Question

How does Openprovider handle complaints and abuse notifications about domain names?

Answer

General note

First of all, be aware that Openprovider, as a domain-only provider and not providing any content, hosting or e-mail services, are not in a position to judge the contents of a website. For that reason, our normal procedure is that we inform our reseller and the domain holder, but will not suspend the domain names without an official WIPO decision or court order (see below).

Unfortunately we cannot guarantee that our reseller will respond to the complainant.

Informal complaints

As long as there is no court order, WIPO decision or other formal decision, disputes and complaints about a domain name are primarily handled between the domain holder and his or her direct provider. If the whois shows no contact information of the domain holder, you can send a message to one of the domain contacts through our contact form. Trusted senders can also send an e-mail to abuse@openprovider.com.

If that is not possible for any reason, the complainant can contact Openprovider's abuse department; see our article on reporting abuse for further information. We will promptly contact our customer about the issue and ask him to solve it. If this does not succeed, we will escalate the complaint and cooperate to find a suitable solution.

This solution will always be based on the contracts with and policies of the respective registry. If a solution is implemented without involvement of our customer (reseller), additional proof of identification of the registrant is required.

We use the Zendesk ticketing system for tracking abuse notifications. Each submitted report is automatically assigned a ticket number which the complainant receives in a copy of his message. Each complaint is tagged with specific labels for analysis purposes.

Court order, WIPO and similar organisations

In case of a formal court order, WIPO case or similar situation, Openprovider will temporarily lock the domain against any modifications by moving it to a special account. This does not imply any changes to the domain name: the domain data will remain the same and the domain will remain functional, it just cannot be altered for the duration of the proceeding.

Depending on the outcome of the case, we will implement the decision or move the domain back into our reseller's management:

• If the outcome is in favor of the complainant, Openprovider is required to implement the decision on the domain name and we will do so within 5 calendar days. This can be an update to the domain data (including change of registrant), provisioning of the authorization code, unlocking of the domain name or deletion of the domain.
• If the outcome is in favor of the domain registrant, we will return the domain under management of our reseller again without altering any data.

Renew and restore

For the duration of the complaint, not only the registrant (through our reseller), but also the complainant can ask for renewal or reactivation of the domain name. If you are the complainant, please contact us in such a case.

UDRP

In general, Openprovider follows the Uniform Domainname Resolution Policy or UDRP.
You can find all details about this policy on ICANN's website.