In light of recent developments, Jart Armin of HostExploit.com Bhavin Turakhia, CEO of Directi and Garth Bruen of Knujon have had an open dialogue and mutually agreed to release this joint statement clearing any previous misconceptions and reaffirming their common goal to combat abuse on the Internet. Here are few of the points they would like to jointly make -
* Directi, HostExploit, Knujon recognize and confirm that they share the common goal of continuing to combat spam and abuse on the Internet through cooperation, collaboration and proactive action. In conversation yesterday, Directi, HostExploit and Knujon agreed to publish this statement to clarify any misconceptions and affirm their mutual commitment to work closely to combat abuse.
* Directi clarified to HostExploit that, LogicBoxes (a Directi business) is not hosting any of Atrivo's websites. Atrivo runs its web infrastructure under the name of Hostfresh.com which is not affiliated with Directi in any manner.
* Directi also confirmed that ESTDomains is not a Directi company, and Directi does not control the actions or clients of ESTDomains, a fact that HostExploit was already aware of.
* HostExploit confirms that its report was not meant to allege that LogicBoxes is directly sponsoring Internet abuse, rather its report was meant, in good faith, only to provide relevant parties with all information and data which can be used to clean up websites that were violating principles of ethical behavior. HostExploit hopes that other Internet news sites which may have taken the data in the HostExploit report out of context in assuming that LogicBoxes is directly affiliated with Atrivo rectify this misconception. Directi confirms that LogicBoxes is simply a software provider to various ICANN Accredited Registrars, and its only role was providing software for domain registration and DNS management.
* HostExploit and Knujon did share with Directi a separate list of additional web sites known for badware that belong to Atrivo, enabling Directi's abuse team to swiftly suspend them. Directi HostExploit and Knujon intend to continue this information exchange to speedily resolve abuse issues, and to further demonstrate transparency the community can contact either Directi or / and HostExploit to ensure action is taken.
* Directi has clarified that privacyprotect.org is merely a privacy protection service used by many of Directi's legitimate clients, not unlike the privacy protection services offered by other Registrars. Directi further confirmed that privacy protection had already been disabled on a large percentage of Atrivo's domain names over a month ago. Since Directi offers privacy protection free of cost, there are miscreants who use it to cloak their malicious activities. However Directi reaffirmed that its abuse team will suspend privacy protection on any domain for which they receive a genuine complaint in less than 24 hours. In fact a few months ago, based on reports and data obtained from the antispam community, Directi ceased to offer its privacy protection services to all customers of ESTDomains and to tens of thousands of other domains obtained through the community. Currently over half a million genuine customers of Directi use privacy protection services to prevent their whois data from being harvested.
* Directi affirms they are in no way supporting illicit online pharmacies. KnujOn has sent a list of newly populated fake pharmacy domains that Directi suspended. Directi and KnujOn now jointly call on the Internet community, private industry, and government to help develop policy and methods to put a stop to the fake pharmacy menace since Registrars cannot do this alone.
* Knujon acknowledges that the 48 Registrars that it thought were phantom are actually in existence as Delaware incorporated legitimate companies with a valid ICANN Accreditation and accurate contact information. Knujon's confusion stemmed from the fact that ICANN does not require these companies to publically report their incorporation details.
* Directi and HostExploit have discussed further ways to enhance their cooperative collaboration to clamp down spam and other forms of abuse on the Internet as rapidly as possible. Directi acknowledges and applauds HostExploit continuous efforts in tracking down miscreants. HostExploit and Knujon confirms that they are pleased to work directly with the Directi abuse desk in helping Directi identify any miscreants that maybe using Directi's services. The partnership includes sharing investigative processes and intelligence data on an ongoing basis.
Together with the community we hope to continue taking steps to make the Internet a better and safer place.
* Directi, HostExploit, Knujon recognize and confirm that they share the common goal of continuing to combat spam and abuse on the Internet through cooperation, collaboration and proactive action. In conversation yesterday, Directi, HostExploit and Knujon agreed to publish this statement to clarify any misconceptions and affirm their mutual commitment to work closely to combat abuse.
* Directi clarified to HostExploit that, LogicBoxes (a Directi business) is not hosting any of Atrivo's websites. Atrivo runs its web infrastructure under the name of Hostfresh.com which is not affiliated with Directi in any manner.
* Directi also confirmed that ESTDomains is not a Directi company, and Directi does not control the actions or clients of ESTDomains, a fact that HostExploit was already aware of.
* HostExploit confirms that its report was not meant to allege that LogicBoxes is directly sponsoring Internet abuse, rather its report was meant, in good faith, only to provide relevant parties with all information and data which can be used to clean up websites that were violating principles of ethical behavior. HostExploit hopes that other Internet news sites which may have taken the data in the HostExploit report out of context in assuming that LogicBoxes is directly affiliated with Atrivo rectify this misconception. Directi confirms that LogicBoxes is simply a software provider to various ICANN Accredited Registrars, and its only role was providing software for domain registration and DNS management.
* HostExploit and Knujon did share with Directi a separate list of additional web sites known for badware that belong to Atrivo, enabling Directi's abuse team to swiftly suspend them. Directi HostExploit and Knujon intend to continue this information exchange to speedily resolve abuse issues, and to further demonstrate transparency the community can contact either Directi or / and HostExploit to ensure action is taken.
* Directi has clarified that privacyprotect.org is merely a privacy protection service used by many of Directi's legitimate clients, not unlike the privacy protection services offered by other Registrars. Directi further confirmed that privacy protection had already been disabled on a large percentage of Atrivo's domain names over a month ago. Since Directi offers privacy protection free of cost, there are miscreants who use it to cloak their malicious activities. However Directi reaffirmed that its abuse team will suspend privacy protection on any domain for which they receive a genuine complaint in less than 24 hours. In fact a few months ago, based on reports and data obtained from the antispam community, Directi ceased to offer its privacy protection services to all customers of ESTDomains and to tens of thousands of other domains obtained through the community. Currently over half a million genuine customers of Directi use privacy protection services to prevent their whois data from being harvested.
* Directi affirms they are in no way supporting illicit online pharmacies. KnujOn has sent a list of newly populated fake pharmacy domains that Directi suspended. Directi and KnujOn now jointly call on the Internet community, private industry, and government to help develop policy and methods to put a stop to the fake pharmacy menace since Registrars cannot do this alone.
* Knujon acknowledges that the 48 Registrars that it thought were phantom are actually in existence as Delaware incorporated legitimate companies with a valid ICANN Accreditation and accurate contact information. Knujon's confusion stemmed from the fact that ICANN does not require these companies to publically report their incorporation details.
* Directi and HostExploit have discussed further ways to enhance their cooperative collaboration to clamp down spam and other forms of abuse on the Internet as rapidly as possible. Directi acknowledges and applauds HostExploit continuous efforts in tracking down miscreants. HostExploit and Knujon confirms that they are pleased to work directly with the Directi abuse desk in helping Directi identify any miscreants that maybe using Directi's services. The partnership includes sharing investigative processes and intelligence data on an ongoing basis.
Together with the community we hope to continue taking steps to make the Internet a better and safer place.
