Domain Name News

Posted: 30 Oct 2008 03:33 PM CDT

ICANN, the entity responsible for overseeing the Internet’s domain name system, has revoked EstDomains.com’s right to process new domain names because of the CEO’s recent cyber crime convictions in Estonia.

Two months ago, Brian Krebs of WashingtonPost.com published a translated report showing that Vladimir Tsastsin, the CEO of EstDomains, was convicted of credit card fraud, document forgery, and other cyber crime charges in February of this year. This report was a key factor - along with other recent revelations about the company’s ways - that led to the de-accreditation of EstDomains.

In a letter to Mr. Tsastsin of EstDomains (.pdf), ICANN explains their decision:

“Be advised that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Registrar Accredditation Agreement (RAA) for EstDomains, Inc. (Customer No. 919, IANA No. 832) is terminated. Consistent with subsection 5.3.3 of the RAA, this termination is based on your status as President of EstDomains and your credit card fraud, money laundering and document forgery conviction. This termination shall be effective within fifteen calendar days from the date of this letter, on 12 November 2008.”

ICANN also said that the 281,000 or so domain names under EstDomain’s control could be transfered to an ICANN-accredited registrar on or before November 6, 2008. However, it seems unlikely that anybody would accept their domains with EstDomains many ties to spam emails, malware downloads, and other criminal domains.

[via WashingtonPost]

Update: EstDomains is appealing the conviction saying Tsastsin resigned from his position in June, thus making ICANN’s reason for termination invalid. Also, Tsastsin is appealing his convictions of fraud, money laundering, and document forgery. EstDomains will retain its accrediated status until further review. [via Domain Name Wire]

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KillerStartups.com Acquires Startups.com

Posted: 30 Oct 2008 02:03 PM CDT

KillerStartups.com, a premier Internet startup blog which receives over 1.5M visitors per month, has purchased Startups.com and plans to use the site as a hub for startup-related websites offering quality content and services.

In 1998 Startups.com, founded by Donna Jensen-Madier, was a venture-backed accelerator which would partner with other startup companies to help them get started. Their services included real estate planning, interior design, technology infrastructure, telecommunications, legal and accounting, payroll, benefits and staffing, insurance, marketing, event launches, and more! Some of their clients included Google, Epinions, and GuruNet (now Answers.com). The company eventually faded and went out of business in 2002 due to the dot-com bust.

Thankfully, Jensen-Madier held on to the domain name knowing it could be used for a great business opportunity in the future. By selling the Startups.com domain name to KillerStartups, she will also serve on the advisory board of the Startups.com Network.

KillerStartups has received angel funding from Matias de Tezanos. De Tezanos is a domain developer from Guatemala who has built a remarkable domain empire from scratch. His portfolio of internet startups includes ClickDiario.com, HealthCare.com, and Hoteles.com. DN Journal had a great feature story on de Tezanos a few years ago.

Startups.com Network plans to launch several startup-related sites by the end of 2008 and is actively seeking more sites to acquire. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

[via TheDomains]

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Network Solutions Proactive in Fighting Recent Phishing Attack

Posted: 30 Oct 2008 01:52 PM CDT

Emails from NetworkSolutions to their client base reveal that Network Solutions is taking measures to alert and keep customers informed on the recent NSI phishing scam. It appears as well that NSI is taking necessary defensive measures to combat any unauthorized access to customer domain names resulting from the phishing attempts.

The first email sent out informed customers to be aware of the phishing attempt :

Customers who have registered domain names through Network Solutions, as well as several other domain name providers are currently a target of a large scale phishing scam. A fraudster is sending e-mails to customers asking them to log in to renew or edit their domain name registration, and providing a link to a fraudulent site designed to look like networksolutions.com and to capture customer username and password information, or other private information. If you receive a message asking you to log in to your account, we recommend that you type www.networksolutions.com directly into your browser.

In a follow-up email NSI account reps let customers know that they are filtering out access and working to monitor customer log-in attempts.

1. We have put in place additional email filtering to block this traffic.
2. We have been and continue to very closely monitor and perform customer login analysis, to assist in determining if a customer account is suspect for nefarious logins/activity (for those unfortunate customers who trusted this phony email and followed the link to login).
3. Storefront and email messaging is being prepared to notify our customer base of the email phishing activity.

We advise any Customers who did follow these phony links to our Account Manager to immediately update their user id and password.

We want you to know that we are taking every possible measure to protect our Customers from this attack and mitigate its impact. We are working very closely with the Registries as well as ISPs to detect any new domains from which these attacks are coming and shut them down.

It’s good to see NSI working to tighten up security and keep customers informed of issues like this.

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Poker Rooms Blocking Access From 13 States

Posted: 30 Oct 2008 01:41 PM CDT

Poker website DoylesRoom.com released a statement to customers today (PDF) informing them that the site would begin blocking access from several States starting October 30th. Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, Washington and of course Kentucky were listed as the States that whose IP addresses would be blocked from accessing the poker client from DoylesRoom.com

According to a previous article about Doyles the site was shut-down following the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. They relaunched later using a new software ran by Microgaming Networks. Microgaming’s site confirms in a press release that Doyle’s began using their services in 2007. It is likely that all sites that use Microgaming software will also begin blocking access from these States. A cached page on onlinepoker.org shows that Eurolinx Poker has also made this announcement.

The release follows on the heels of the Kentucky domain name hearings. DoylesRoom.com was one of the domain names that was listed in the 141 domains that were ordered to be seized by Kentucky. During the hearings, an argument was presented that these sites could begin blocking access from specific IP addresses to prevent access from users in Kentucky and other states. Judge Thomas Wingate ordered that the domain seizure be upheld unless representatives from these sites could demonstrate access from Kentucky residents was being prohibited. By adding Kentucky and 12 additional states to the list of banned IPs, it appears that Microgaming is playing it as safe as possible.

According to PokerPages, yesterday Merge Poker Network became one of the first poker providers to begin blocking access from Kentucky.

Thanks to a DNN.com reader for tipping us off on these developments.

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