PASSING THE SPAM BUCK -Why one report suggests registrars share the blame.
Posted June 17th, 2008
Nobody wants Spam in their inbox. Yet, there it is, making up as much as 80% of people’s email by some estimates. A lot of this ends up being filtered out by anti-spam software, but still you get bogus offers for Viagra, Rolex watches and of course, porn links piling up. There’s a lot of finger-pointing going on as to who is responsible for the onslaught of free “Cialis” offers. First of all, there’s the spammers themselves. Then there’s ICANN, who many feel doesn’t do enough to enforce anti-spam policies. Security holes in operating systems – the list can go on and on. But what might a registrar have to do with any of this?
Enter KnujOn.com. KnujOn is an online project dedicated to fighting email-based threats to e-commerce and the internet in general. They recently submitted a report documenting the top ten registrars supporting the highest levels of domain names used by known spammers. This isn’t to say that KnujOn wants us to believe that these registrars engage in malicious practices. “In several cases, what we have observed is poor practices,” says Garth Bruen, KnujOn’s creator. With backgrounds in both software and criminal justice, Bruen is passionate in his war against spam. He believes that some registrars simply don’t grasp the scope of intellectual property abuse. “We’re not automatically assuming that the entire registrar community is corrupt and out there is helping the spammers,” but he thinks “some of their procedures may be allowing it to take place and persist.”
The registrars beg to differ. One of the biggest and most reputable names on KnujOn’s list was Moniker.com. Via an email interview, Mason Cole of Moniker states he doesn’t think the report was fair or accurate. “If Moniker learns of illegal or outright disreputable activity via a domain name under its sponsorship, the company is prepared to assist law enforcement or take whatever action is appropriate to help put a stop to it.” Indeed, Moniker has a clear stated policy in their registration agreement which prohibits “the uploading, posting or other transmittal of any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” or any other form of solicitation.”
But Garth Bruen thinks the registrars could do more. “[Registrars] are not verifying the information registrants put into different forms.” This alone could make a huge difference, he argues. He’s also observed registrars, “not following up quickly when certain complaints are issued, not really engaging the consumer…” and “dismissing [their] concerns about fraud on the internet”. However, he does not lay blame on registrars alone. “ICANN shares some of the blame, he states. “They do have a responsibility/contractual obligation to do certain duties.” And that responsibility reaches farther, in his view, to ISP’s, and even companies victimized by online fraud “for not protecting their brands in an aggressive way.” He also strongly feels government agencies, too should do more—the FBI, the FDA—anybody responsible for overseeing any type of commerce.
So while the new report, The 10 Worst Registrars In terms of Spam Advertised Junk Product Sites (an ignoble title to be sure), Bruen doesn’t want us to be too distracted with just this one component of the overall problem. He feels this study should illuminate the fact that there’s a problem that needs attention. “I love the internet, I want to see it continue, I want to see it successful.” And he wants to be part of the solution. “I want to see it done in an intelligent way, because a lot of mistakes have been made in the past 10 years and before [the internet] doubles or triples in size—which is going to happen very quickly—we’ve got to fix this stuff.”
[All trademarks used are property of their respective owners.]
Tags: Knujon, Moniker, Spam
Posted in Uncategorized by Miguel Cima
