Gandi Bar

What you can expect this fall

Ryan — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:02:00 +0200

Rush hour traffic on our street is starting to pick up again, and so I sense this is the beginning of the end of summer vacation for many of you and the return of the usual 9-to-5. What better time then for us to share with you how we are coming along with some of our latest projects!

For the past 4 months now, we have been making progress on major improvements to our domain name and hosting services.

With regards to domains, we are re-writing our (old) backend, which was written prior to 2006 for the most part, and then only written to handle gTLDs (.com, .net., .org, etc.), though has since been used to manage the 80 new extensions added since then

Our new system will be more comprehensive and will be able to handle operations that we currently process manually (some transfers, IPv6 glue records, etc.). Due to its flexibility, it will be easier to add new extensions as well as make it easier for us to let you know why operations may have failed at the registry (you will be able to see the registry's error message directly).

Domain creations are just about ready to be handled by the new system, after which we will be adding transfers, renewals, owner changes etc. We have taken advantage of this overhaul to improve each process as well (allowing renewals as late as possible, being able to restore domains from your account, no longer add a new handle during transfers, managing DNS zones more efficiently, etc.)

One this has been completed, we will start to implement DNSSEC.

Hosting-wise, we have reworked our API to make it public. The beta version is almost done, and we will be posting more on this soon in the Gandi Kitchen.

We are simultaneously working on new features, mainly centered on:

disk management, with, for example: duplication, real-time snapshots, the ability to attach/remove or boot from the disk of your choosing, better management of SWAP and resizing,
network management with, for example, a better handling of network interfaces and the possibility of creating a load balancer.

Finally, our American datacenter and teams will soon be operational, though ssssshhh.. this is still somewhat of a secret

The new version of Gandi, called version 3.0.6, which, among other things will open our Hosting API, will be released mid-September. It will be a busy fall!

Gandi has moved to v3.0.5

Ryan — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:02:00 +0200

5 new versions since January's 3.0.0, with a many improvements and corrections between each one - onwards and upwards

We would like to use this entry to discuss a rather large upgrade of our system. This one is a bit unusual in that you will not see the majority of the work that we did as cool new interfaces or features. Rather, this version was mainly dedicated to the backend, which was improved and enhanced so that we can do many new things later on, but which will also have an immediate impact on the quality of our service.

Why discuss it then? Well, to be honest, because the changes that we performed were quite significant, and so despite the many hours of testing that we have performed over the past few days, it is not impossible that some bugs exist under special circumstances. We would therefore like to mention this, and ask that you let us know of the slightest problem that you encounter.

Otherwise, you will notice that we have redone the Orders in Progress page, which now lists your orders by product category. This interface will soon be improved and will provide an even greater level of detail, enabling you to watch the state of your order and the actions that are being performed in real time. Note however that the T-shirt orders have been left out of this page for the time being. This is intentional, but don't worry, we are watching them

And since we are talking about T-shirts, you may have noticed the presence of the new T-shirt model (the former were nearly all exhausted) which is currently available.

Finally, we have added a new page to our website: promo codes. You can now go to this interface (which is automatically updated depending on your eligibility with regards to active promos) to get promo cods that you can use at Gandi.net. For example, there is currently a .ORG promo underway: if you have a .COM or .ORG for which the .ORG is available for creation, you will therefore see a promo code that you can use to purchase the .ORG for 66% off the regular price!

And don't worry, other promos will follow this summer

Please let us know any bugs that you encounter by writing to gandiv3 _at_ gandi.net

Gandi will apply Verisign's 3rd price increase on July 1st 2010

Ryan — Mon, 31 May 2010 15:04:00 +0200

Verisign, the registry for the extremely popular extensions (.com, .net), unilaterally decided to raise domain registration AND renewal prices for the third time in four years. Gandi was informed about this decision on December 17th 2009.

A quick flashback: Verisign and ICANN (basically the Trustee Authority) for the technical management of the internet) signed an agreement towards the end of November 2006 stipulating that the former has the right to increase rates by 7% for .com and 10% for .net every year until the end of 2012.

Gandi absorbed nearly all the cost of the first two increases (2007 and 2008) for historic, commercial, and economic reasons. Since December 17th of last year, we have been looking for a solution to avoid having to pass on this unfortunate price increase to our customers.

We should mention right away that we were unable to do so. We have nonetheless tried to provide you with an offer that is attractive and realistic, that takes into consideration your expectations, our values, and market forces.

Beginning July 1st, only .com renewals (in euros only) will be affected by this increase. .Com renewal prices (in euros, excluding VAT) will therefore be:

12.50 euros excluding VAT under A rates, (14.95 euros incl. VAT)

11.40 euros excluding VAT under B rates,

9.50 euros excluding VAT under C rates,

7.90 euros excluding VAT under D rates,

6.30 euros excluding VAT under E rates

We will not increase the price of .com and .net creations, nor the price of renewing .net domains.

