auDA locks 20,000 Bottle customers’ domain names
An audacious effort to side-step the industry regulator has seen Nick Bolton’s Australian Style Pty Ltd lose control of some 20,000 customer’s domain names.
Australian Style P/L (trading as Bottle Domains) transferred some 20,000 customers’ domain names to one of Bolton’s other businesses last weekend.
But the move has come horribly unstuck. The domain name industry regulator – Au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA) has reversed the transfers.
But the move has come horribly unstuck. The domain name industry regulator – AuDA Ltd has reversed the transfers.
And for good measure, it has locked all the domain names.
The action means thousands of Australian domain name owners with only one way to transfer their names to a new registrar - by sending an email to auDA.
News of the fiasco emerged earlier this week, when auDA sent emails to Bottle Domains customers explaining the situation.
Bottle has protested, saying it doubts auDA’s legal capacity to refuse the transfers, and hopes to resolve the matter shortly.
But as Bolton didn’t ask his customers for consent either to transfer the domains, or to issue new passwords for them, there doesn’t seem much doubt that Bottle has breached auDA’s rules.
Bolton may yet seek a court-ordered injunction on auDA’s actions.
But in the meantime customers are clearly abandoning Bolton’s ship in droves.
For the customers of Bottle Domains re-seller, Cove, the situation is disastrous.
Cove says it has some 3,000 domain names registered with Bottle.
Cove national sales manager, Cheyne Jonstone, said that the dispute is costing tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue and damaging its brand and reputation.
“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.”
Jonstone called on Senator Conroy to step in, saying that the government appointed auDA.
AuDA, is nevertheless an independent company, created by Australian Internet users some year back. It is neither a government body nor a government appointed body.
For more information go to
www.bottle.com.au
www.auda.org.au/news-archive/auda-12052009/
www.cove.com.au/press_release_130509.pdf
Share this article?
Use these links to share this story with friends via social bookmarking sites.
| 
