Corporate Blog

Christmas and New Year hours and wishes

24 December 2013 22:25:28 +0000

It’s the end of the year again, and a fitting time to thank you once again for the custom that you have given to NinerNet in 2013. This year was challenging in some respects, but looking at things from the positive side the challenges were the result of growth. Some of that growth continues to be the new business that you, our existing clients, continue to refer to us, and for that we are most grateful.

Looking forward to 2014 we, as always, have plans to expand and improve the services we offer to you. Some of the new services will involve “private clouds”. We have avoided the buzzword “cloud”, bucking the industry trend in recent years, but with the news that broke this year about pervasive, worldwide, government surveillance — especially through big hosting companies based in the USA — we’re getting more enquiries about setting up a cloud-type infrastructure for in-house use only, and on servers outside the US. Look for an announcement about this in 2014.

On a wider scale, 2014 will see the introduction of new top-level domains (TLDs) and stronger enforcement of the requirement to use real and working contact data for domain registrations. Early in the new year we’ll be contacting you about the latter. As for the new TLDs — a TLD is the part of your domain to the right of the last dot (e.g., .com) — early registration for some of these are underway. Their introduction has been controversial, but they may see use in certain regions and niche industries. At this time they would appeal to only a limited number of our existing clients, but we’ll be providing information about them early in the New Year too (although we can immediately register in some of them). Some examples of new TLDs include .bike (e.g., example.bike), .clothing, .construction, .contractors, .diamonds, .enterprises, .guru, .holdings, .singles … and so on. Eventually there will also be a .africa too. Please be aware, though, that there are already scams involving fake registrations in these new TLDs, so if you get spam about these please keep that in mind and ask us if you need guidance.

Finally, our offices will be closed over the Christmas break for routine business, but support continues to be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We will re-open on Monday, 6 January.

We wish you and your family, business, organisation, employees and/or colleagues who celebrate it a very happy Christmas, and all the best for the New Year.

Tags: domain registration, domains, facebook, google, new services, scams, service hours, support
Categories: Announcements
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Deletion of domains by Zamnet continues

14 June 2013 14:32:22 +0000

Not satisfied with having deleted 37 per cent of domains earlier this week, it appears that Zamnet continue to delete even more domains! Today we find out that domains that were still working on Tuesday have now been deleted, causing more clients to scramble because their email and websites have suddenly stopped working. This brings the percentage of domains deleted without warning due to Zamnet’s incompetence to 42 per cent … almost half! When will this stop?!

We encourage clients affected by these arbitrary and unannounced interruptions to their business to file a complaint with the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority. (UPDATE, 2013-06-28: The complaint form disappeared shortly after we posted this. Try their “Complaint Handling” page instead.)

Tags: domain registration, domain renewals, domains, dot-zm domains, zamnet
Categories: Notices, Updated posts
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Massive, unannounced deletion of dot-zm domains by Zamnet

11 June 2013 11:15:39 +0000

Over the last few days it has become apparent to us that Zamnet’s accounting department — just as Coppernet’s did almost three years ago — awoke from a long hibernation and realised that a chunk of active domains hadn’t been paid for. As a result, 37 per cent of the dot-zm domains hosted by NinerNet that are (or were) registered with Zamnet — which includes .co.zm, .org.zm and .sch.zm domains — were deleted by Zamnet, taking them off the Internet completely. One client tells us that Zamnet informed them, when they enquired, that they were supposedly four years behind! (UPDATE, 2013-06-28: Another client tells us they had not been invoiced for their dot-co.zm domain in thirteen years! They’ve since switched to a dot-com with “zambia” tacked onto their name, as so many people do to avoid the hassle and expense of registering a dot-zm domain.)

It seems unlikely to us that so many Zamnet customers had simply ignored their invoices for several years. It’s more likely that they were never invoiced. In fact, our own domain (ninernet.co.zm) came up for renewal over a month ago, and we still have not received an invoice. Perhaps Zamnet are too busy disabling over a third of the country’s Internet infrastructure to send out invoices! (CORRECTION, 2013-06-28: Oops, seems we hadn’t updated our records correctly. Zamnet [when they do invoice] bills for domains every two years. Ours does not expire until next year. Our apologies for the incorrect statement, although it doesn’t really change much!)

