eNom

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eNom
Type private
Founded 1997
Headquarters Redmond, Washington
 United States
Industry domain name registration
Website http://www.enom.com
Alexa rank ~5000
Available in English

eNom, Inc. is a domain name registrar and Web hosting company that also sells other products closely tied to domain names, such as SSL certificates, e-mail services, and Website building software. As of 2007, it was the second largest domain name registrar, managing over 8 million domains.[1]

Contents

Illegal hijacking of Customers' Websites

The company has been criticized for censoring the websites that it manages, including the WikiLeaks.org domain, where it seized the domain name, and then posted cheap, web ads on it. [2] [3] Even a simple retailer of sporting goods has had reported this activity from Enom. [4] [5] [6] Even the mega-conglomerate, First American, has successfully sued Enom over this issue. [7] As reported by TraverseLegal, attorneys and advisors, Enom has hijacked www.yourreview.us, which presently now shows just ads by Enom. [8] Solidhost.com has also published, through a third party news agency, another allegation that their domain was stolen for ads from Enom. [9] [10] In 2004, BB&T Corporation filed a complaint against Enom for stealing their domain name out from under them. The National Arbitration Forum, for UDRP Disputes, has ruled in favor of the domain name owner and against Enom. [11]

Similar websites have registered their domain with Enom, only to find that it is stolen to run ads for Enom. Others include aleong.com, [12] radleybalko.com, [13] MakeUseOf.com, [14] aip.com, [15] and more than fifty domain names owned by Mikel Marcus Elasmo[16]. Furthermore, multiple IP addresses owned by Enom have edited this Wikipedia article multiple times, as demonstrated by the history page of this article, where all critical information of Enom has been removed.

Company history

eNom was founded in 1997 in Redmond, Washington operating as a wholesale business, essentially reselling domains and other services under their own branding. eNom also operates retail site eNomCentral.com.

In May 2006, eNom was one of the original businesses that were acquired to form privately held Demand Media,[17] headquartered in Santa Monica, California.[18] Within Demand Media, eNom continues to operate as a domain name registrar and as the registrar platform for its media properties.

In July 2006, eNom bought out competitor BulkRegister.[19] Prior to its' purchase BulkRegister was a member-supported service where clients were not resellers, but companies large enough to pay an annual membership fee to acquire low registration fees on their domain name registrations, due to the volume they potentially register. With this acquisition, eNom rose to become the second largest domain name registrar.[1] eNom maintains BulkRegister as a separate service.[20]

Accreditations and awards

eNom is an ICANN-accredited[21] registrar and has been a Better Business Bureau (BBB) Accredited Business[22] since 2002. eNom has won the following industry awards from domain research corporation Name Intelligence:[23][24][25]

  • 2002-2008 Best ICANN Reseller Registrar
  • 2005-2007 User’s Choice Award
  • 2005-2007 Outstanding Drop Catcher

eNom was named #292 in Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest growing private companies in 2006.[26]

Resellers

As of March 2008, eNom states that it has over 99,000 resellers, of which over 28,000 are active.[27]

In February 2007, eNom dropped RegisterFly as a reseller citing consumer complaints.[28]

Spam control

Spam, or "junk e-mail," requires infrastructure of which domain names are one component.[29] eNom posts a "zero tolerance spam policy".[30]

One metric of the relationship between domain name registrars and spam is number of domains that are electronically black listed. In February 2008 eNom was listed on URIBL.com, a URI black list, as ranking second in absolute numbers of blocked domains.[29] When the number of black-listed domain names per registrar was compared to the total numbers of domains registered, eNom ranked first in absolute numbers of all blocklisted domains on URIBL.com.[29] When normalized for the total number of domains under management, eNom ranked 18th in percentage of names on the block-list.[29] This however does not distinguish the domain names sold and managed directly by eNom from those sold and managed by its resellers.

Law enforcement

In March 2008, a New York Times story mentions that eNom is known to disable domain names which appear on a US Treasury Department blacklist.[31] It describes eNom’s disabling of a European travel agent’s Web sites advertising travel to Cuba, which appeared on a U.S. Treasury Department list[32] published by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The article’s sources use words varying from “scandal” to “legally required” to describe “how Web sites owned by a British national operating via a Spanish travel agency can be affected by U.S. law”, especially when the operation is as “mysterious” as that of the OFAC list.

