On 30th September, ICANN pulled the plug on domain registrar 4domains.com (Blueberry Hill, Bluehill, 4servers.com) as they are insolvent. They owe ICANN $6k.
I got an email from the registrar that is taking over their domains on Tuesday 5th Oct.
From: “Internet.bs Corp.” To: “Internet.bs Corp.” Subject: Domain migration from 4Domains to Internet.bs Corp. Dear new customer, In accordance with a recent ICANN decision, your domain/s has/have been transferred from 4Domains to Internet.bs Corp. For further details please refer to: http://www.internet.bs/4domains.html Welcome aboard and thanks for giving us the opportunity to serve your business! PS: you might receive the same notification twice as we are purposely sending it from two separate locations in order to make sure you receive it. Regards, Marco Rinaudo  CEO Internet.bs Corp.  ICANN Registrar http://www.internet.bs
This was the first I’d heard of it and I was suspicious, so I googled around to see what might be happening. I found this blog entry and it started to look like the real deal.
There’s also this PDF on the ICANN website itself, which is the notice of termination to 4domains.com
I have (had?) a domain, virtual server and VDNS server with 4domains.com. I noticed the billing details changed for the servers a couple of months ago and wondered what was up.
Anyway after a couple of days it seems that the servers are now managed by another company called hostingpen. I got an email from them last night…
>To: Mr Alex Eames
Subject: Your 4Domains Hosting Account From: HostingPen Admin Dear Mr Alex Eames, As of Oct 6, 2010 Your 4Domains Web hosting Services are now under the management of HostingPen.com (DS Technologies). You Will Continue to Manage Your Accounts as you have the past couple of Months at: http://myaccountmanage.net/clientarea.php or You Can login from our website at www.hostingpen.com by clicking on any of the My Account or Login Links. This Transition DOE NOT involve any additional Migrations of your servers or websites. If You Have any questions Regarding your Domain Name Registrations or your 4Domains Backroom please DO Not Contact us.. You MUST Contact the gaining registrar internetbs.net   For additional Information Please go here: http://internetbs.net/4Domains.html We Welcome You To HostingPen.com and We Look Forward to providing your Web Hosting services. Thank You DS Technologies www.HostingPen.com
I logged into the hostingpen site and was able to see my VDNS control panel (although the data was about 48 hours old – coincidentally I made a change in the 4domains control panel on Monday night, just before they took the site offline, and that wasn’t reflected in the new control panel).
It’s all very alarming, and at a time when I’m busy trying to get a new ebook launched. Hopefully nothing will be shut down in a hurry. But it’s been an uncomfortable period of uncertainty for those with large numbers of domains and servers at 4domains.
I’m hoping this article will be able to help out anyone who finds themselves “out of the loop” with regard to the email correspondance from the two companies taking over the “assets” of 4domains. I’d been with 4domains for >10 years. I’d already bought a new dedicated server recently in the UK with the idea of transferring all my sites onto it to consolidate and save a wodge of cash. Now I’ve got the incentive to get on with that and make it work. :-))