Our idea is simple, all customers, whether new or loyal customers that have been with us for the past 10 years, may continue to benefit from the same creation prices. You are our greatest advocates and understand the quality of our service, we appreciate the trust you have put in us. We understand you may choose to accept this 7% price increase when renewing your domain name. Or not.

For 6 months we tried to protect our customers from the price increases, however we can no longer sit back and do nothing, as this would put us in a very delicate position (especially as on top of this there is the current unfavourable euro/dollar exchange rate). We do not want to sell domains under cost or lie to you about the real price of our services unlike some providers. As you know that is just not our style.

The majority of registrars throughout the world have already raised these rates (creation and renewals) for both extensions, or will soon be doing so. At Gandi, we will have a look at the end of the year to see if we can continue to absorb the price increase for creations and the .net.

If you are going to renew your domain name, it may be a good idea to do so before July 1st, in order to avoid the additional cost.

SiteMaker update

Ryan — Tue, 18 May 2010 15:56:00 +0200

SiteMaker update

Whether you are a fan of SiteMaker or just getting started, you are absolutely going to love the latest release of SiteMaker!
The new version provides you with a larger work space that is clearer and easier to use. We have also added powerful new features such as tools for Google, the ability to insert HTML code directly into your website, and a total overhaul of the member system.

In more detail:

A larger, clearer work area:

Gandi Sitemaker's interface has not undergone any major changes since its creation. The new version gives you a larger interface with a dedicated work area that allows you to display the options of each main menu idem. This gives you access that is faster, easier, and clearer. This work space also has its own dynamic menus that can be open or closed. The space can even be hidden over on the side, so that you can have a complete view of the website.
Customers that already have a SiteMaker website may keep the old version of the toolbar if desired. New customers will automatically benefit from the new interface.

New powerful features:

There are many new tools that will help you embellish your website and make it more practical, and more visible on the web. We specifically worked on adding Google tools (Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, AdSense, Maps...) in addition to pre-installed Amazon and Twitter tools, thanks to our new HTML snippet widget. This is an excellent introduction to discuss...

HTML in Flash

Customers have been requesting the ability to insert HTML code into their SiteMaker website for quite a while. This is now possible by adding an HTML snippet widget (available from the file manager), and then inserting your HTML code in there. You cannot preview it directly in the interface, however a simple "View my site" will allow you to see the result of your work We recommend the excellent widget website widgetbox.com as a place to get practical tools that have already been proven to work! You can see a quick demonstration on this website, which will give you an idea of the possibilities that HTML insertion can add to your Gandi SiteMaker website.

Improved members system

Our member management system needed to be updated badly, as it has been used for a very long time and webmasters have been asking us for improvements for a while now. You will now see a complete and more practical interface to help you better manage your members. We have also added the ability to let visitors become members of your websites through their Facebook IDs. Additionally, you can keep your friends/followers informed of the status of your website via Facebook and Twitter!

And besides all this, there are currently over 2,600,000 websites in the world that have been built with SiteMaker! It's a system that has proven itself over and over again, and that continues to impress. Version 4.5 is easy to use and does not require any special IT knowledge. For example, it is not necessary to connect via VTP to update your website: everything is done online, directly via the interface!

How does it work?

If you are already a user of Gandi SiteMaker and have a website that has already been created, once in edit mode, click on the bar at the top of the page where it says [Advanced view] or [Normal view] depending on your case. Once you do this, you will see a pop-up that will ask which toolbar you would like to use. Choose New toolbar, and you will be taken there right away

As a reminder, each domain name owner at Gandi automatically has a free 2-page SiteMaker website. If you are the happy owner of a domain name at Gandi, now is the perfect time to try out the new version of Gandi SiteMaker. All the more so, since a new website competition will be starting soon - and the winner will get a free Eee PC!

An increase in the CPU of our VPS shares, and now add RAM on demand

Ryan — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:35:00 +0200

We have now released version 3.0.3 of Gandi.net (version 3.0.2 wasn't very exciting and mainly to do with our 10-year anniversary). The exciting part of this new release is a change in the way that we handle VPS shares, and the ability to add RAM on demand to your server.

Power of a share

As you probably already know, up to this point the CPU power of our VPS shares was a pretty linear thing: two shares provided exactly twice as much power as one, and this ratio went all the way up to 24 shares.

We placed a CPU limit on how much a single share could use, but the downside of this was that heavy applications such as Wordpress or Joomla required at least two shares to run well. We wanted to change this to make better use of resources and give you more power.

We have therefore decided to round up the burst CPU power provided with your shares to the nearest core: so beginning with one share, you have a full core for your server. At 5 shares, you go to two cores, etc. up to 24 shares (6 cores).

Since we can migrate your VPS from one physical machine to another on demand we can keep a fair balance between the CPU usage across the machine which roughly handles60 shares, or about 40 servers per physical machine.

