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Indian ISPs block Namecheap, Dynadot, Tucows, Sarek and Gransy
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Indian ISPs block Namecheap, Dynadot, Tucows, Sarek and Gransy

JasonMJasonM Member
edited March 2023 in General

Indian ISPs have blocked access to 5 major domain name registrars. Note: there are 4 major ISPs only which control 95% of India's internet: Jio, Airtel, Vodafone/Idea, BSNL, out of which Jio, Airtel, Vodfone have blocked access to Namecheap.

The move comes as part of a long-running dispute over cybersquatting. Indian courts and cybersquatting victims are frustrated that registrars are not responding to their take-down notices. Some registrars are seemingly asking that plaintiffs get a U.S. court order rather than one from India.

Attorney Ankur Raheja, who frequently acts as a Respondent’s representative in UDRP cases, noted today that five registrars’ websites are not accessible through a few Indian ISPs at this time: Dynadot, Namecheap, Tucows, Sarek and Gransy. The first three are among the top 15 largest domain registrars, although Tucows mostly sells domains through resellers.

https://domainnamewire.com/2023/03/12/indian-isps-block-access-to-major-domain-registrars/

Update from Namecheap here

Thanked by 1varwww
«1345

Comments

  • Otus9051Otus9051 Member
    edited March 2023

    Namecheap still working for me from JioFiber (AS55836)

  • JasonMJasonM Member
    edited March 2023

    for me is not accessible by jio LTE, and vodafone.
    I'll later check with airtel.

    anyone using namecheap here from India - pls check.
    Update from Namecheap here

  • BingoBongoBingoBongo Member
    edited March 2023

    @JasonM said:
    for me is not accessible by jio LTE, and vodafone.
    I'll later check with airtel.

    anyone using namecheap here from India - pls check.

    Namecheap not working from my jio mobile phone connection.

    I have domains with Namecheap but still I think I support the decision. You must follow law of land where you do business.

    You just can't say that US courts are superior than other country's court.

  • Otus9051Otus9051 Member
    edited March 2023

    @JasonM said:
    for me is not accessible by jio LTE, and vodafone.
    I'll later check with airtel.

    anyone using namecheap here from India - pls check.

    Working on Airtel LTE

    I think its more of a DNS block rather than an actual blackhole-type block

    I am using 1.1.1.1 on every device

  • @Otus9051 said: I am using 1.1.1.1 on every device

    thanks. I was using 8.8.4.4 I'll try CF DNS

  • @JasonM said:

    @Otus9051 said: I am using 1.1.1.1 on every device

    thanks. I was using 8.8.4.4 I'll try CF DNS

    If it also doesn't work, try DNS over TLS.

    Thanked by 1niceboy
  • dosaidosai Member

    The move comes as part of a long-running dispute over cybersquatting. Indian courts and cybersquatting victims are frustrated that registrars are not responding to their take-down notices. Some registrars are seemingly asking that plaintiffs get a U.S. court order rather than one from India.

    This is true, lately been seeing a lot of phishing links sent to users masquerading as banks. I have personally reported a few of these to registrars.

  • @dosai said:
    The move comes as part of a long-running dispute over cybersquatting. Indian courts and cybersquatting victims are frustrated that registrars are not responding to their take-down notices. Some registrars are seemingly asking that plaintiffs get a U.S. court order rather than one from India.

    This is true, lately been seeing a lot of phishing links sent to users masquerading as banks. I have personally reported a few of these to registrars.

    But blocking the registrar's website doesn't really help in that case?

    Thanked by 1JasonM
  • dosaidosai Member

    @Otus9051 said:

    @dosai said:
    The move comes as part of a long-running dispute over cybersquatting. Indian courts and cybersquatting victims are frustrated that registrars are not responding to their take-down notices. Some registrars are seemingly asking that plaintiffs get a U.S. court order rather than one from India.

    This is true, lately been seeing a lot of phishing links sent to users masquerading as banks. I have personally reported a few of these to registrars.

    But blocking the registrar's website doesn't really help in that case?

    I guess, in the hope of stopping scammers from registering more domains. But yeah not the brightest idea.

