The US Federal Trade Commission today announced that it has obtained a court order stopping a domain name registration scheme known as "Electronic Domain Name Monitoring" or "Corporate Domain Name Monitoring."
The "EDNM" scheme involved sending unsolicited faxes to domain name registrants that stated "URGENT NOTICE OF IDENTICAL DOMAIN NAME APPLICATION BY A THIRD PARTY." The faxes appeared to be official notices from the "National Domain Name Registry" warning that a third party had "applied" for a domain name nearly identical to the victim's domain. Targets of the solicitation were told that they were "required" to submit an opposition to the third party domain registration or else the "licensing rights" to the domain name would be assigned to "any applicant," and CDNM/NDNR would not be "liable" for loss of "domain name license" or "interruption of business activity." The FTC characterized these assertions as "not only false, but also nonsensical."
The FTC obtained an order from the United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia, stopping the deceptive practices and blocking access to websites used in the deceptive operation, including www.ndnregistry.com, www.ndnregistry.net, www.ndnregistry.org, www.ndnr.org, www.ndnr.net, www.ednm.net, www.ednm.org and www.cdnmonitoring.com.
The companies named as defendants in the FTC's suit include 1268957 Ontario, Inc., and 1371772 Ontario Inc., doing business as National Domain Name Registry, Electronic Domain Name Monitoring, and Corporate Domain Name Monitoring. None of these companies are ICANN-accredited registrars.