Screenshot of Zamnet home page, 11 June 2013

Other countries take the management of their ccTLD (country code top-level domain) far more seriously than this. They have published rules and procedures governing what exactly happens after a domain expires. They also operate a WHOIS service so that the public can look up “who is” the owner of a domain and the dates that it was registered and will expire. Zamnet and Coppernet, as co-stewards of the dot-zm ccTLD — an odd arrangement that we are not aware of in any other country — do not provide any such information, at least to the public. In fact, judging by these arbitrary and cavalier mass deletions carried out by both companies, they don’t even have any such policies! They just seem to make this up as they go along.

Screenshot of ZICTA home page, 11 June 2013

You would think that — given that deleting 37 per cent of the country’s domains has all of the appearance of a planned and concerted effort — Zamnet would, at the very least, post a prominent notice on the home page of their website. However, there is no such notice as of posting this. (Click on the thumbnail at left to see.) I’m also not aware of any notices posted in newspapers. So much for their laughable slogan: “Nobody delivers IT better.” Right now, more than a third of their customers are not getting anything delivered, and it’s clear that their slogan doesn’t apply to the delivery of invoices.

And where is ZICTA in all of this? You’d think they’d be interested in the disabling of 37 per cent of the country’s domains, but there’s nothing posted on the home page of their website either! Maybe a few complaints via their complaint form might get their attention. (UPDATE, 2013-06-28: Hmm, the complaint form disappeared shortly after we posted this. Try their “Complaint Handling” page instead.)

Please note that, if you did not register your dot-zm domain through NinerNet, we do not know when it is scheduled to expire and we cannot help you in dealing with Zamnet. We don’t know how effective it would be to request an update to the contact information for your domain so that we can monitor it, from an administrative (not technical) point of view, but if you’d like to try we’re certainly game to assist and cooperate. Let us know if you’d like to try.

Issues such as these mass and arbitrary deletions, as well as the entire dot-zm ccTLD going down occasionally, are the two main reason we discourage clients from registering dot-zm domains. This is unfortunate, of course, but clients expect their online services to actually be … online! It is also the reason that we created the alternative ccTLD for Zambia: dot-zam.co. They’re only K66 per year (as opposed to hundreds for a dot-co.zm and hundreds more for a dot-com.zm) and don’t require paperwork.

Tags: domain registration, domain renewals, domains, dot-zm domains, zamnet, zicta
Categories: Notices, Updated posts
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Price increase for dot-co.za domains

4 June 2013 11:52:29 +0000

The dot-co.za registry has announced a price increase of 50% for registration and renewal of dot-co.za domains, effective 1 March 2013. As a result, we too must increase our prices, and this will be effective immediately.

The new prices are live on our rates pages. Please check there for the new rates in your currency.

We appreciate your understanding.

Tags: domain registration, domain renewals, domain sales, domains, dot-co.za domains, rates
Categories: Notices
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Domain renewal scam warning

22 March 2012 12:25:40 +0000

We have had a new domain renewal scam brought to our attention. The example we have seen includes the following wording (changed to preserve our client’s privacy):

Domain Name: EXAMPLE.COM

To: Client Name

Your order #12345678 has been received and is currently processing. Registration includes SE submission for EXAMPLE.COM for 12 months. There is no obligation to pay for this order unless you complete your payment by Mar 25, 2012. SE Services provides submission services and search engine ranking organization for domain owners.

Failure to complete your search engine registration by Mar 25, 2012 may result in the cancellation of this order (making it difficult for your customers to locate you using search engines on the web).

Here is a redacted image of what the email might look like:

Domain renewal scam email.

Clicking on the links takes you to a website that looks like this:

Domain renewal scam website.