  • @dosai said:

    @Otus9051 said:

    @dosai said:
    The move comes as part of a long-running dispute over cybersquatting. Indian courts and cybersquatting victims are frustrated that registrars are not responding to their take-down notices. Some registrars are seemingly asking that plaintiffs get a U.S. court order rather than one from India.

    This is true, lately been seeing a lot of phishing links sent to users masquerading as banks. I have personally reported a few of these to registrars.

    But blocking the registrar's website doesn't really help in that case?

    I guess, in the hope of stopping scammers from registering more domains. But yeah not the brightest idea.

    there are shitloads of other domain registrars, plus, they can just use a VPN or something to get it?

    (VPN as it something residential, nc isnt dumb enough to allow normal VPN)

  • @dosai said: This is true, lately been seeing a lot of phishing links sent to users masquerading as banks. I have personally reported a few of these to registrars.

    did they took any action on it?

  • @JasonM said:

    @dosai said: This is true, lately been seeing a lot of phishing links sent to users masquerading as banks. I have personally reported a few of these to registrars.

    did they took any action on it?

    more like they dont care

  • @JasonM said:
    for me is not accessible by jio LTE, and vodafone.
    I'll later check with airtel.

    anyone using namecheap here from India - pls check.
    Update from Namecheap here

    Airtel fibre blocked namecheap, inaccessible for me.

  • MikeAMikeA Member, Patron Provider

    That's rather crazy, but also I know some companies like to ignore valid abuse so I'm also not surprised some governments are trigger happy on hindering their business.

  • VoidVoid Member

    Tucows and Sarek is blocked. Rest are accessible. Using a local ISP and their upstream is mostly TATA/Airtel/Vodafone/Reliance

  • dosaidosai Member

    @JasonM said:

    @dosai said: This is true, lately been seeing a lot of phishing links sent to users masquerading as banks. I have personally reported a few of these to registrars.

    did they took any action on it?

    Namecheap was super responsive and acted immediately after I reported.

  • sayansayan Member

    No issue here ... using Airtel fiber ...

  • LeviLevi Member

    Blockades are ok until some gov drone can't access pornhub. Than "it must be revised". NET is going to hell, censorship, filters and limitations on a product which was designed for freedom. "Think about children" approach going hand in hand with cancel culture.

    Thanked by 1kait
  • it's time for namecrane to take off! @Francisco

    Thanked by 2kait MikePT
  • kaitkait Member

    @LTniger said:
    Blockades are ok until some gov drone can't access pornhub. Than "it must be revised". NET is going to hell, censorship, filters and limitations on a product which was designed for freedom. "Think about children" approach going hand in hand with cancel culture.

    I respectfully 100% agree with you, don't "Think about the children" that is not the governments job and if they use that it's always bad.

  • MannDudeMannDude Patron Provider, Veteran

    @hyperblast said:
    it's time for namecrane to take off! @Francisco

    If India purposely blocked other domain registars, they'll block NC too.

    Hopefully @Francisco has a Onion site available :)

    Thanked by 2hyperblast kait
  • Luke007Luke007 Member
    edited March 2023

    Namecheap is not blocked by Airtel fiber. I can access it.

    Edit : I can access it from Jio LTE as well.

  • varwwwvarwww Member
    edited March 2023

    @Luke007 said:
    Namecheap is not blocked by Airtel fiber. I can access it.

    Edit : I can access it from Jio LTE as well.

    It's blocked for me on

    • Airtel 4G Prepaid
    • Airtel Fiber

    I think you may be using Cloudflare/Google DNS. Can you see Airtel in the Standard test ? https://dnsleaktest.com/

  • FatGrizzlyFatGrizzly Member, Host Rep

    None of the registrars are blocked for me, but occasionally cloudflare is dropping connections between namecheap and origin(?)

  • Just use BlahDNS.

  • @BingoBongo said:
    You just can't say that US courts are superior than other country's court.

    This is an incorrect conclusion as to what is going on. And no one is saying that US courts are superior to another country's courts on this issue. That's just not looking at any facts either. And people need to read the TOS of their registrars for once instead of assuming mind-numbingly poor logic that anyone, anywhere is answerable any random court on the planet.

    And it's right there in black and white if people want to read it. There are NO surprises here, except for Indian overreach.

