Nominet acts over Firevision debacle

May 2005

UK registry operator Nominet has at last acted against domain name registrar Firevision, which has left thousands of customers in limbo and unable to access their domain names.

Some Firevision customers - none of whom have been able to get access to their domains or a response from the company for months - have received an acknowledgment email from Nominet which states: "Currently Firevision are unable to make any changes to .uk domain names, this includes changing the hosting tag."

However, the response falls far short of what furious customers want. We warned Nominet nearly two months ago that Firevision, run by 27-year-old Graham Briggs, was not responding to any requests from customers or making any changes through its online system, effectively putting thousands of .uk domains, as well as .com, .net. org and .info domains, in a state of limbo.

At the time, Nominet's director of operations, Eleanor Bradley, assured us that Nominet was keeping a "close eye on things" and that it would act on any reports of problems. She also advised that for a fee of £15 per domain - up to a maximum of £30 - Nominet would step into and transfer the domain details to another authorised registrar.