While this email carefully avoids any mention of the expiry or renewal of your domain registration, the intent is clearly to fool and scare the recipient into thinking that their domain registration is about to expire so that they click one of the prominent “PROCESS SECURE PAYMENT” links and complete the payment process. If you do this, your domain will not be renewed, and you’ll be out $75 (in this case) for services of dubious value that you may or may not actually receive. Additionally, you might be opening yourself up to identity theft and/or the abuse of your credit card information.

In fact, if you have already fallen victim to this scam, we suggest that you contact your credit card company immediately, and check to ensure that your domain is “locked” and still registered to you and under your control.

Some of the domains associated with these emails and websites are the following:

annualurldom.com
iglobalmerchantservice.com
urldomannual.com

NinerNet attempts to protect our clients from these kinds of domain-related scams by having a policy of “locking” (as mentioned above) all domains under our management that can be locked. However, you should still be cautious before acting on any emails not from NinerNet (or your actual domain registrar if it’s not NinerNet) regarding any domains you have registered, especially if they attempt to scare you into taking action.

Please contact NinerNet support if you have any questions about emails regarding your domains, and we will help you.

Thank-you.

Tags: domain locking, domain registration, domain renewals, domains, scams
Categories: Warnings
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Technical contact update for domain registrations

30 October 2010 11:18:35 +0000

All domains registered with NinerNet that have NinerNet listed as the technical contact were updated on 19 October to include a working phone number for the technical contact. Please note, however, that this phone number is not a point of contact for NinerNet clients. (Frankly, while it’s a working number and is monitored, its sole purpose it to avoid time-wasting telemarketers.) Actually, all of the contact information we use for domain registrations is not for the use of clients: Postal mail is not collected regularly, and email to the email address is heavily filtered to allow only email from certain domain registries and registrars through. Please refer to our contact page for contact information for clients.

Owners of dot-ca domains may notice that the name of the technical contact (where NinerNet is listed) is shown as “Domian Adnimistrator” [sic]. This intentional misspelling is because CIRA (as a result of a recent, but unannounced, policy change) doesn’t allow the “name” field to contain certain generic words. This doesn’t make sense, as people can come and go from a company, while positions generally remain the same. In fact, the “role account” has a long and distinguished history when it comes to domain registrations that dates back at least as far as the 1990s.

Tags: cira, contact information, domain registration, domains, dot-ca domains
Categories: Notices
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Vital update for registrants of existing third- and fourth-level dot-ca domains!

12 October 2010 05:30:03 +0000

5 October 2010 (original posting date on NinerNet website)

Further to our email of 17 September regarding the upcoming changes that the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is making to the dot-ca domain system, we have some new news that really is vital for you to know if the following conditions all apply to your dot-ca domain:

You own a third-level dot-ca domain (e.g., example.bc.ca) or a fourth-level dot-ca domain (e.g., example.vancouver.bc.ca), AND
The second level of your domain (e.g., example.ca) is not registered, AND
Nobody else has your name registered at another provincial level (e.g., you own example.bc.ca and someone else owns example.on.ca).

This email is being sent only to those clients we know meet all of the above three criteria.

Contrary to what we were told by CIRA last month, if you do not register your domain at the second level (e.g., example.ca) before 12 October, you will not be able to do so on or after 12 October. Your domain at the second level (e.g., example.ca) will be indefinitely blocked. You will still have the use of your third- or fourth-level domain unless or until you let it expire. In fact, the only way, after 12 October, for you to register your domain at the second level will be to allow any other domains you have at the third and fourth level to expire. Even then, there is no mechanism in place that gives you first dibs on your domain at the second level, so if someone is quicker on their mouse than you at the moment your third- or fourth-level domain expires (a moment that cannot be predicted with any certainty or guarantee), they might get it before you and you will completely lose your rights to your name.

With the above new information in mind, please contact us immediately (or at the very least on or before Monday, 11 October) if you want to register your dot-ca domain at the second level before you lose that ability permanently. We’ll be following up this email with personal phone calls today and tomorrow to ensure that you’re fully aware of the situation.

