Our domain was abruptly blocked by our registrar this morning. Our NOC team and myself tried to get in touch with them and they tell us "Contact our legal". Even I could not get in touch with anyone beyond their phone operator. The domain was restored, but as DNS takes time to restore, we are still facing issues. They later claimed there were abuse complaints about Zoho.com emails (which is our personal email service with millions of free and paid users). We received a total of 3 complaints from them and two of them have been acted upon and one is under investigation.
Once we dig our way out of this, we will find ways make sure no one takes down our domain again this way.
This event seems to have been triggered from abuse complaints - and involved the registrar not reaching out to the client in question.
Curiously enough, I had a very similar incident with Namecheap last week: an unsubstantiated email (without subpoena, judge's order, or even validation of who actually sent the email) - was sent to namecheap abuse /alleging/ (correct, no proof) trademark infringement.
Namecheap rolled over and provided all information to the third party - and didn't bother to inform me of the incident. The only way I found out was a menacing legal letter using the address that I have on file at namecheap.
If Namecheap doesn't respect due process (ie, requiring legal documents to turn over customer information) or customer privacy (Hi, we have just had to turn over information) - on a 10+ year customer, I'm not sure that you're in a better position than Terra.
Severely disappointed with you guys.
Can you shoot me an email? ted [at] namecheap.com
"Upon the receipt of a valid criminal subpoena, unless the circumstances or subpoena warrant otherwise, Namecheap may promptly notify the customer whose information is sought via email or U.S. mail"
Two things seem unclear:
1) The phrase "unless the circumstances or subpoena warrant otherwise"
2) The use of "may" in "may promptly notify the customer". Why is that not "shall" or "must"?