Company placed domain status on hold thanks to phishing complaint.
Yesterday Twitter’s t.co link shortener, which it wraps all outgoing links in, went down.
Was the culprit some self-proclaimed anonymous user? Or a DDoS?
Nope. Domain name registrar Melbourne IT has fessed up to causing the problem.
The company, which is the registrar for t.co, admitted to CNET that one of its employees had temporarily taken the t.co domain name offline in response to a phishing complaint.
Yesterday in the process of actioning a phishing complaint, our policy team inadvertently placed the t.co domain on hold. The error was realized and rectified in approximately 40 minutes and t.co links again began working.
Whoops.
Hopefully the registrar will enact protections to prevent this from happening again.
Of course, Melbourne IT has been a proponent of “rapid takedown” provisions like the URS, despite the inevitable “false positives” and lack of due process for registrants.
Perhaps they should reconsider that position.
Pure genius!
t.he(e)
Melbourne IT operates in bad faith regarding domains. They have taken over my domain without any notice to me and they state that there is nothing I can do. I renewed the domain with Lycos who then did not renew it with Melbourne IT. Then Melbourne auctioned off my domain in less than 2 weeks, so they tell me. Their customer service is a joke. I was on hold for 45 minutes and finally hung up. I have been the only owner of this domain for 7 years. Avoid Lycos and Melbourne IT at all costs if you care about your domains.