Tags: cira, domain registration, domain renewals, domains, dot-ca domains, registrant transfers, registrar transfers
Categories: Notices
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Dot-ca domain registry changes, 12 October 2010

11 October 2010 23:53:53 +0000

17 September 2010 (original posting date on NinerNet website)

Overview

In October, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) will be making sweeping changes to their system for registering dot-ca domains. However, they have done almost nothing to communicate details about these coming changes to dot-ca domain holders and the Canadian public at large — i.e., potential dot-ca domain registrants. We got wind of these changes last week, but it took until this week for us to be able to extract the details below from CIRA after a flurry of emails and a phone call this week.

In the middle of all of that, CIRA did finally send an extremely vague email to dot-ca domain registrants. We received our copy on 10 September; the subject of the email was “Information Regarding the New .CA Registry”. This held about as much detail — i.e., almost none — as the press release on the CIRA website and the FAQ buried so deep you could be forgiven for missing it. There is another page on the CIRA website with slightly more detail, but the only reason we know about that is because the address was given to us over the phone earlier this week.

An opportunity

But in all of this complaining about the lack of communication from CIRA, there’s actually a potential fun side to consider. It’s worth reading (or skipping) to the end, because this is a time-limited opportunity to own a rather unique — and potentially amusing — piece of Canadian Internet history. For example, consider the-canucks-rule-in.vancouver.bc.ca. Or how about this odd domain?: i-need-directions-to.toronto.bc.ca.

5 OCTOBER 2010: Vital update for registrants of existing third- and fourth-level dot-ca domains!

You own a third-level dot-ca domain (e.g., example.bc.ca) or a fourth-level dot-ca domain (e.g., example.vancouver.bc.ca), AND
The second level of your domain (e.g., example.ca) is not registered, AND
Nobody else has your name registered at another provincial level (e.g., you own example.bc.ca and someone else owns example.on.ca).

This email is being sent only to those clients we know meet all of the above three criteria.

But seriously …

But first the serious stuff. Unfortunately, the email from CIRA mentioned above leaves out some very important information that is nowhere to be found on the CIRA website. Even the important information that is available is buried, and it was only through a series of emails with CIRA (before they sent out the email on 10 September) and a twenty-minute phone call this week that we managed to extract the apparently top secret information below.

As of the date (see below for dates) of the overhaul of the dot-ca registry:

Third- and fourth-level dot-ca domains will no longer be allowed.
Domains will be automatically renewed.
Registrant profiles will cease to exist.

At the moment, despite our attempts to clarify the process of automatic renewal with CIRA, this aspect is still unclear. It should not mean that you are automatically charged for another year on your domain unless you opt out. Certainly, that’s not what it will mean if your dot-ca domain is registered with NinerNet, if we have any say in the matter. The last point on registrant profiles is actually a good thing; the old system of registrant profiles was a dog’s breakfast, to put it politely.

Third- and fourth-level domains?

The first point — on third- and fourth-level domains — is the one of interest to us, and will affect different people in different ways. The most important thing though is that, if you already own (or register before the cutover) a third- or fourth-level dot-ca domain, you will get to keep it. (Don’t ever let it expire though, or you will lose it forever.)

But what are third- and fourth-level domains anyway? Here are some examples:

Fourth-level domain: yourname.vancouver.bc.ca
Third-level domain: yourname.bc.ca
Second-level domain: yourname.ca

This is how the coming changes will affect people:

In the future you will only be able to register yourname.ca, not yourname.bc.ca or yourname.vancouver.bc.ca.
Even if you already own yourname.bc.ca and so have the right to register yourname.on.ca or yourname.winnipeg.mb.ca before anyone else, you will no longer be able to register anything but yourname.ca, assuming it’s available.
If, due to grandfathering, you own yourname.bc.ca and someone else owns yourname.sk.ca, there will still be a block on registering yourname.ca.
If you own yourname.bc.ca and nobody else owns yourname.ca or yourname.XX.ca (where XX is a provincial or territorial abbreviation), then you will still have a block on yourname.ca — i.e., nobody but you can register yourname.ca. THIS IS NO LONGER THE CASE! Please see the update in the pink box at the top of the page.

