ICANN has announced the termination of the agreement and the revocation of accreditation from Net 4 India. At one time, this company was the largest independent domain registrar in India, managing hundreds of thousands of domain names. Unfortunately, in recent years, the company’s affairs left much to be desired, to put it mildly. The revocation of accreditation was preceded by four formal breach notices from ICANN. According to Domain Incite, which reported this news, the result of this can be considered a record of sorts.
Back in 2017, the debt recovery company Edelweiss bought out Net 4 India’s $28 million debt from the State Bank of India and took the company to court. The registrar tried to improve its affairs, but the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, apparently, finally undermined its position. By the way, in February 2021, the Indian court asked ICANN not to terminate the Net 4 India’s agreement at least until April 25, to give the company a final chance to put its house in order. However, hundreds of complaints from the registrar’s clients outweighed this request. Previously, ICANN warned the registrar about the improper maintenance of the WHOIS database and delays in payments to the corporate budget, but gross violation of the rights of registrants is already a much more significant problem. During the pandemic, hundreds of Net 4 India’s customers faced the inability to renew or transfer their domain names registrations. Among them were medical institutions, as well as charities, which made the situation even more acute.
Many observers believe that ICANN should have taken harsh measures and terminated the agreement with Net 4 India much earlier – in this case, the interests of registrants would have suffered much less. But the corporation apparently hoped that the Indian registrar would be able to overcome its difficulties. Now there is no more hope: the agreement with Net 4 India will be officially terminated on March 13. After that, the domain names that are currently under the company's management – and there are still thousands of them – will be transferred to an ICANN-accredited registrar.
