RIP .info - and I was just getting optimistic
Published by on July 22nd, 2008
In a recent post I mentioned on how the infamous .info domain was gaining a little respectability and rising above the image of the “spammer’s domain”. This week, I am thinking all hope is lost.
The .info domain is administered by Afilias. They recently submitted a proposal to ICANN (the global domain registry) to enable them to shut down an abusive .info domain. On the surface this is perhaps a good thing, potentially scrubbing countless spam an scraper sites from the face of the web.
Pursuant to Section 3.6.5 of the RRA, Afilias reserves the right to deny, cancel or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any domain name(s) on registry lock, hold or similar status,
that it deems necessary, in its discretion;
However, the criteria of what constitutes an “abusive domain” are suitably vague as to offer quite some discomfort to anyone with an existing, mature .info site.
Other abusive behaviors, normally identified by a pattern of material deceit, defined motive, leveraged opportunity and often conducted in a repetitive manner with or without concealment
SEOBook suggests a change in the pricing policy for .info domains, forcing them higher to remove the attraction to spammer webmasters who generate hundreds of domains, and I have to agree. Hit the spammers in their pockets.
The most worrying aspect of this is it could set a precedent for other domains. What if Verisign, the registry provider for .com and .net, had similar powers?
3 Responses to “RIP .info - and I was just getting optimistic”
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July 22nd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Neil,
Thanks for covering the .INFO abusive use policy that was recently approved by ICANN.
Afilias is setting up anti-abuse policies that will result in quicker and more certain take-downs or mitigation of phishing or mal-ware and/or drive-by sites that use .info domain names.
Our focus is quite clearly on illegal, criminal stuff - things like phishing, malware, drive-by downloads, botnets. Yes, there is some generic language in the policy, but it is bounded by saying that there must be material deceit, etc [which i believe is legalese for fraud, which is illegal all over the world].
I don’t believe just increasing prices will decrease spam. COM, which sells for about $7 has over 5 million domain names (almost the entire size of all .info domains) that are tagged as spam, etc. by McAfee. Raising prices is not the silver bullet it’s been suggested, else domain names would all be much more expensive.
Please also keep in mind that the majority of .info domain names in use are being used for completely legitimate and hihgly useful purposes (sandiego.info, fetchbook.info, webhosting.info, spain.info, iceland.info, etc). To penalize normal domain name owners in an attempt to hit spammers who are likely using stolen credit cards anyway to buy names does not make much sense to me.
Regards,
Ram Mohan
EVP/Afilias
July 24th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Thank you for your comment, Ram.
>> spammers who are likely using stolen credit cards anyway to buy names
hmm… you kinda lost me with that rather broad statement.
I do not believe it is the responsibility of TLD administrators to concern themselves about the use of the domains they make available. This is a backwards step, but who knows, I could be entirely off the mark. Proof will be in the pudding as to whether genuine website builders avoid .info for fear of falling foul of these new powers.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Hi Neil,
Re. the spammer comment - in our research, and in conversations with registrars, we find that many/most spammers (who are also using spam to do phishing) do not use their own credit cards. Instead, they use credit cards that are already stolen. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Our intent is to focus on illegal behavior. It would be counter-productive and economically disastrous if we decided to be some sort of content censoring company. We’ve never done that, and this isn’t the time to start that either.
Our intent is to work hard to make .info less attractive for phishers, malware peddlers, etc. so we get to a safer and more attractive tld destination.
Thanks for your comments on this topic - it made me think a bit more about the rationale behind our actions, and reinforces for me why it’s important to hit phishing and malware hard.
-Ram