Australia's domain name regulator appears to have reversed a decision by Bottle Domains to switch its customers to another business with which the troubled domain reseller appears to be associated.
Australia's domain name regulator appears to have reversed a decision by Bottle Domains to switch its customers to another business with which the troubled domain reseller appears to be associated.
.au Domain Administration (auDA) chief executive Chris Disspain
recently wrote to some of Bottle's customers, noting that
Australian Style, the company that trades as Bottle Domains, had
transferred their domain registrar without permission.
"You may have recently received an email from Australian Style
Pty Ltd trading as Bottles Domains called 'Update to Bottle Domains
Service Agreement', advising that your domain name was being
transferred to another registrar, known as Bottles Domains Pty Ltd,"
wrote Disspain in one email seen by ZDNet.com.au, noting customers'
passwords were also changed.
auDA reversed the transfers, saying they were against its
policy, and has also changed customers' passwords and locked their
domain names so that they cannot be transferred to other registrars
without their consent.
Bottle Domains has posted a message on its website stating that
it "vigorously disputes auDA's legal capacity to refuse the
transfers" and suggested it would have auDA's actions reversed
again. auDA CEO Chris Disspain was out of the country and not immediately able to respond to a request for comment.
auDA had de-accredited Bottle Domains (which is owned by controversial IT entrepreneur Nicholas Bolton) after it had been notified
in February by the Australian Federal Police that there had been a
security incident affecting Bottle Domains' customers. auDA also
accused Bottle Domains of failing to notify it of a previous
incident or to notify customers that their accounts might have been
compromised. The incident is set to be heard in the Supreme Court
in June, until which time Bottle Domains has been re-accredited.
Caught in the crossfire
Cove Business Technology has called upon the Federal
Government to step in and do something about the dispute.
In a statement issued yesterday, Cove complained that when the dispute started, auDA contacted all
of Bottle Domain's customers including those who belonged to
resellers such as Cove, advising them to move their domain names to
another registrar.
"We are
effectively trapped in the middle of a dispute that we have no part
of, and want no part of. Our customers have had enough of getting
unwarranted emails about disputes that do not involve the company
they deal with, which is us," Cove national sales manager Cheyne
Jonstone said in a statement.
He said the dispute was costing Cove tens of thousands of
dollars in lost revenue and was damaging its brand. Yet there was
no way to escape, according to the sales manager.
We are
effectively trapped in the middle of a dispute that we have no part
of, and want no part of.
Cove executive Cheyne Jonstone
"When we put
together a plan to move all 3000 of our .au domain names away from
Bottle Domains to another registrar, auDA tell us it simply cannot
be done as they do not have the resources to unlock all of our
domain names individually, nor is there a process available for us
to seamlessly transfer them without inconveniencing our customers
once again," Jonstone said.
He said this wasn't the first issue domain registrars had
experienced with auDA — it has been trying unsuccessfully
to become a domain registrar itself since May 2008, but has not met
with success as it claimed auDA had shut the domain registrar accreditation
process.
"We have asked on numerous occasions when we can become
accredited, but have simply been told that it would be coming back
soon. But after this press release, I'd hedge my bets to say that
they won't be allowing us through the process even when it does
become available," Jonstone said.
"Senator Stephen Conroy needs to act now and act quickly. The
government appointed this body to implement policy and regulate the
.au domain name space, but their actions of late demonstrate that
they are failing to do that adequately, or more importantly, the
actions of their CEO Chris Disspain."