Sports site suspended because someone didn’t click on a confirmation email.
It’s not exactly Amazon.com, but a website belonging to a large company has been suspended thanks to a whois verification snafu.
Fixtures365.com, a sports betting site, has been suspended because the owner did not respond to a verification email.
As of January 1, domain name registrars operating under the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement must suspend sites when they cannot verify the registrant’s contact details. Most registrars send a confirmation email to customers. Customers then have to click a link in the email or take some other type of action to confirm receipt.
While Fixtures365.com might not be a household name to many people, its ownership chain goes up to media company British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB).
It was only a matter of time before an operating site was going to be ensnared by this provision of the 2013 RAA.
Here’s what you see right now if you visit Fixtures365.com (update: they apparently “clicked the link,” as the site is now back up):
(thanks Michele)
thelegendaryjp says
Silly.
ChuckWagen says
More like a travesty. Not unlike most of ICANN’s other recent shenanigans.
John Berryhill says
What would be interesting to know is whether successive verification emails invalidate the previous ones. Since the page has a “submit” button to re-send the verification email, and any visitor can hit it, then I would imagine that inbox, if active, is stacking up quite a few of them.
Ms Domainer says
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I had a typo email address on a few of mine.
Fortunately, because I was made aware of this change, I went through my domain panel and checked for Email Verification messages and fixed them.
I might not have discovered this if not for RAA.
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Abdu says
7:25 PM EST and the site is back up.
thelegendaryjp says
It appears not every rar is doing this, confirm or we suspend action.
My Moniker whois verifications look the same as they have for several years, no hint of suspensions. A simple that time of the year type message, please confirm whois info is up to date, have a nice day.
Richard Funden says
It only applies to registrars under the 2013 RAA. Moniker is not, for now…
Andrew Allemann says
They can’t hold out much longer. They also can’t offer new TLDs until they sign the new RAA.
ChuckWagen says
BigRock appears to have joined the ranks (maybe someone can confirm this) though I forget who owns them now. Are there now more than ~20 registrars that have signed on?
thelegendaryjp says
Thanks for the heads up, didn’t know this.
Zaki Ahmed Siddiqui says
What if someone have 1K 10k 100K names do they need to respond to thousands of email. Is this not account based ? I guess if you have account with 100 names you get this verification only once.
AbdulBasit Makrani says
I certainly thinks that way too because so far I have received just 1 email of verification from my registrar. No more emails after that.
Correct me if I am wrong…
Andrew Allemann says
Correct, just one verification. Unless, of course, you use different emails/names within that account.
AbdulBasit Makrani says
Thanks for confirming.
thelegendaryjp says
Andrew since you seem well informed, let me ask you.
If you have 100 or 1000’s of names at a rar with the same contact info and you receive one of these verifications based on the new RAA policy and do NOT verify….do you get your entire account suspended or just the domain name the email was sent for? I suspect just the one domain but curious.
Andrew Allemann says
I wish I could answer definitively. But registrars I talked to are interpreting the rules differently.
If you don’t change your domains that were in place prior to this month that are at the same registrar, I don’t think the registrar is mandated to confirm your existing info on the domains. That said, one of my registrars has already done so.
Some registrar will suspend domains automatically. Others will revert to a manual verification process. So it’s possible your registrar will go the extra mile and not automatically suspend your domains.
thelegendaryjp says
Thank you, kind of scary, ow can I take a non internet vacation now lol
ChuckWagen says
Can someone answer this puzzle? I just found a domain, registered today, with the Admin email (ALL contact emails, in fact) using a domain that is unregistered. How could this registration be verified? The domain is registered at Register.com but I’m unable to give the specific domain name. Very odd IMO.