The status of three ccTLDs for Turks and Caicos Islands (.tc), the British Virgin Islands (.vg) and Grenada (.gd) is currently unclear due to the alleged "hijacking". Any modifications to domains in .tc, .gd and .vg are currently not permitted, except renewals.
All affected ccTLDs are, or were, managed by AdamsNames, a company based in United Kingdom, however, the company outsourced its backend registry functions to KSRegistry, a subsidiary of Germany's Key-Systems, last autumn. This week, KSRegistry has issued an official statement where it says that the unspecified third party has taken over the registry's domain name (AdamsNames.net) to operate a registry there.
"Today, the KSregistry GmbH, a hundred percent subsidiary of the Key-Systems GmbH, has learned that a third party has executed a transfer of the domain name adamsnames.net and now operates a shadow registry under this domain. According to the CEO of AdamsNames Ltd., Mr. Carsten Pauli, this transfer was not authorized by the registry operator", KSRegistry's statement reads. According to Whois records, last week the domain changed its contact address from London to Istanbul and its contact organization from Key-Systems to Hexonet, while the administrator, an Ertan Ulutas, stayed the same. It is worth noting that Ertan Ulutas previously owned adamsnames.com, another registry-owned domain, which now lists Carsten Pauli as its owner; the website currently has a single "under construction" dummy page.
The website in question, AdamsNames.net, has a statement as well, where someone behind the domain claims that a "high level Corporate hijack from the minority shareholder Carsten Pauli and Key Systems GmbH” is taking place. According to the information in the statement, adamsnames.com "had been illegally transferred into another account without any notice or authorisation" from whoever's behind AdamsNames.net. "Upon realising this we transferred our other gTLD domains to another Registrar. Due to this matter we lost trust in Key Systems GmbH and decided to run it ourselves", the message says.
KSRegistry states that it still provides the technical back-end services for the ccTLDs .tc, .gd and .vg, as authorized by AdamsNames Ltd., but that "this is currently hampered by the actions of the third party". Key-Systems founder and CEO Alexander Siffrin said in a statement that "Key-Systems GmbH has at no time hijacked a domain name from Adamsnames Ltd. It has in the incident referred to by the party currently claiming to represent Adamsnames acted upon a request of the director of Adamsnames Ltd. who is also the signatory of the agreement outsourcing the technical backend of the registry to KSregistry GmbH". Siffrin says that the transfer of the domain name adamsnames.net – and the ability to change the management of the zone has been initiated without permission of Adamsnames Ltd. He also points out that the domain names adamsnames.net, adamsnames.org and adamsnames.eu don't list AdamsNames Ltd. as registrant.
Key-Systems GmbH as registrar currently does not permit modifications to domain names in .tc, .gd and .vg, except renewals.