    One of the key issues is about jurisdiction. And who on Earth would want an American company (or in this case, an American company, a Canadian company, a Czech company, and a Finnish company) to be immediately complying with an Indian court order, for example? And likewise who on Earth would want an Indian company to be immediately complying and bowing down to an American (or Canadian, or Czech, or Finnish) court order? It's laughable.

    I mean, think about it. Can you imagine the chaos? How about an American company immediately jumping to attention and obeying a Chinese court order? Here's a shocker: How about a South Korean company immediately complying with a North Korean court order? Or Ukraine complying with a Russian court order?

    Now the court orders in those respective countries can still have an effect on that company's business in the RELEVANT jurisdiction of course. And there are various procedures and norms (and treaties and other legal structures) in place about how cross-jurisdictional issues can potentially be resolved, and ways to handle disputes with regard to domains in this case with ICANN, etc... it's messy and it takes time. India appears to be fed up and wants to bypass international norms and force their court system on other countries.

    Now I'm not 100% sure about the HQs and jurisdictions of the registrars in question, but I'm pretty sure they are:

    Namecheap HQ in Arizona, USA
    Dynadot in California, USA
    Tucows in Ontario CANADA
    Sarek in FINLAND
    Gransy in the CZECH REPUBLIC

    Now they may all have legal structures in the USA too, I don't know. But I did check on Sarek and it says to file disputes in Finland. So there you go.

    And a quick check of the Namecheap TOS, for example, is pretty clear what court system they are required to answer to:

    https://www.namecheap.com/legal/general/court-order-and-subpoena-policy/

    And by the behavior of the Indian government on how they handle all sorts of regulatory compliance, privacy, freedom of speech, censorship, and press issues, and a terrible track record of invasive government overreach of IT infrastructure, I sure hope no country outside of India complies with an Indian court order.

    Thanked by 1martheen
  • hostbethostbet Member, Host Rep

    Yes, it's true. Some Indian ISPs including Jio and Airtel have blocked Namecheap.com, Dynadot.com etc. domains. The actual reason was there were a few websites or domains which were hosting Asia Cup live stream illegally and the indian government sent notices to those domain registrars as well, but they didn't took any actions and eventually they got blocked. It's a quite old news.

    As per https://ndtv.com/india-news/take-action-against-internet-domain-name-registrars-for-violation-delhi-high-court-3511464

    The court's order came on a lawsuit by Star India Pvt Ltd against the illegal streaming of Asia Cup cricket tournament by certain online platforms. ~ November 11, 2022 11:44 pm IST

    As per https://livelaw.in/news-updates/delhi-high-court-directs-centre-to-take-action-against-five-dnrs-for-non-compliance-of-orders-213790

    On August 22, in the suit filed by Star India, the court had granted an ex parte ad interim injunction restraining the infringement of the channel's exclusive broadcast rights for Asia Cricket Cup matches and associated content. On November 9, Star India told the court that five of the DNRs have not complied with the court orders.
    The DNRs are NameCheap Inc, Dynadot LLC, Tucows Inc, Gransy s.r.o and Sarek Oy.

    NameCheap in response to a communication from Star India regarding Delhi High Court's order had said that it will abide only by a US court's order.

    I think they might have got notification or atleast any form of warning before getting blocked by ISPs, but maybe they haven't stopped those websites.

  • TrKTrK Member

    Nothing is blocked from my end, maybe cause i use my own DNS resolvers? Well can't say much about this move, all i can expect is another shit show from the uneducated bureaucrats.

    Thanked by 1Void
  • @TrK said:
    Nothing is blocked from my end, maybe cause i use my own DNS resolvers? Well can't say much about this move, all i can expect is another shit show from the uneducated bureaucrats.

    you mean the government should let them run those illegal websites? As per news those registrars were being warned, the illegal websites were blocked by the government but people were accessing them with VPN. namecheap is like a offshore provider, most of the illegal websites issuing fake birth & death certificate of india were hosted on namecheap and domain's were also purchased from namecheap. I checked myself. obviously they can't determine what their client will host, but on receiving the abuse reports they should atleast take actions.

    Thanked by 1BingoBongo
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