The bandwidth available to your server is still increased by a rate of 5Mb/s per share as you increase the number of shares you have. Increasing the number of shares is therefore still necessary if your website generates a significant amount of traffic, however you can stick with a single share if you only need your server for a simple blog without much need for bandwidth. This is because the burst CPU power is much higher.

So as a result of these changes:

1 share is now much more powerful with the new structure (we have carried out benchmarks that show this, and I will let you try for yourself :)).
The net CPU power of 2 shares is the same as the net CPU power of 1 share. This does not mean that the 2-share server is not more powerful (due to RAM and bandwidth), but there is clearly a reduced difference of power between them.
Allocating more than 20 shares to a server is only necessary if you need the corresponding RAM and bandwidth.
2 servers of one share each is better than 1 server made with two shares, so if you can build a distributed system, your service will be much better.

However, because of these changes to the burst CPU we have now removed the option of choosing the number of cores per server for the moment.

What does this mean for the concept of a "share"?

A "share" was originally defined as the minimum bundle of resources that would allow you to run a service with acceptable performance. Multiple "shares" could be bought as your service requirements increased. We will continue to evole what a "share" represents, but also allow you to stray from the share path by customising the resources at your disposal.

We therefore are pleased to announce that as of today, you can add RAM to your pool of available resources within increasing the number of "shares" you are using. We are going to manage RAM like disk quota. Each share comes with 256MB of RAM, but you can add additional RAM if you wish. You are free to create, for example, a 2-share server with 256MB of RAM (instead of 512) and to use the remaining 256MB on another server.

If you had bought 2 shares simply for the RAM increase and didn't need the CPU boost, you could now drop back to 1 share, and then add an additional 256MB of RAM as an add-on.

Additional Cores? Additional bandwidth?

Yes, definitely. However the "when" is rather difficult to pin down at this time, though it will probably be in the final quarter of 2010, or sooner (we have hired many new team members recently).

Is it already available?

The additional RAM is, yes. It is currently available from your resource management page. To learn how to use additional RAM, visit our RAM wiki page.

For changes to the way we manage CPU, all new servers created are already on the new model, and we will be gradually transferring the older servers to this new model as the new physical machines arrive.

The googlesharing.net saga – what actually happened

Joe — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:16:00 +0100

For those following this story, it’s been a pretty confusing and unsettling ordeal. And we’re certainly sorry for the part we played and adding to the confusion. But this was a play with many players, so let us set out below what happened and why. The major players in this drama were: Gandi.net (us), Moxie (the customer) and Comodo (the SSL technology provider). I could add the the Easter weekend, but I won't. And everyone played a part in this going wrong and shares some of the responsibility. We’ll set out why below.

So here’s what happened: Moxie the customer, bought an SSL certificate for his website googlesharing.net from Gandi.net which uses the technology platform of Comodo (rather than reinvent the wheel for SSL). This was a standard certificate for which Gandi.net acts as the Certification Authority. (see https://www.gandi.net/ssl for details).

What Comodo did

Comodo reviewed the SSL cert issued by Gandi and decided to question the information provided by the applicant (Moxie) relating to the certificate. They did this because Moxie had attempted to get a cert for the same (and other) URLs in the past and had done so with falsified information. When they asked Moxie to prove the existence of the company name and address (which were non existent by searches) he was unable to do so. On this basis they revoked the certificate. Comodo told us:

“Moxie gave false and misleading information in the request which is a clear violation of our subscriber agreement so we revoked the cert. We ask for the address and organization details so we capture who we are doing business with. If they give a misleading answer then they violate the terms of the subscriber agreement so we can revoke. “Subscriber shall: … ensure that all information provided to Comodo is complete and accurate”.

Where Comodo went wrong was that they took action against a Gandi customer without telling us OR asking us to check the details and validate. They had no right to revoke without us agreeing to this decision as we are the Certification Authority in this case. The first we heard about it was when we were contacted by Moxie.

What Gandi did

When Moxie contacted us, we asked Comodo what had happened and why. They told us that it had been revoked because of falsifised whois information and fraudulent activity. The fraudulent activity did not relate to the activity of googlesharing (as Moxie claims) but the attempt to secure a certificate using falsified information, which amounts to fraud. Either of these would have been sufficient to revoke the cert.

We then relayed this information to Moxie, but added the ‘goolge trademark violation’ reason which was a mistake and pure speculation from our customer support team. This was a serious error on our part for which we sincerely apologise. Google has not contacted us, and had nothing to do with this. This was our error and ours alone. Sorry about that.

This information was then passed onto TheRegister.co.uk, who published the article without us having had a chance to comment. In fairness to them, they did email the management team, but at 2am CET and the article was published before we could respond.

We then published a blog article underlining the main reason for the revoked cert, which was the false whois data. This was not an attempt to cover things up, but the real reason for the revocation and it has taken us a while to unpick all the storylines (both real and imaginary) to get to the facts.

