easyDNS
| Type of business | DNS, Web hosting services |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1998 |
| Headquarters | 219 Dufferin Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada[1] |
| Owner | Mark Jeftovic |
| URL | easydns |
easyDNS Technologies Inc. is a Canadian Internet service provider which supplies DNS[2] and web hosting services and operates a mail service called EasyMail.[3][4] The company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario.[5]
Co-founder Mark Jeftovic, author of the book Managing Mission - Critical Domains and DNS,[6] maintains a blog in which he writes about news and issues related to easyDNS and about internet domains in general.[7]
History
[edit]easyDNS was co-founded in 1998 by Mark Jeftovic, Colin Viebrock and John Schmidt.[8][9][10][11]
On March 2, 2000, easyDNS became an affiliate of ICANN accredited registrar OpenSRS (now Tucows).[12]
In 2003 easyDNS became directly accredited via ICANN. That year the company began accepting payment by E-gold.[13]
In April 2013, easyDNS started accepting Bitcoin as a payment method.[14] In June the company was one of several that were caught up in a day-long international Denial-of-service attack, although the attack was not aimed at an easyDNS customer.[15]
In August 2014, easyDNS acquired DNS provider ZoneEdit.[8]
In 2017, easyDNS started providing Ethereum Name Service (ENS) integration for domain names.[16]
Controversies
[edit]WikiLeaks
[edit]In 2010, due to confusion with the similarly named EveryDNS, easyDNS was widely reported to have cut off DNS service to WikiLeaks.[17] easyDNS subsequently was approached by WikiLeaks and agreed to host three domain names for WikiLeaks.[18] Some easyDNS customers who disapproved of WikiLeaks threatened to change providers.[17]
Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit
[edit]In October 2013, a request from the UK Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit requested they redirect torrentpond.com to an IP address controlled by the PIPCU.
This request was refused due to having no legal basis.[19][20] easyDNS suggested that registrars that complied with the PIPCU's requests may have violated ICANN's transfer policies.[21] and filed a request for enforcement with ICANN.[22] Following this request, three domains suspended by Public Domain Registry were ordered to be transferred to easyDNS.[23]
Illegal pharmaceutical sales and fatality
[edit]In 2014, easyDNS was at the centre of controversy due to its policy of refusing to take down web pages for unlicensed online pharmaceutical companies accused of selling controlled substances without a prescription. easyDNS CEO Mark Jeftovic referred to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy as a "batch of clowns" after it sent easyDNS and other registrars a letter ordering them to take down the websites unlicensed pharmacies without court orders and to prevent those domains from transferring to other registrars. Doing so would put registrars in violation of their ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreements.[24]
easyDNS clarified its policy after a man died after taking a "controlled substance" codeine phosphate purchased without a prescription from airmailchemist.com, an online drug seller registered through easyDNS Technologies Inc. easyDNS was not aware of airmailchemist’s presence on the system, and had not been informed by ICANN of the circumstances around the man’s death until contacted by a reporter.[25] Upon learning of the death, easyDNS immediately initiated contact with the FDA and added a requirement that online pharmacies be licensed by one of three online pharmaceutical accreditation agencies.[26]
Leaked contact details
[edit]From October 25, 2018 to October 26, the domain contact details of 1,500 domain owners using easyDNS were leaked in Whois query results due to a bug in a system provided by the second largest domain registrar in the world, Tucows, which easyDNS uses as its backend to manage domain names.[27]
References
[edit]- ^ "easy DNS Technologies INC". Liberty Village BIA. Retrieved 2019-03-30.
- ^ Jim Carroll; Rick Broadhead (1999). Selling Online: How to Develop a Successful E-Commerce Business in Canada. Macmillan Canada. p. 246. ISBN 978-0-7715-7643-0.
- ^ "Why (and how) I'm saying goodbye to Gmail". MacWorld, Joe Kissell, October 31, 2013
- ^ "Yahoo and AOL Damage Mailing Lists and Email Forwarding". TidBits, Adam Engst, 17 June 2014
- ^ "Possibly related DDoS attacks cause DNS hosting outages". Computer World, Lucian Constantin, IDG News Service | June 04, 2013
- ^ "Managing mission-critical domains and DNS : demystifying nameservers, DNS, and domain names". Worldcat record.
- ^ "Daily Stormer binned by yet another registrar, due to business risks". The Register, Simon Sharwood 11 Sep 2017
- ^ a b "ZoneEdit is Under New Management". ZoneEdit. 2014-08-06. Archived from the original on 2014-08-17. Retrieved 2019-03-30.
- ^ "Impending "Fake News" Bill Brings Censorship, Free Speech Concerns". easyDNS. June 11, 2018. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
- ^ Jeftovic, Mark (November 19, 2018). "Don't Advertise URLs That You Don't Exclusively Control". easyDNS. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
- ^ Jeftovic, Mark (May 26, 2014). "Growth for Growth's Sake Leads to Nowhere". easyDNS. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
- ^ "News Releases". easyDNS. Archived from the original on 2000-06-20. Retrieved 2019-03-30.
- ^ Business Week. Bloomberg L.P. 2006. p. 71.
- ^ Jeftovic, Mark (April 16, 2013). "We now accept Bitcoin as a payment method". easyDNS. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
- ^ "Toronto provider recovering from DDoS attack". ITWorld, Howard Solomon, June 5th, 2013
- ^ Jeftovic, Mark (September 2, 2018). "Ethereum Name Service (ENS) Integration Now Live on Mainnet". easyDNS.
- ^ a b "Canadian firm caught up in Wiki wars". The Globe and Mail. Steve Ladurantaye, December 8, 2010
- ^ "Defenders of WikiLeaks Swarmed Wrong Target". New York Times. December 10, 2010. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
- ^ Whatever Happened to "Due Process" ?, EasyDNS, 2013-10-08
- ^ Orlowski, Andrew (11 October 2013). "Canadian operator EasyDNS stands firm against London cops". The Register. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
- ^ Jeftovic, Mark. "Registrars that complied with "shakedown" requests may now be in violation of ICANN Transfers Policy". EasyDNS. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
- ^ Jeftovic, Mark. "TDRP proceedings initiated in response to UK police shakedown". Retrieved 21 April 2014.
- ^ Andy. "Registrars Can't Hold 'Pirate' Domains Hostage Without Court Order". Retrieved 21 September 2014.
- ^ "NABP To Registrars: you Must Takedown and Seize Any Domain We Tell You To".
- ^ "Icann, Regulators Clash Over Illegal Online Drug Sales". Wall Street Journal. October 27, 2014. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
- ^ "EasyDNS changes take-down policy after man dies". August 15, 2014. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
- ^ Hill, Rebecca (2018-11-02). "Web domain owners paid EasyDNS to cloak their contact info from sight. It was blabbed via public Whois anyway". The Register. Archived from the original on 2018-11-03. Retrieved 2019-03-30.
