Is this action justified? - Domainsite.com

[OttoYiu]

Hi NP'ers, long time no post! But I've been lurking the forums...

Anyways, I own many free and paid hosting companies, which domains are all registered at Domainsite.com.

Well, today, I tried to login to my DomainSite account to add a nameserver... to find out that the account was blocked.

I've contacted them and this is what they replied me with:

Hello, Thank you for contacting us. The account was blocked as one of the domains: oxyrack.com was involved in a phishing scam. The domain has been removed from your account and access blocked. Let us know if you have further questions.

Regards,
NameHere(taken out)
Domainsite.com
[email protected]

NO emails about this at all? Just a block?

I have 10+ domains with them, all associated with my business operations. So here's what I replied them with:

Hi,

We run multiple free and paid web hosting operations; the domain in question is a free hosting site; just like Geocities, Google Pages, Tripod. One of the user abused our service and used our domain for part of the phishing scam. We have a 24/7 abuse team that removes phishing accounts accordingly off our servers as soon as we get notifications about it - which we of course, act upon. Now, I'm being held hostage for all my domains which we use to run our businesses. How would I go to re-activating the account so that we can access to our domains at least transfer them to another registrar that would actually be happy to work with us?

This block is unjustified for, as NO SUCH notifications about this block was sent to us. Not even an abuse email!

Looking for a reply,
Otto

Can anyone domainer give any advice? Are they legal to take away all any of my domain names whatsoever?

I had my domains at Enom a while back, and they personally contacted our abuse team over the phone/email telling us about an abuse incident. Maybe because they know we run a medium size web hosting business, that may in some time encounter these problems.

Let me know your opinions,
Otto

 

[Dave_Z]

Can anyone domainer give any advice? Are they legal to take away all any of my domain names whatsoever?

Well, try to work with DomainSite in a civil manner (tall order, I know). And it's
debatable whether what they did is legal or not, but your contract with them
can give you a few ideas.

Unfortunately there's no consistency on how phishing cases should be handled
uniformly, depending on each case's severity. Some will notify, others won't.

Hope it works out.

 

[OttoYiu]

Well, their actions go against their own TOS:

Safe Harbor Provisions
Spot Domain LLC DBA domainsie.com, as an online service provider, an Internet registrar, adhere to Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and all other US and International laws. You, who ever is reading this, including our clients, and any potentially aggrieved third parties, should understand that we are providing these services through an automated computer process. We do not and could not possibly review all registrations. As such, our clients must adhere to the notification and disabling process listed herein and forever agree to indemnify [US] from any damages caused by this notification and disabling process and any other damages which derive from your bad acts or the actions of a third party whether their actions are right or wrong as a result of your acts.

The disabling notification process:
If a third party notifies us in writing that you, our client has acted in a fashion which they believe violates their legal rights or if we are notified by the authorities (a governmental agency) that you have violated its legal rights or done a criminal act as a direct result of your registration or use of a domain name, we will:

1. Freeze the DNS of that domain
2. Forward to you a copy of the written complaint from third party or authority to you.
3. You will have twenty (20) days to respond to the allegation.
4. If you respond to the allegation with a denial we will reinstate your control over the domain
5. If you do not respond we will take no action for 6o days, send you a certified letter with a copy of the notification and our notification that we will completely disable your domain if you do not respond within 60 days.
6. If the third party or legal authority takes legal action against you we will continue to keep the DNS frozen until told to do otherwise through a court order.

Third parties and legal authorities: If you wish to complain about one of our client's use of a particular domain you must, in writing, make specific legal allegations and forward said allegation to us both via email at [email protected] and via certified return receipt letter to: Spot Domain LLC dba Domainsite.com, attn. Legal, 125 Rampart way suite 300, Denver CO 80230.

We hereby state that we have no knowledge of any wrongdoing and are not receiving any financial benefit beyond our normal fees for the registration of any particular domain.

 

[Dave_Z]

Then you know what to do, Otto. Good luck.

 

[weblord]

it has to do with your hosting provider and work with your hosting provider if they/you can trace the phisher's ip address and where did it host the phishing site itself give this to domainsite.com with screenshots and other proofs and advise domainsite.com that you don't participate in these things and have terminated and blocked that particular ip and all you want back are your other domains not used as a phishing site, it could work.

 

[Mark]

I don't know if it's justified from the Registrars POV or not ... But we all know the problems that Phishing has and can cause.

Someone got access to my Ex-Host's servers last year (Above my access) and implanted some Phishing pages within my own sites :o - After several Strong emails and calls to me from a few Banks etc ... I pulled the plug on the whole Hosting plan. I even lost a few sites over it where I hadn't backed up everything as well as I should have - But there are no real complaints from my end ... Phishing sucks overall.

Hope all works out for you Zest

 

[OttoYiu]

The hosting provider: is my self. I have access to all my servers, and an abuse team (24/7) that removes accounts as soon as we get notification.

Domainsite, even though the site was removed 2 minutes after notification from Ebay directly to our abuse team, suspended us from our account. I don't even know why Domainsite had to react. Maybe they didn't check that the site no longer exists already. They did not follow their TOS and notify us for their actions, which is a big no-no.

Also, I've contacted ICANN and Moniker about this. Hopefully, they can help resolve this. No support since 2 days ago; ignoring all my emails. No one picks up the phone either.

 

[weblord]

maybe they're trying to become another gd.
as i've said these phishing pages are in your hosting account if you're the provider and you terminated the abusive pages, then you're clear :imho: the domain has nothing to do with it.

icann needs to step in, pls. be reminded im not a legal person.

Domainsite, even though the site was removed 2 minutes after notification from Ebay directly to our abuse team, suspended us from our account. I don't even know why Domainsite had to react.

 

[OttoYiu]

Just an update: I finally got access to my domains except the one that violated the rules. I'm going to see if they're going to give me notification, so I can at least obtain back my domain name.

 

[Dave_Z]

Just an update: I finally got access to my domains except the one that violated the rules.

That's good progress. Just a heads up that they might ask you to sign a form
"promising" you won't use the domain name for phishing, as I have seen other
registrars doing that.

If I understood that portion you quoted here, that specifically handles DMCA
complaints, not phishing. It's debatable, but that can only be answered in a
court of competent jurisdiction.

OTOH, it doesn't necessarily have to lead to that if DomainSite will work with
you. They might make an exception if you're somehow able to "prove" to them
you proactively deal with phishing as well.

 

[flamewalker]

Just a clarification, what you posted is part of the DMCA... aka copyright infringement takedown procedure for web hosts. Not Phishing...