What Moxie did

Well, Moxie registered his domains and certificates using made up names of people and companies, and fabricated addresses. The addresses do not exist and the people’s names used changed several times but usually can be found in urban dictionary, e.g. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Amory%20Blaine.

As we’ve said before, a certificate is a stamp of approval that a person or organisation is who they say they are. They cannot be based on fraudulent information. So revoking the cert in this case was the right thing to do, just managed badly.

We understand that Moxie is a guy who values privacy (as his googlesharing service suggests), but the ICANN whois regulations are as they are, and the T&Cs of certificate providers require real people/companies too. We value our customers and trust them, but they must trust us too. And providing fake information to us is not the way to do this.

We would welcome Moxie’s comments on this and we’d be happy to issue him a new certificate but only if he provides real information as we expect from anyone.

So for our other customers, there is nothing to worry about. This matter was picked up because of repeated attempts to get certificates with falsified information, and this was the reason it was revoked. We are not going to randomly cancel other customer certificates, and neither is Comodo.

But activity seeking to fabricate information in the whois directory, or to get hold of certificates for nonexistent companies is a risky business. But that’s why most people don’t do this. If you behave like a bad guy you run a serious risk of being perceived as one. Additionally, registering a domain name with other people's brands in it often raises warning flags.

Anyway, that’s the whole story. Everyone had something to contribute to this mess. We have had many discussions with Comodo about this and will continue to do so to improve our processes and prevent this happening again. We would also welcome discussions with Moxie of course. We’d like to apologise to all our customers who have felt confused, unsure or upset during the last couple of days. This was never our intension and we whole heartedly apologise for errors we made in this, and have learnt from the process.

I hope that helps make things clear.

And just to complete the story, TheRegister updated their article with the following addition:

"Update In a sign that the "no bullshit" promise isn't a mere gimmick, Gandi COO Joe White sent us the following reply to a query we sent yesterday:

We certainly acknowledge that we could have handled this better, particularly in not contacting the customer prior to the revocation of the certificate. The reason for the certificate being revoked was because of the inaccurate whois data. Certificates really are a seal of trust, but that cannot be based on falsified whois data. It was right to revoke the certificate for this reason, but not without being in contact with the customer. We have reviewed and changed our processes to rectify this..."

TheRegister.co.uk comments on gandi's removal of SSL certificate for googlesharing.net

Joe — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:36:00 +0100

TheRegister.co.uk ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/05/googlesharing_cert_revoked/ ) last night published an article describing how Gandi.net had enforced its policies by removing a certificate for a domain name googlesharing.net that had infringed on our terms and conditions in a number of ways. According to the article the known ‘hacker’ who admitted to falsifying his whois information on the registration was surprised that the certificate was removed.

Our policy has always been to respect our customers and protect their rights, but also protect the rights of other companies and customers. The ‘whois’ accuracy requirement is not only an important part of the ICANN regulations, but also a key aspect in us knowing who are customers are and allowing us to contact them in event of a problem. If you falsify your whois information, we may not be able to contact you if there is a problem, and we don’t know who you are which means we can’t protect you as much as other customers that we can vouch for and validate. Ours is a relationship of mutual trust and respect. Please respect us by giving us accurate information. If you want to enforce privacy, use the various privacy settings to obscure your whois data, but don’t falsify it.

Certificates represent an extra layer of security and trust on the internet. They give customers a sense of security that the website they are visiting can be trusted and the owner is a known individual or entity. If the whois data behind a domain is falsified, a valid certificate cannot be issued, because the owner is not a trusted source. It would be wrong to give an accredited level of trust to a site that is based on deliberately misleading information.

The customer in this case was trying to setup and promote a service to offer users a greater degree of privacy from the information that google collects. This is a noble cause and one that we would be happy to host, but only if it plays by the rules. The customer could have avoided this by:

Providing accurate whois information so we know who they are and can vouch for them and issue a certificate with certainty
Register a domain that describes the service but does not risk any potential trademark infringement, e.g. Searchengineprivacy.com (or some combination of that that is avaialbe).

This way we would know who they are and defend their rights to the teeth as we do with all of our customers.

Please note that we weren't contacted by google in this case, but took action based on the falsified Whois data. Google could object to this domain, so it's always good to avoid potential infringement that could cause you to lose a domain in a dispute.

In the spirit of our ‘no bullshit’ policy, what we could have done better in this example was make more of an effort to contact the customer direct at the point when we knew the certificate was going to be revoked. The address and phone number on the Whois were fake but we should have followed up by email. This was our error and we'll do better next time.

Would you like to go behind the scenes?

Ryan — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:38:00 +0100

And meet the crew that gives Gandi that special touch?

The GandiBar is a good communication tool, and a special way for us to interact with you, our customers, in a warm and inviting environment. It is a place where you can speak openly with us on all matter of things, even those that might be touchy.

