Wikileaks Calls For Global Boycott Against eNom

souls writes "The folks at Wikileaks are calling for a boycott against eNom, Inc., one of the top internet domain registrars, which WikiLeaks claims is involved in systematic domain censoring. On Feb 28th eNom shut down wikileaks.info, one of the many Wikileaks mirrors held by a volunteer as a side-effect of the court proceedings around wikileaks.org. In addition, eNom was the registrar that shut off access to a Spanish travel agent who showed up on a US Treasury watch list. Wikileaks calls for a 'global boycott of eNom and its parent Demand Media, its owners, executives and their affiliated companies, interests and holdings, to make clear such behavior can and will not be tolerated within the boundaries of the Internet and its global community.'"

How About GoDaddy?

[jellie]

GoDaddy is another bad registrar, and has been mentioned on Slashdot many times, including here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org]. I'm assuming Dynadot should also be boycotted.

Re:Howto change a registrar

[JavaRob]

It's not all that complicated. The horror stories you see here and there are the exception, not the rule.

I don't have any domains registered with eNom, so I'm not sure of the specific procedures for them, but the gist of it is:
* Sign in to your current registrar
* Make sure your email address with them is valid (there will be confirmation steps using it!)
* Unlock your domains (many registrars have "locking" features to prevent others from stealing your domains, plus to make it a little trickier for you to leave
* You might as well disable automatic renewals as well (if they have them), just in case
* Go to your new registrar and click through to "transfer" your domain, and pay for it. Normally they'll honor your existing expiration date (even if it's a couple of years away) and add your new years to the end of that.
* Make sure you set up the domain at the new registrar with the correct nameservers for your host, and you won't have any downtime because of the switch.
* The next steps will often take a few days -- new registrar will submit request to old registrar, who will email you for confirmation (and you'll have to click through to provide that)... possibly multiple confirmations... and then the domain will be transferred, and you're done.

Anyone want to provide details for eNom, or add anything I forgot?

I can also mention that most of my domains are currently hosted with GoDaddy -- who I'm not particularly fond of, but they're cheap and haven't screwed me over personally. Suggestions for alternatives are welcome... it's something I haven't researched in a while.

Re:I don't get it

[Aluvus]

The court ordered that wikileaks.ORG be shut off. The Wikileaks people argue that eNom incorrectly interpreted the temporary restraining order to also apply to wikileaks.INFO. Additionally, eNom kept the domain out of commission even after the original temporary restraining order had been dissolved and the wikileaks.org domain had been restored.

Re:Howto change a registrar

[The_DoubleU]

Try https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ [nearlyfreespeech.net]

Re:WikiLeaks, you are idiots

[Sique]

So ... you're boycotting a company which is following the laws of the country it is based in rather than registering your name with a registrar in a country that doesn't have these laws.

Are they really that stupid?

No, Wikileaks is asking to boycott a registrar that overzealously interprets a court order, which orders the shutdown of one domain. Said domain wasn't even registered with the registrar, so the court order wasn't even affecting the registrar.

But instead of just ignoring a paper that didn't matter to them, they shut down a different domain, which wasn't mentioned in the court order at all.

www.gandi.net

[kandresen]

I would clearly recommend www.gandi.net as well. I have been using them for years exactly due to them declaring I am the owner of my domain and in charge of my domain, not them unlike most other registrars. The prices have increased over the last couple of years - they have been charging 12 Euro, which when I started clearly was among the best prices in the marked, but with the current strong Euro, you will be aware of the difference. The are now allowing payment in USD which is only $15/year now (thought the strong Euro would have cased higher dollar price). That said - I have used many registrars and I for one will select Gandi over the rest also for other reasons: I feel they are providing a much better overall experience than the rest. I once tried Godaddy as it was a bit cheaper than Gandi, and it seemed like a good provider... Not that I have ever had a problem such as this with them, but the services of Gandi are worth the difference for me, and Gandi do not spam me, or keep sending as much "renew your information" type messages and so on.

Some of the benefits I am using:

You are the owner of the domain name! : See https://www.gandi.net/contracts [gandi.net] Section 1
Gandi includes DNS in its default service so you can edit directions of domains and sub domains without also paying for hosting!
Gandi allows you without hosting to have 5 mail boxes with 1GB mailbox space - again without paying additional for hosting!
Gandi also allow you to add wildcard mailbox aliasing og 1000 e-mail addresses, and may relay the mail to external mailboxes.

You forgot one (maybe two) parts

[Tolvor]

1 - Get the transfer authorization code (EPP code). At most registrars it is available at the same place you unlock the domain, but it is critical to the transfer.

2 - Some registrars don't let you transfer for 60 days if you update your ownership info on that domain (account holder, email address, whois admin details, legal name change). This is SOP for Godaddy (and probably most others), and to be fair I do see how this can prevent serious abuse. Check before you update, and if you must, call the registrar.

Re:It's not mis-information.

[Kalriath]

I'll give you a more conclusive answer:

http://www.verisign.com/information-services/naming-services/com-net-registry/page_002166.html [verisign.com]

This is the list of all companies which Verisign has on record as being allowed to add directly to the .com and .net registries. Gandi is listed (under the name Gandi SARL) as an accredited registrar.

NoDaddy.com list of good and bad registrars

[Anonymous Coward]

NoDaddy was founded after the seclists debacle. It has a listing of good and bad registrars with comments by satisfied and unsatisfied customers: http://forums.nodaddy.com/index.php?board=3.0 [nodaddy.com]

Something to be aware of: Many registrars have fronts and resellers so you might think you're buying from someone different, but you're not. You *must* read the terms and conditions before choosing one. Be careful of registrars (like eNom) that reserve the right to cancel your domain without reason. For example, some will accept anonymous reports on their webform that you are spamming and lock down you domain and charge you an "unlocking fee" to cover their "investigation". Make sure you choose a registrar that will only shut you down with a court order. Wikileaks was particularly bad because the US judge who ordered them shut down completely stuffed up on freedom of speech: Do you reckon he would have shut down a newspaper over a controversial article? You really need to do your research before picking a registrar. Finding out too late is too late!

Lots of sharks. Be careful out there.