Domain registry claims blackmail threat

Owner of suspended website accused of threatening spam campaign in registry's name

Dinah Greek, vnunet.com 23 Jul 2003

A US domain name registry has claimed that a UK website owner tried to blackmail it into reactivating his site by threatening to spam its customers.

According to US domain name registry NeuLevel, Mel Goudie, owner of domain-renewal.biz, threatened to send 25,000 spam emails a day to NeuLevel's customers after the registry suspended his website.

The registry has reported the threat to the UK police and the US Federal Trade Commission.

NeuLevel had received numerous complaints from registrars and .biz website owners that Goudie had been sending emails telling owners that they needed to renew their domain name registrations, which could be done via his website.

But .biz domain names do not need to be re-registered until at least November 2003.

"We had a number of complaints from our customers alleging that they had paid for services but had not received them," said Jeff Neuman, NeuLevel's legal director.

After it suspended his domain-renewal.biz website, NeuLevel said that Goudie phoned and demanded that the site be reactivated.

Goudie is alleged to have said that, if the registry did not reactivate the site, he would send spam to NeuLevel's .biz customers, claiming that their domain names were about to be deleted. He also emailed his threat to NeuLevel.

"I have decided to pace myself, sending out approximately 25,000 emails per day, so that your company is disrupted continually for the next month or so by thousands of phone calls each day," he warned.

The headers would come from what he described as an "unrelated third party" called "Neulevel Notifications", but added: "[Customers] may telephone your company, angrily looking for answers. I would hate for that to happen."

An angry Neuman commented: "This is extortion. He called me on Monday around noon US time giving NeuLevel 20 minutes to take the site off hold."

NeuLevel has now alerted the authorities and its members, sending out a statement to registrars, customers, the US Federal Trade Commission and the UK police.

"We take the conduct of this particular registrant extremely seriously and do not view the actions we have taken lightly," said Richard Tindal, NeuLevel's vice president.

"We are continuing this investigation and may be seeking your assistance in the coming weeks on this matter."

vnunet.com attempted to contact Goudie on a number posted on his website and on a number provided by NeuLevel, but he did not return messages.

Domain-renewal.biz is in no way related to domainrenewal.biz, which is a genuine domain name renewal site run by accredited registrar Internetters.

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