Source: http://www.cyberica.net /
Dear Customer,
If you are using our hosting or domain services, have a dedicated
server
with us, are using one of our name server or mail services, or even
some of
the services of our subsidaries, associates or franchisees, you were
most
probably unable to access any of the services you paid for, since last
Friday. Unfortunately the same would be the case for all your own
clients,
as well, who could not access your respective services either.
This was caused by www.itsyourdomain.com a third party provider, which
has
provided us with domain name wholesale services for over five years
now.
On Friday afternoon, around 5:00PM Canadian time - notably just before
closing time - IYD suspended our account, with most of our own, and
hundreds
of customer domains in it. We had not received any prior warning or
notice,
and no demands had been made or deadlines set. As such, IYD seems to
simply
have flipped the switch on our - and your - domain names, and left for
the
weekend.
Not without first ensuring that the domain names no all resolved to a
page
that claimed that each of the respective domains was being in dispute -
and
also mentioning the CyberFrontier name as Registrar - and serving
adverts
that may be related to the domain name. We assume that IYD is
generating
revenue from displaying those adverts, one way or another.
Considering that among the suspended (temporarily hijacked?) domain
names
there were several with a high daily traffic volume (some with 10s of
thousands of unique visitors daily, or so customers informed me), and
high
Google rankings, these adverts were probably very profitable for IYD.
After a few hours all email accounts went dead, of course, and we could
neither inform you about the situation, nor could you contact us by
email,
as you undoubtedly found out the hard way.
My first attempt to submit a ticket to IYD support staff was
unsuccessful,
as the page timed out. An email to their support desk was acknowledged
[IYD
#CIN-19361-332]:, and a later, successful submission of a trouble was
also
confirmed [IYD #CFL-12936-174] - but we received no replies to either
of the
two. After unsuccessful attempts to call IYD pretty much within minutes
from
the domains first being suspended, I spoke to an associate of the
CyberFrontier Group, who happens to live not too far from IYD's Toronto
head
office.
On Saturday, after additional unsuccesful attempts to contact IYD, he
then
dopped by at said office.
There he was informed that our registry account had been suspended. Up
until
that time, we had actually been unclear as to the reason of the strange
'domain in dispute' notice on all domains, and assumed a hack of DNS
poisoning attack, as, like I said, nobody had contacted us, neither
prior
to, nor after the suspension.
The staff at IYD further informed him that nobody knew why our account
had
been suspended, but that our account had a notice attached that
instructed
staff not to reinstate our account until the General Manager had talked
to
us first. Which does seem slightly odd, considering that the General
Manager
does not seem to have tried to contact us whatsoever.
The staff then asked our associate to leave the premises, without
providing
any additional information whatsoever - professing that they did not
know
anything about the case. They also refused to contact the General
Manager -
or provide us with a phone number to contact him, as he apparently was
"off
for the weekend". They did however promise that someone would get in
touch
with us "within the hour", if our associate left their premises, which
he
did.
Prior to leaving, he ensured that the staff at IYD had the correct
contact
details for us, including cell phone numbers.
It is now 28 hours later and nobody has contacted either him, or me.
I would expect the General Manager - who apparently made this case his
personal affair - to extent us the common courtesy to, in fact do, what
every professional would have done three days ago - contact us, explain
his
actions, and reinstate OUR and YOUR domains before 12:00 Noon in
Toronto,
this coming Monday, 14 January, 2008.
After all, the domains are yours and ours, not IYD's. There has not
been,
and is no dispute about any of them, to the very best of my knowledge,
and I
am honestly surprised and dismayed at their behaviour.
I will continue posting here about all developments, because,
obviously,
all your emails have been disabled, as have ours.
Cheers,
Robert dCZ
Cyberica.NET Limited
A Member of the CyberFrontier Group |