We really like this ambiance, and the direct contact with you that helps guide us in our decisions. The feedback that we have gotten back from you has shown us that you too appreciate this! We have therefore decided to open the "Gandi Kitchen" as well.

It is a place where the developers create, build, spice up, and correct our interfaces, processes, servers, etc. The comparison with cooking ends there; you will not see any short, plump, bald chefs with tall white hats - the majority of our devs are tall, bearded, and wear witty t-shirts: real geeks! Of course you will find some that do not fit this nasty stereotype, and so much the better! On the other hand, they all speak a strange language with guttural sounds, and have a strong penguin accent, often accompanying their speech with enigmatic illustrations...

Finally, this is to introduce you to and to point you to the first entry, written in by Master Kalou, our specialist in Cloud infrastructure and whipped cream, who will explain how we used a couple of Gandi servers to host our 10-year anniversary operation.

You can visit the article in the Gandi Kitchen here

Gandi Mail - Enhanced Security Measures

Leland Vandervort — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:27:00 +0100

As a result of increasing levels of misuse of our Gandi Mail service, we are obliged to take immediate measures to protect not only our infrastructure, but also the integrity and quality of the Gandi Mail service for all of our customers.

The Gandi Mail product is provided as a complementary service provided with domain names registered at Gandi. It is not, and never was, intended to be a "public" email (SMTP) relay service, despite it only being accessible after authentication. Of course, we also provide bolt-on functionality, at a modest cost, for our customers who require additional features such as additional storage space, more than five mailboxes, and auto-responders, etc. Nevertheless, the Gandi Mail service is only to be used for the sending and receiving of mails for our customers' domains registered with us.

Unfortunately, over the past several months a large number of users have been using the service to send emails "from" other domains, either not registered at Gandi, or in many cases domains which are entirely bogus. The vast majority of such emails have been revealed to be spam and/or "phishing" attempts.

As a result, effective immediately, and as part of the implementation of the new Gandi Mail platform, the Gandi Mail servers will only allow sending of emails from the customer's domain registered at Gandi. If the "from" address of the email does not meet this criteria, it will be rejected.

Again, we apologise for having to take such drastic action without notice, but these measures had to be put in place to protect not only the mail infrastructure itself, but also the quality of service for you, our customers, the vast majority of whom do indeed use the mail service responsibly and in the manner in which it was intended.

As usual, should you encounter any problems with your Gandi Mail service, please do not hesitate to contact our support team who will be happy to assist.

A Million !! With 6 zeros!

Ryan — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:32:00 +0100

We did it: at 3:59:53 PM (CET) Gandi officially hit 1,000,000 domain names.

After a long guessing game, intense debates on probability, against the backdrop of thousands of domains created each day... we are proud to announce that it is finally today, March 9th 2010, when we have reached the millionth domain name registered with Gandi. In case you were wondering, the honor goes to universite-de-rennes-1.fr, registered by the University of Rennes in France initially for only 1 year, but as a special thank you for our 10th birthday we'll keep it going for them for another 10 years!!.

As well as the 55,000 free domain name promotion that some of you will have noticed over the past few days, we also have a special little prize for the single winner that correctly predicted (or was closest to) the exact date and time of our 1 millionth registration. We would like to thank everyone who participated in our little guessing game about the time of the millionth domain, but alas there can be only one winner of this 'trip of a lifetime'. As it turns out this will probably be a voyage to somewhere in the Indian Ocean (we are in the process of finalising the details with the winner!), but we'll keep you posted.

We are very excited that our 10th birthday celebrations have coincided with the registration of our 1 millionth domain name, and this gives us an excellent opportunity to thank you all for the trust that you have given us over so many years in the management of your online identity. Gandi really owes its success to you. So, once again, thank you!

Celebrate our 10th Birthday by accepting our gift to you of 55,000 domains

Stephan — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:32:00 +0100

What’s that you say, Gandi is giving away domain names? Yes that’s right. We’ve never done it before and we’re not likely to do it again. But we thought the occasion of our 10th Birthday was reason enough to make this single exception and share our good fortunes with you our wonderful customers.

This is not a promotion ‘just for new guys’ that you sometimes see elsewhere. The truth behind this promotion, is that it’s there to reward our customers and it pays tribute to your support and loyalty. The longer you’ve been a customer, the more free domain promo codes you may be able to get up to a maximum of 10 for those ancient Gandi-freaks But not to exclude new customers, they will be able to sign up and grab a single promo code. But that’s not the end of it. For those of you lucky enough to get several promo codes you can either use them yourselves, or choose to give them to your friends, family, enemies (maybe not enemies), or just a nice looking stranger.

The promotion starts March 1, 2.00PM GMT. For more details on how it will work visit our dedicated ‘10 year’ website (hosted by our very on Gandi Cloud).
https://ten.gandi.net

So what’s happened in these 10 years of Gandi.net ? Many things ;-), but here are a few highlights.

