Registrar failing to escrow whois information.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has sent a breach notice (pdf) to Cheapies.com, threatening to de-accredit the domain name registrar.
Cheapies, which bills itself as “domain registrations for the cost conscious”, apparently hasn’t been escrowing its whois information.
ICANN has communicated with the company about the escrow problem since January of this year, with the registrar finally telling ICANN that it was recovering from a hardware failure. Cheapies then apparently tried to make escrow deposits but continued to face challenges, blaming manual processes due to the hardware failure.
Cheapies has 15 working days from October 18 to fix the problem or ICANN may proceed to terminate its accreditation.
The registrar has about 14,000 domain names under management according to webhosting.info.
John Berryhill says
To fully appreciate this, you have to take a look at 599 Yonge St. in Toronto on Google Streetview.
Russ says
Using an out-of-business UPS store as their registrar’s mailing address probably helps keep the legal bills down. Probably wards off the stray ICANN invoice as well.
The address on their site is 102A-1075 Bay Street, Suite 111, Toronto. It also has a UPS store, but its still in business. 🙂