Yesterday, I blogged that the U.K.’s Serious Organised Crime Agency contacted Go Daddy to shut down RnBXclusive.com. Go Daddy has since complied, and the domain name shows SOCA’s web page. Just a moment ago, I read of yet another shut down. This time, Go Daddy shut down popular site JotForm. Ars Technica has more:   But that didn’t spare the site from having its entire business shuttered without warning yesterday as the site’s domain name was shut down at the request of the US Secret Service. JotForm’s domain name registrar, GoDaddy, redirected the site’s nameservers to NS1.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM—and with that, JotForm.com became unreachable and the site’s two million user-created forms all broke.   As of this writing, JotForm.com is still not resolving. But it has since transferred to Tucows/Hover.com. If what Ars Technica further reported is true:   In Congressional testimony last year, the company’s general counsel Christine Jones noted that “Our staff routinely works with courts and law enforcement from the local to international level to shut down domain names and websites through which infringers and counterfeiters operate. Any time we are notified by a court or a federal or state prosecutor that there is criminally infringing material on our [...]

Since last year, we’ve been getting news of .com domain names shut down and/or seized by U.S. law enforcement groups such as their Department of Justice (DoJ) and their Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Either agency reported they’ve secured warrants of seizure, then serve it either on the registrar or the VeriSign COM/Net Registry based in California (their headquarters) or Virginia (their actual registry service). Just a moment ago, I read of what I think is an unusual case. As the title indicated, a U.K. law enforcement group actually got a .com domain name shut down this time. BBC News has more:   Music site RnBXclusive.com has been shut down by the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). A takedown notice warned visitors who have used the site to download music they could face up to 10 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine. … “Much of the music offered for download by the RnBXclusive.com website was illegally obtained from artists, leading the industry to attribute losses of approximately £15m per year to the site’s activity.”   If you were to visit the said domain name, RnBXclusive.com, you’ll get this:     Just to shed a little light, I checked the [...]

Lately I’ve been seeing people “asking” an interesting question. Namely, why not to change their domain name’s contacts before transferring registrars. Anyone can actually do that almost anytime. Except if the process of changing domain registrars has already begun, of course. Let’s say you already started the transfer with your new registrar. You follow their online process, give your payment details, and click something like Submit. Once that’s done, that’s when the process of transferring your domain name from registrar A to B begins. That’s when you can’t make any kind of change so as not to “disrupt” the flow. However, there is one possible (and quite restrictive) scenario where it might not be a good idea to make that change before transferring. To be exact, few registrars might actually prevent you from moving out if you do that! So far, I’ve only found two domain registrars doing that. The ones in question are Go Daddy and Network Solutions. I blogged before that Go Daddy will impose their own 60-day limit if you changed the registrant name for any reason whatsoever. That’s covered in their legal prints. I also wrote a possible method how to get around Go Daddy’s 60-day [...]

Last week, it was reported online that domain registrar Moniker and backorder company SnapNames were acquired by KeyDrive S.A. from their original parent company Oversee.net. It’s only a few days ago I posted about it here as well. Perhaps one thing that somewhat…somewhat bothered me was that there wasn’t any notice about this from Moniker. Checking their link under News gave no information on this, and I’ve yet to receive any email about it as well. I figure it was up to Oversee, Moniker, SnapNames and/or KeyDrive to determine out how, when and who will notify their direct users of this whole deal. Of course, it’d be nice if they did so sooner. Just today, though, KeyDrive finally released a statement on the acquisition. They also gave more details on the subject directly from their web site. As reported:   KeyDrive S.A., an internet solutions holding company with subsidiaries providing domain registration, monetization and aftermarket services, announced today that it has acquired the Moniker and SnapNames business units of Oversee.net, a leader in online performance marketing. Moniker® and SnapNames® offer businesses and individuals an array of services for domain name registration, acquisition, brokerage and sales. Moniker introduced the live domain [...]

I’m sorry for the downtime, everyone. Let’s just say it was difficult on my part to get things fixed promptly, but am nonetheless thankful things are (somewhat) back to normal. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, as you noticed. But to get things back on track, I got two news bits to state here. For today February 6, 2012, I found out that domain registrar Moniker was acquired by KeyDrive from Oversee.net. KeyDrive also got leading backorder company SnapNames from them. Domain Name Wire has more:   KeyDrive, which owns domain name registrar Key-Systems as well as NameDrive, has acquired SnapNames and Moniker from Oversee.net. Combined, KeyDrive says it is now the sixth largest ICANN accredited registrar.   As Domain Name Wire also indicated, Oversee.net once bought Moniker for about $24 million in early 2008. With the issues Oversee subsequently handled involving both SnapNames and Moniker, it was speculated that they likely sold them off at a sizable loss to their original purchase. Next up, U.S. authorities have seized another set of domain names as well as actually arrested someone. This was for unauthorized streaming of sports shows like the Super Bowl. I first got wound of [...]

