Nov 25, 2008 : ResellerClub to Take Over EstDomains

📅 November 25, 2008 - Domain registrar ResellerClub (resellerclub.com 👉 Total Reviews: 127
🙌 Average Rating: 7.6 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 106
👎 Bad Reviews: 21
👈 Official Responses: 4) announced on Tuesday that it will be taking over the business of controversial Estonia-based domain registrar EstDomains as a result of the latter's recent de-accreditation by domain name regulation body ICANN (icann.org).


According to the company's most recent announcement, EstDomain's registrar operations and SSL certificate business will be transferred to ResellerClub on December 1.

On October 28, ICANN sent a notice of termination to EstDomains from its list of accredited registrars because the organization found an Estonian court indicating that former EstDomains president, Vladimir Tsastsin, had been convicted of credit card fraud, money laundering and document forgery.

EstDomains reportedly broke section 5.3 of the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement - giving ICANN the right to terminate its agreement before its expiration - which states: "Any officer or director of [a] Registrar is convicted or a felony or of a misdemeanor related to financial activities, or is adjudged by a court to have committed fraud or breach of fiduciary duty, or is the subject of judicial determination that ICANN deems as the substantive equivalent of any of these; provided such officer or director is not removed in such circumstances."

The WHIR recently reported that EstDomains tried to distance itself from its former director and was making an appeal to ICANN under section 5.4, which gives a registrar another chance to apply for certification given "the availability and quality of registration data."

However, considering ResellerClub's takeover announcement and EstDomain's de-accreditation, the registrar's appeal seems to have failed.

"EstDomains was using our registrar automation platform, and this should make the entire migration process a relatively simpler one for EstDomains's existing clientele," says Bhavin Turakhia, CEO ResellerClub. "I'd like to also mention here that all domains registered through EstDomains in the past, will continue to function smoothly, and their clients have nothing to be worried about. Their convenience is our top priority as of now, just as it has always been for our own clientele."

ResellerClub says its announcement has also been welcomed by several anti-spam and anti-malware communities because they believe that ResellerClub's stance on abusive domain names will encourage the company to take quick action on any suspects under EstDomain's current portfolio.

At the time of its expiration notice, ICANN reported that EstDomains managed as many as 281,000 domain names.

Founded in 1998, ResellerClub is a business of Internet product developer Directi (directi.com), which is known in the industry as one of the more notable providers of reseller solutions to the domain registration and hosting businesses. On its website, ResellerClub says it currently serves more than two million domain names via 53,773 resellers.