Almost 1 100 000 customers
More than 5 000 000 orders
Over 2 115 000 domains registered
Over 2 300 000 email addresses managed
Almost 25 000 blogs created
Almost 28 500 VPS servers on our cloud infrastructure
Almost 20 400 Site created Gandi SiteMaker
Almost 4 000 SSL certificate generated
Approx 150 000 questions to customer support

And let’s not forget

Hundreds of kilograms of coffee crushed/mixed/swallowed
Almost 100 employees, some there for 10 years and others left after just one day:)
24 children (6 just for Arti! Be careful around Arti)

And one vision – to be an ethical alternative in the murky world of domain name registrars

Thank you for helping us make this happen

========= Update

1st March - 1000 domains given away in 2m 50s

2nd March - 2000 domains given away in 40 minutes, plus one lesson learned: there's no point having a nice shiny cloud infrastructure if you don't use it properly! Our bad. A few changes to optimise the code on the ten.gandi.net site and once things were restarted, vouchers were flying off the shelves again. It should be ok now, so thanks for your patience and we'll see you tomorrow

========= Another Update

Thanks all for making this celebration such a success. For any of you that are having trouble redeeming codes, don't worry you will get them even if you need help from our support team. A couple of common things to look out for when redeeming your voucher:

Only one voucher can be redeemed per order. If you have multiple vouchers, you'll need to place multiple orders. Trying to redeem more than one will create a 'fail' for the second and subsequent vouchers. You'll then have to wait 2 hours before the voucher works again.
If your voucher doesn't work, it may be because of the first point above, or it could have been used already (if you found it on Twitter).
If you get a message saying your order was canceled, you should get an email from us and please follow up with support and we can put it through manually. When giving away 55k of free domains, we want to be careful not to have them used by fraudsters and spammers. We're not saying you are one, but sometimes our systems look for random checks in the giveaway, and if this affects you, you will need to contact support to process it. We are strongly about being an ethical registrar, so this why we are extra careful.
If you have any problems contact us at 10years [at] gandi.net

Blacklisted by SORBS – a day in the life of Gandi.net

Joe — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:40:00 +0000

Seeing as this is an issue that is now affecting some of our customers, we thought we’d write a quick post to let you know what is going on. As those of you who know Gandi.net will know, our entire history has been about being fair to our customers and taking a stand against the shady practices of the domain name industry, and the internet industry in general. This of course includes anti-spam policies, and indeed we support SpamHaus which is an anti-spam organisation (http://www.gandi.net/supports/)

So it is with surprise and regret that we must tell you that we have been blacklisted by SORBS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_and_Open_Relay_Blocking_System) for “harbouring spammers”, a charge which I’m sure you can agree is unlikely.

This situation has arisen because of our customer protection processes that are core to our beliefs. Where a customer of ours is a spammer, then we will of course take action. We don’t protect spammers.

But we cannot take action against a customer until we are provided with proof that they actually are a spammer. The requirement of proof is something that we keep strict. There are many situations where complaints by one party against another without proof have led to action by domain companies which is hasty (http://news.cnet.com/2100-1025_3-6153607.html, and an article written about this and registrar complaint procedures following the action http://news.cnet.com/Survey-Are-domain-registrars-free-speech-friendly---page-2/2100-1025_3-6155614-2.html?tag=mncol)

So when you want to make a complaint about a domain or a customer of ours, please do (abuse at gandi.net), but you will require proof. And by proof we mean original and complete documentation showing the offense. In the case of spam, this must be full and complete email headers, and not extracts or a sample, or a cut and paste of something. The original headers please.

Similarly, we cannot take action based solely on circumstantial evidence that a given domain or individual may or may not be simply associated in some form with another person or entity, nor on the basis of simply subjective opinion.

Once we have this proof, we kick off our procedures. Immediately.

Anyway, back to SORBS. So back in December we were blacklisted by SORBS without notice. The SORBS process seems to be that you are blacklisted first, then you can have a conversation, and finally you can pay to be removed from their blacklist (see ‘criticism’ section http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_and_Open_Relay_Blocking_System).

We had two objectives at this stage;

1. Understand why we were blacklisted and take appropriate action
2. Get off the blacklist

For part 1, we required proof that an offense had taken place by our customer. SORBS initially did not provide complete and original proof of the spamming domains and the spam email. They wanted us to take action based on their assertion. It took many requests and replies before we were finally able to get the original documentation that they had in their possession all along.

Once we had this documentation, we have kicked off our RIP process to contact the customer and begin proceedings. The issue is still not clear cut, as no spam originated from Gandi, or the domains we host, but 2 domains we host were mentioned in the spam. We will investigate and let you know. So that’s part 1 done.

But for Part 2, we are still blacklisted. It seems the only way to be removed from the blacklist is to make a donation to a legal defence fund for a case won in 2002. We will not pay to be white-listed, this is just not the way we work. We will continue to follow this up with SORBS, but we cannot be sure of the outcome. Why they couldn’t speak first, punish later is still unclear. But paying to be removed is just not Gandi.

