Spammer Fighting, Spamming Heaven

Thousands of small business webmasters briefly lose their domain names at expiration, due to a simple lack of understanding about the roles of three key players in the drama: domain name registrars, web hosts and internet service providers. Fortunately for most, they learn quickly how to save their web site from oblivion by using the 30 day redemption period for expired domain names enforced by ICANN. One simple solution is to extend domain registration for the maximum ten years. The other solution is to treat domain registrar data as the critical business element it is.

I Can't Remember Where I Purchased My Domain Name!

It wasn't until my third client had called asking how to regain control of her domain name that I realized that it was a common problem for small business webmasters to forget where they had registered their domains. WHOIS my registrar? Why didn't I get an email about renewal? Why did my site stop working today?

People rarely realize how important it is to keep their domain registrar notified of changes to their email address and and other contact information. The registrar will send renewal notifications to the email address last on file. For most domain owners, the only time they think about contacting a registrar is the day they reserve their domain name. If they move to a new city and get a new internet service provider, it doesn't occur to them that the old email address will change and that meeans that the registrar can no longer contact them through the previous address, or phone or fax as each of them change and we rarely notify the controller of our domain of those changes.

Sometimes the first indication a business owner will have that there is a problem is the day their web site stops working. If they failed to notify their domain registrar of changed email address, they may never have received their domain renewal notice. Since many registrars honor a 30 day "redemption period" allowing expired domains to be redeemed, it may be possible to save the registration within 30 days following expiration by contacting registrars during 30 day domain redemption periods.

The following URL leads to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (AKA ICANN) discussing the grace period and redemption period rules it enforces.

http://www.icann.org/bucharest/redemption-topic.htm

1. When an ISP or web host begins receiving dozens of spam reports on someone using their services, they will typically cancel first and ask questions later. Thus, your average spammer is constantly losing his hosting services and always searching for another ISP. He has to - he keeps getting kicked out when his misdeeds is discovered.
   
   
2. Spammers, if they can be identified, can be sued. This is fairly rare, as it is difficult to prove actual damage, but you can sue them and win. And if you are an ISP or host, you can definitely get them to dig into their pockets for the resources they wasted.
   
   
3. If a spammer annoys the wrong person, he could find himself harassed. For example, people have been known to send back email bombs, perform denial of service attacks or simply get phone lines canceled.
   
   
4. If a spammer gets his domain added to any of the various "black holes", then he may find that he cannot send email at all.
5. Depending upon how vile the material, the law can come down upon a spammer. This is especially true with scams and pornography of the most degraded kind.
   
   
6. Most spammers do not realize there is always a way to find out where the email came from. It does not matter how well they attempt to cover their tracks - they do need to make it possible to order something and thus they can be tracked - even if it means physically visiting their business with a search warrant.