Phishing e-mails

Phishers have targeted eNom customers in an attempt to steal account information.[33]

Footnotes and references

  1. ^ a b "2007 ICANN Registrar Statistics". Name Intelligence, Inc.. 2007. http://www.domaintools.com/internet-statistics/registrar-stats-2007.php. Retrieved on 2008-02-25. 
  2. ^ http://wikileaks.org/wiki/WIKILEAKS.INFO_censored_by_eNom_and_Demand_Media
  3. ^ http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/09/025222&from=rss
  4. ^ http://www.circleid.com/posts/20090225_domaining_registrar_defeats_cybersquatting_lawsuit/
  5. ^ http://www.judicialview.com/Court-Cases/Trademark/No-Hat-Trick-for-Hockey-Equipment-Retailer-in-Domain-Name-Suit/Anti-Cybersquatting-Cyberpiracy-and-Lanham-Act-Claims-a-Washout/50/5880
  6. ^ http://seattletrademarklawyer.com/blog/2008/11/25/first-to-file-rule-convinces-western-district-to-transfer-cy.html
  7. ^ http://domainnamewire.com/2009/06/08/enom-ensnared-in-cybersquatting-lawsuit/
  8. ^ http://tcattorney.typepad.com/anticybersquatting_consum/2007/05/enom_stealing_d.html
  9. ^ http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/05/contributory_cy.htm
  10. ^ http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=82000 (the petition to the court)
  11. ^ http://pcworld.about.com/od/server1/Domain-name-Wars-Rise-of-the.htm?rd=1
  12. ^ http://www.theleong.com/
  13. ^ http://www.theagitator.com/2008/01/30/ive-been-squatted/
  14. ^ http://techyshit.com/makeuseofcom-hacked-or-domain-expired/
  15. ^ http://www.adventuresinprophecy.com/aip/domainstolen.html
  16. ^ http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/256/RipOff0256553.htm
  17. ^ "Demand Media Web site". http://www.demandmedia.com. 
  18. ^ "For These Sites, Their Best Asset Is a Good Name". 2006-05-01. http://www.generation.com/2006_05_01.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-01. 
  19. ^ "The State of the Industry (January 2007): 15 Domain Experts Ponder What Happened in 2006 and Predict What's Coming in '07". Ron Jackson. http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2007/january.htm. Retrieved on 2009-02-25. 
  20. ^ "eNom BulkRegister web site". http://bulk.enom.com. Retrieved on 2008-02-25. 
  21. ^ "Descriptions and Contact Information for ICANN-Accredited Registrars". ICANN. 2008-05-03. http://www.icann.org/registrars/accreditation-qualified-list.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-01. 
  22. ^ Better Business Bureau Reliability Report
  23. ^ 2006 Name Intelligence awards
  24. ^ 2007 Name Intelligence awards
  25. ^ 2008 Name Intelligence awards
  26. ^ "Inc.5000 fastest growing private companies in America 2007: No. 292 eNom". http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2007/company-profile.html?id=2006292. Retrieved on 2009-02-25. 
  27. ^ eNom Awards & Statistics
  28. ^ Burke Hansen (2007-02-19). "Registerfly on the fly, ICANN on the run". The Register. http://www.theregister.com/2007/02/19/registerfly_angry_customers/. Retrieved on 2008-02-25. 
  29. ^ a b c d St Sauver, Joe (2008). "Spam, Domain Names and Registrars" (pdf). MAAWG 12th General Meeting. Retrieved on 2009-02-25. 
  30. ^ eNom abuse policy
  31. ^ Adam Liptak (2008-03-04). "A Wave of the Watch List, and Speech Disappears". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/04bar.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=liptak&st=nyt&oref=slogin&oref=slogin. 
  32. ^ "[http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/sdnlist.txt ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF SPECIALLY DESIGNATED NATIONALS AND BLOCKED PERSONS]". Office of Foreign Assets Control. http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/sdnlist.txt. Retrieved on 2009-02-25. 
  33. ^ "Network Solutions and eNom targeted by phishing attack". Sophos. http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2008/10/31/network-solutions-and-enom-targeted-by-phishing-attack/. Retrieved on 2009-02-25. 

See also

External links

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