We regret that this has led to us being blacklisted, but we make no apology as we would do it all again. We will protect our customers rights until we have proof they have offended. Innocent until proven guilty. Is this so strange?

Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause any of you, but we thought we should explain.

One million!! One million!! (game over)

Ryan — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:04:00 +0100

The date is quickly approaching! Looking at the current figures, we will be reaching one million domains in the coming weeks, and possibly even sooner... If you have not yet participated in this little contest, I'd like to remind you that all you need to do is to go to the special form and give your best guess as to when our one-millionth domain will be active. In just a couple of clicks, you may win the voyage of your dreams!

After re-reading that particular entry, we were pleased to see we were further ahead on the road to 1m domains than we thought we'd be at this stage. Which is of course purely a reflection of the trust you our customer extend to us as your domain registrar that we have registered so many domains. So once again, thank you! (we cannot say that enough).

However, nobody is perfect, and we are no exception, and there is always room for improvement. But we hope that your vote of confidence shows that you understand who we are, and what we want to be as a company.

But anyway, getting back to the topic: one million domains!

The celebrate this milestone we want to offer the happy winner a 'trip of a lifetime!' (cue cheesy music). As is our way, we have not written up a long list of rules, and the whole thing will be rather casual. We just want this to be fun, so we ask that you refrain from posting if you just want to write negative things.

As we are planning ahead, the reason for this early entry is to let you choose the destination of this mystical voyage though your feedback: help us create the perfect adventure, tell us what you would like to do on your trip, give us ideas that will ensure that this person remembers the trip for the rest of their life!

To win, you must answer a simple question: when will the 1,000,000th active domain name be registered by Gandi?

Please ~~post~~ ~~send us~~ your guess for the date and time in the following format: hour/minute/second, then the day/month/year. The winner will be the person who has guessed closest to the correct time and date when the millionth domain is actually registered. If there are two guesses the same, the winner will be the first one to have posted.

The game will come to an end when the Millionth domain name has been sold and verified by our team, so please check back to this article from time to time throughout the year and check on our progress.

One last note - Gandi will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary towards the end of the year...wouldn't it be nice of the two dates coincided? (wink...wink) :D

PS: No Arti, you can't participate - this prize is reserved exclusively for our customers

And now: Gandi V3.0.1

Ryan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:36:00 +0100

Gandi's website has just been upgraded to version 3.0.1. Once again, this version is mainly aimed at stabilizing and improving version 3.0.0 based on your feedback. We have corrected many bugs and perfected some existing features.

Some of the more notable changes are:

we have spent a considerable amount of time improving the speed at which your domains are displayed (https://www.gandi.net/admin/domaine) on the page. Following this release your domains will be displayed twice as fast as they were with the initial version 3.0.0 and we are working to make this even faster. The speed improvement is most noticeable for those that display their domains in pages of 100.
a new location of the information bubble: they are now under the links.
added a link so that you can access your server's configuration directly from your list of servers
increased the maximum disk limit per server from 2TB to 4TB (eight 500GB disks)
the activation of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)
activated the SSL certificate renewal process
moved our wiki to match the V3 look and feel, and have started to update its content.

Version 3.0.2 will arrive in roughly two weeks. It will mainly relate to hosting, but will include a surprise too. Look out for March...

Gandi V3.0.0.1: Onwards and upwards!

Ryan — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:57:00 +0100

Being agile is important to us, and so we are pleased to bring you the first revision of Gandi V3 that takes into account your feedback (blog, twitter, forums, etc.)

These changes mainly affect updates to the website, bugs and minor ergonomics, something that is to be expected for a first revision.:

a bug that hindered management of Gandi AI with some browsers has been fixed,
a bug with the activation of SiteMaker websites under some browsers has been corrected,
we have corrected a bug in IE6 that caused some buttons to disappear. However, it is worth noting that IE6 will no longer be officially supported, so the site does not look as good in this browser, though is still functional.
we have added a link for those of you that would like to choose the individual domain name extensions when you make a search on the 'all' option (something that is also possible if you enter the full domain name directly in the text area)
general correction of bugs, display problems, typos, etc.
we have changed the "no bullshit" logo (font and color) to be more professional, as for us this is a grown up and serious statement of intent, not an teenage tantrum
thinner header within the management pages , so that you don't need to scroll so much while administering your domains
the line spacing between domains has been made smaller, for the same reason
the font has been improved in the forms to be more coherent with the rest of the site

There still remain several bugs that need to be fixed, as well as many new ideas for improving the interface, which we are going to include in the development schedule for the coming weeks.
Steven, our graphic artist, will try (for example) to change the display font so that it is easier to read.

As a reminder, it is important for us to dedicate time to the infrastructure itself with emphasis on the transition to our new back end and our new hosting and domain name APIs.

We would like to thank you for your feedback and ideas, it is a pleasure for us to be able to constantly improve our service to you.

