Other Illegal Activities Reporting Process

The document outlines the process for reporting various illegal online activities to Trustname, a domain name registrar. It clarifies that while Trustname cannot directly enforce content removal without a court order, it provides a channel for reporting issues and cooperates with law enforcement to combat online misconduct.

Key Takeaways

• Scope of Illegal Activities - We address reports of online offenses like scams, identity theft, fraud, defamation, and other unlawful acts but cannot determine legality without proper legal evidence.
• Initial Reporting Steps - Users should first report online crimes to their local law enforcement. We cooperate globally with authorities to take lawful action where required.
• Contacting the Domain Owner - If needed, users can contact the registrant directly through Whois details or our WHOIS Privacy Protection Service contact form for resolution.
• Law Enforcement and Court Orders - We process valid court orders or subpoenas from Estonia, Germany, Canada, or the United States, ensuring registrants are notified and given due process.
• Registrar’s Role and Obligations - Our responsibility is limited to domain registration; we act only under ICANN and Estonian law and cannot independently remove or alter website content.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Key Takeaways
• Definition
• Your Action Plan
• Grievance Officer
• Law Enforcement Agency
• What Will Happen
• Please Keep In Mind
• Remember

Definition

We cannot list all the other possible illegal activities you might encounter online, because almost anything illegal offline can also be done online. Most people use the Internet for good reasons, but some people use it for nefarious purposes. Any other inappropriate content, including but not limited to identity theft, unauthorized redirect/frame/IP pointing, defamation, terrorist propaganda, HYIP, warez, various scams, fraud as unlawful deception with the intent to obtain financial or other benefit (i.e., access to personal information), etc.

Your Action Plan

• First, Contact Law Enforcement: Always report illegal activity to your local law enforcement authorities. Trustname cannot determine whether something is technically illegal, but we regularly collaborate with law enforcement agencies worldwide to combat online illegal activity.
• Inform the Registrar: You can also file a report with the domain name registrant. Most registrars and website owners do not want to facilitate illegal activity and will take swift action if they become aware of such content on their sites, as required by law in their respective countries.

  You can contact them using the information you find by performing a Whois lookup on the Registrar’s website or via a generic service; this may be a link to a contact form or their email address. Look for a line that starts with "Registrant Email". If they are using our WHOIS Privacy Protection Service (WHOISPPS), you can use the contact privacy form. Please note that we have no control over the content of websites hosted on domains registered with us or any of our registered domain name registrants.

Grievance Officer

If you are an Indian authority and need to contact the grievance officer, please email our grievance officer at abuse@trustname.com (subject: Grievance Officer).

Law Enforcement Agency

If you are a law enforcement agency submitting a court order or subpoena to Trustname or otherwise have a court order instructing TrustName to enforce action against a site, you can submit it here and select Abuse Report Form - Court Order or Criminal or Civil Subpoena.

What Will Happen

Upon receipt of such a request via our Abuse Report Form, Trustname will :

1. Respond with a case number.
2. Investigate your complaint, including validating the order. Please note that we, as a Registrar, will only accept court orders issued by or domesticated in the courts of Estonia, Germany, Canada, or the United States.
3. We will add the site, category, date, and resolution of your complaint to our internal database. Your personal information is not recorded there.
4. We will inform the domain name registrant of the order against their domain, so that they can object in the appropriate court of law or otherwise be afforded due process.

Please Keep In Mind

• We cannot guarantee any particular outcome, but we will review your complaint and contact you only if necessary.
• Your complaint will be evaluated on its merits and addressed as appropriate.
• You will not receive any updates regarding the evaluation or outcome of the complaint. It is entirely at the discretion of the domain registrant whether or not to respond to you.
• We reserve the right to use your complaint to prove abuse to our customer, if necessary.
• Complaints are tracked by our team to improve anti-abuse processes and mitigate threats.
• If you submit your report using the Abuse Report Form, you will not receive further notification of receipt for additional submissions from your email address within 24 hours.
• The support code to submit this type of abuse report is S7Q-SCAM-Y9W.

Remember

• Limited Role – Domain name Registrars, such as Trustname, only maintain the system of domain names (example.org) that uniquely identify websites. They are not responsible for the content of the sites to which those domain names point. This means that if you dislike a site or its content, you should first contact the domain owner, then the service that hosts the site (web hosting service), and, if necessary, your local law enforcement authorities. As a domain Registrar, we can only act on court orders issued by or domesticated in the courts of Estonia, Germany, Canada, or the United States.
• ICANN Compliance –According to the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) and Estonian law, as a Registrar, we are not authorized to take independent action against a domain based on third-party allegations. The responsibility for content and activities related to a domain lies with its administrator. However, in accordance with our role as an accredited Registrar, we will take action against a domain administrator if we receive a valid court order or a request from an ICANN-recognized authority.
• Our responsibilities – As a Registrar, include addressing issues such as Botnets, Malware, Pharming, Phishing, Spam, DNS security threats, and trademark infringement, as detailed by ICANN. For more information and our recommended solutions to these issues, please take a look at the related articles on ICANN's website.