RIP .info – and I was just getting optimistic
Published by on July 22nd, 2008 Leave a comment »
In a recent post I mentioned on how the infamous .info domain was gaining a little respectability and rising above the image of the “spammer’s domain”. This week, I am thinking all hope is lost. The .info domain is administered by Afilias. They recently submitted a proposal to ICANN (the global domain registry) to enable them [...]
In a recent post I mentioned on how the infamous .info domain was gaining a little respectability and rising above the image of the “spammer’s domain”. This week, I am thinking all hope is lost.
The .info domain is administered by Afilias. They recently submitted a proposal to ICANN (the global domain registry) to enable them to shut down an abusive .info domain. On the surface this is perhaps a good thing, potentially scrubbing countless spam an scraper sites from the face of the web.
Pursuant to Section 3.6.5 of the RRA, Afilias reserves the right to deny, cancel or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any domain name(s) on registry lock, hold or similar status,
that it deems necessary, in its discretion;
However, the criteria of what constitutes an “abusive domain” are suitably vague as to offer quite some discomfort to anyone with an existing, mature .info site.
Other abusive behaviors, normally identified by a pattern of material deceit, defined motive, leveraged opportunity and often conducted in a repetitive manner with or without concealment
SEOBook suggests a change in the pricing policy for .info domains, forcing them higher to remove the attraction to spammer webmasters who generate hundreds of domains, and I have to agree. Hit the spammers in their pockets.
The most worrying aspect of this is it could set a precedent for other domains. What if Verisign, the registry provider for .com and .net, had similar powers?
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