When does this go into effect?

When does all of this take place? The new system officially goes into effect at 6:00 am Pacific time on Tuesday 12 October, and the dot-ca registry will be offline during the transition until 6:00 am Pacific time on Wednesday 13 October. (CIRA has decreed that there be no overlap period, so it better work right the first time!) However, there is a lead-in period of one week before 12 October during which there will be a moratorium on certain activities. (To be on the safe side, consider 4 October to be your deadline to all intents and purposes.) All of these are activities that require you to log into the CIRA website to confirm your choices — which is most things outside of changing the technical contact for your domain. If you have any concerns about your dot-ca domain and what you might want to do with it between now and the middle of October, please contact NinerNet support for details, or see the CIRA website for details.

There are two notable exceptions, as far as we have been able determine:

There will be no interruption of the registration of new domains.
If you want to register a “Conflicting Domain Name”, you must do so by 27 September. For example, you own yourname.bc.ca and want to register yourname.ab.ca, but someone already owns yourname.nl.ca. This is considered a “Conflicting Domain Name” and you cannot register yourname.ab.ca without the express consent of the owner of yourname.nl.ca. Because you will not be able to register yourname.ab.ca at all after 12 October, if you have any designs on this type of domain you must take action before 27 September.

Why register a third- or fourth-level domain?

But besides all of the above, the next few weeks are your last chance to own a third- or fourth-level dot-ca domain. Thousands of them exist. Here are some:

Besides simply wanting to own a .XX.ca domain, there’s a good reason to own them if you’re an organisation or business with distinct units in multiple provinces and territories. Consider the fictitious XYZ Corporation. The head office website and email would be on the xyzcorp.ca domain, while the Yukon office would use the xyzcorp.yk.ca domain for their email and website. And so on. It sure beats xyzcorpcanada.com and xyzcorpcanadayukon.com.

Now for the fun stuff

Apart from the fact that third- and fourth-level dot-ca domains are going the way of the dodo bird, and so you might want to grab your own piece of Canadian Internet history while you can, how about having some fun with it? Consider domains like the following, with or without the hyphens:

Advertise where you live:
- craig-lives-in.vancouver.bc.ca
Advertise what you’re looking for and where:
- looking-for-a-good-time-in.fredericton.nb.ca
Say something political:
- i-say-no-hst-in.bc.ca
- say-no-to-hst-in.bc.ca
Show how much of a sports fan you are:
- the-canucks-rule-in.vancouver.bc.ca
- the-maple-leafs-suck-in.toronto.on.ca
Steal the prime minister’s identity:
- stephenh.ottawa.on.ca

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this years ago, but there’s nothing to stop you from getting your provinces and cities confused. In a slap-myself-on-the-forehead moment (I should have used hyphens so it would be easier to read), I registered iamsolostin.toronto.bc.ca. Try it. It works! Think about these possibilities:

Heard the one about the Conservatives moving the capital to Alberta?:
- stephenh.ottawa.ab.ca
More along the lines of being dazed and confused:
- we-are-lost-in.winnipeg.sk.ca
- where-am-i-now.toronto.bc.ca
- confused-in.calgary.qc.ca

All of these and more are available (as of this writing) for registration.

Conclusion

Now you know more than most people about the extensive changes CIRA is planning to make to the dot-ca registry effective 12 October 2010. Of course, all of this is subject to the whims and rules of CIRA, so if and when they publish more detailed information you should defer to that.

If you have any questions or concerns, or need to register a new third- or fourth-level domain before it’s too late (or even a second-level dot-ca domain per the update at the top of this page), please contact NinerNet support.

Tags: cira, domain registration, domain renewals, domains, dot-ca domains, registrant transfers, registrar transfers
Categories: Notices
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