Recently I was going to write about popular hosting provider (and turns out domain registrar also) DreamHost last week. I held off as I wanted to check some other things. Then it turned out DreamHost experienced another (and on-going as of this post) problem. All within a span of about two weeks. (ouch) From what I’ve been able to gather so far, it seems DreamHost’s problems began around January 18-19, 2012. Users reported their web sites hosted by DreamHost being down. DreamHost CEO Simon Anderson made an announcement in their own company blog dated January 21. I’m quoting portions I think are especially important:   Early yesterday, one of DreamHost’s database servers was illegally accessed using an exploit that was not previously known or prevented by our layered security systems in place. Our intrusion detection systems alerted our Security team to the potential hack, and we rapidly identified the means of illegal access and blocked it.   So, it turned out their database servers were compromised to a point. I emphasize to a point because of this:   It’s important to note that NO CUSTOMER BILLING INFORMATION OR OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION WAS ACCESSED.   Of course, that’s taking their word [...]

Okay, now this is official. It’s been reported online January 20, 2012 that SOPA’s sponsor, Rep. Lamar Smith, has postponed the bill. For all intents and purposes, SOPA is stopped. For now. Note: I said for now. It can, of course, be “resurrected” some time in the future. CNet has more:   The Stop Online Piracy Act has officially been put on hold. U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) announced today that the House Judiciary Committee, which he heads, “will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution.” Smith added that he has taken critics’ concerns “seriously.”   Its Senate counterpart, Protect-IP, has similarly been delayed:   The decision to wave the white flag on SOPA comes just hours after U.S. Senate leaders announced they had postponed their vote on the Protect IP Act (PIPA) scheduled for Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that the recent criticism on both SOPA and PIPA forced his hand, but Reid did acknowledge that he hopes to reach an agreement with the legislation’s foes “in the coming weeks.”   For me comes the next challenge: working with others involved to find some degree of agreement, much more consensus, [...]

I just read that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill has been stopped and shelved. I hope I understood that right. SOPA and its senate counterpart Protect-IP were very controversial bills. But it so happened that SOPA got more publicity, probably because it was easier to remember. The Hill has more:   House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said early Saturday morning that Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) promised him the House will not vote on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) unless there is consensus on the bill. … The announcement comes just hours after Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), SOPA’s sponsor, made a major concession to the bill’s critics by agreeing to drop a controversial provision that would have required Internet service providers to block infringing websites. … He had scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday to examine the potential consequences of the bill’s site-blocking provision, but he announced in his statement Saturday that he would cancel the hearing in light of Smith’s decision to drop the provision.   As some people commented in there, though, it’s expected that SOPA (or some other variation) will “return” at some point. But for the time being, we can [...]

Recently a thought hit me. Twitter and Facebook are two of the most popular social media sites on Earth. Many Twitter and Facebook users even utilize them to air their consumer complaints. There are enough independent studies around trying to show their value and importance on people “voicing” out their problems through them. I notice that many complaints are posted in Twitter and/or Facebook after their regular communication methods didn’t seemingly produce desired or fruitful results. Some are resolved after, others…not much. Still, if companies like Amazon or Delta Airlines are active in either one, why not a domain registrar? So off I went checking out which domain registrar is in Twitter and Facebook. I’ve compiled as many as I can currently find. For now, I’ve listed below the most commonly used and online-commented registrars. As in those I’ve observed lots of people to mention online if/when especially asked about. So if you tried to contact your domain registrar through email, sending a ticket or using their phone support yet didn’t pan out, try these out: Registrar Facebook Twitter 1and1 / 1&1 facebook.com/1and1 @1and1, @1and1_4U Blacknight Solutions facebook.com/Blacknight @Blacknight Dotster facebook.com/Dotster @Dotster DreamHost facebook.com/DreamHost @DreamHost, @DreamHostCare Dynadot facebook.com/Dynadot @Dynadot eNom [...]

I know this is late. I purposefully didn’t write about this until now because I wanted to see how things go after some time. It’s been weeks ever since domain registrar Go Daddy was boycotted. This happened due to their originally supporting SOPA. As a recap for those who just came in, SOPA is an acronym for Stop Online Piracy Act. It’s a bill being debated in U.S. Congress mainly aiming to shut down domain names for “illegally” sharing or selling copyrighted or counterfeit material. Its proponents especially aim to target non-U.S. based domain owners. Because it’s practically difficult to impossible to go after them, they figure taking down their domain names is the next best thing. Much has been discussed about it. As it turns out, many actually objected to it. (including me…) It was later mentioned online that Go Daddy was among SOPA’s list of supporters. Their lawyer, Christine Jones, was among those who testified and later helped craft the bill in its current form. Eventually, someone at Reddit expressed outrage over that and “suggested” a boycott. Namely, that people transfer their domain names away from Go Daddy to let them know their sentiment. Sure enough, many people [...]