Rex Liu 2251 Mosley Ave,Alameda, CA 94501 Rex is cited as an onlinenic technical contact here: http://www.ratite.com/whois/whois.cgi?domain=registrar+ONLINENIC. Hint: note the large number of Xiamen, China phone numbers Meanwhile, OnlineNic's support page provides a mailing address at 351 Embarcadero E. Oakland, CA 94606 Unfortunately, their office isn't there either -- for an investigative report (complete with pictures) see http://dotsnews.com/domain-name-news/184 So where is their primary place of business? See the link below: http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/pro1/pdf/rop_exhibit_a5.pdf ------ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss_atlarge-lists.ica... Visit the NARALO online at http://www.naralo.org ------ *** Scanned ** This e-mail message is intended only for the designated recipient(s) named above. The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments may be confidential or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not review, retain, copy, redistribute or use this e-mail or any attachment for any purpose, or disclose all or any part of its contents. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply e-mail and permanently delete this e-mail and any attachments from your computer system.
pretty easy system to game -- has ICANN done anything about this? How can you be an accredited registrar and not list a legitimate physical address as your primary place of doing business?
It is my impression that ICANN's compliance department doesn't consider verification of a registrar's address to be part of its job. Onlinenic has always provided a California address although it's long been common knowledge that they are located in China. Given how big they are, I'm kind of surprised that they don't even appear to bother to pay a small retainer to a US agent to be a credible mail drop. Although they're certainly doing a better job on compliance than they used to (in the sense that something is better than nothing), they haven't yet faced up to the reality that every clause of the RAA and of the registry agreements sets out a commitment that ICANN needs to audit, that regulating the registrars and registries is an integral part of their public interest mission, and that they need to scale up the size and sophistication of their compliance efforts appropriately. I doubt that ICANN wants to act like the FTC, but it's increasingly obvious that they can't avoid it. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor "More Wiener Schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.
participants (3)
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Brendler, Beau -
Danny Younger -
John Levine