Gandi V3.0.0 : A new hope

Ryan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:49:00 +0100

Ok, so it's not the right Episode number, but this version of Gandi represents a major turning point for all of us at Gandi that we have been looking forward to for a long time now: rewriting a number of processes that have not been totally satisfactory for you.

The first visible change is the new version of the website. This update will highlight (some will say shout) our values, and will bring to you improved ergonomics (who was it that asked for faster domain searches and the ability to attach tags to domains?).

A new version of the website you ask? Yes, in part, or at any rate, it's the tip of the iceberg

Why Gandi V3.0.0 and not just Gandi V3? This is because this first version serves as the foundation for the major upgrades that will follow, many of which will be transparent to you but nevertheless essential.

You probably already know this, but Gandi has been around for nearly 10 years now, and its IT platform is just as old. We haven't upgraded it until now because we've spent the last 4 years playing catch-up at the product level which fell behind before we took over Gandi 4 years ago. This is not a secret to anyone, but its something we've been working to correct.

This product prioritization led to a number of limitations within our infrastructure, something that we were perfectly aware of but unable to change quickly. Not only did we have our own ideas for improvements, but we had many many ideas submitted by you for how to make our services better.

So here we are, the implementation of these new features will begin with a major overhaul of our website. It is therefore with pleasure, and after many months of behind-the-scenes work, that we present to you our shiny new website. You can't miss that the general look and feel of our website has continued to evolve but stays true to Gandi's roots. A big thanks to Steven for this, Gandi's own graphic design Jedi

We are also shipping out some new features with version 3.0.0, notably:

the ability to add tags to each of your domains, so that you can sort them by family,
an incredibly fast multi-extension search capability,
a new domain and hosting purchasing system with a shopping cart that is finally dynamic.
an entirely new real-time news system that keeps you better informed of maintenance alerts and other important announcements. This system brings you our news in the form of an information banner which is incorporated directly into our website.

We're not going to get into the details of the upcoming additions and release dates here, as they are scheduled to roll out in phases over the first quarter of 2010 and beyond. This being said, each new version will be accompanied by a Gandibar post. The only thing that we can say for now is that, like our hosting wishlist we have also added a domain wishlist. Therefore, please feel free to give us suggestions, as we are looking forward to seeing what new services you would like us to provide.

We're don't want to miss any opportunity to hear from you, as this is part of the engine that helps drive us forward!

Welcome to Gandi V3, and let us say for now: "To be continued..."

An active new year!

Ryan — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:31:00 +0100

Before going into what we have planned for this year dear customer, I would like to share with you some of our accomplishments during 2009.

First of all, a simple figure: our company sales grew by 25% during the year and profitability (we like EBITDA) rose significantly too, despite the heavy investment in new products and technology. The War Chest is also looking good, which allows us finance our constant development (notably in hosting) from within.

All of this is the result of the hard work from our teams, who want Gandi to continue to enjoy the freedom that we have today. Whether though innovation, quality of service, or by cost control, we do everything possible to maintain a healthy business that is founded on word-of-mouth, and ultimately by customer satisfaction.

Because of course, it is you that make it possible for us to succeed in our crazy vision that was born when we took on Gandi 4 years ago. This vision was to create a responsible, honest, and innovative company, that could be trusted with your online presence.

Therefore, we would like to thank all of you! And don't doubt for a second that we are fully committed to providing you with the best service and tools, all within a context of total transparency and honesty. We will come back to this in the coming weeks, with the launch of a new version of our website, which is designed to be more ergonomic, with an increase in overall speed, security, and reliability of our platform.

This project, a priority for us, will be rolled out in stages during 2010, with the release of a striking new graphic interface this month (including some new features).

A whole series of developments will follow on the heels of this month's release, and will significantly improve our architecture, and allow us to improve the way in which we manage domain transfers; our DNS management with regards to zone files, authorized formats, the introduction of IPv6; etc... the list is far too long to detail here, though the changes will facilitate your life and ours, all in a way that will be painless.

For hosting, we are going to continue to deliver many important features, both on the infrastructure itself, the interfaces, and storage so that more and more customers of dedicated servers can choose to switch to our solution. We are surely going to open more data centers, notably in the United States, which is the world's largest market for this technology (cloud infrastructure), and the UK.

This year will be devoted to reinforcing our historical profession as an ethical domain registrar, while continuing to come up with innovative new products. All of this, with the certainty that we will be responsive in the face of whatever may arise, and will always strive to do a good job.

Welcome to Gandi, and Happy New Year!

Verisign announces COM and NET price increases for July 2010

Joe — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:08:00 +0000

With its contract with ICANN allowing for 7% price increases per year Verisign has announced that it will again be executing this and raising the prices of COM domains to $7.34 from July 1 2010, and NET domains to $4.65. This has increased the COM price from its original base of $6 in just 3 years.

When we last spoke to Verisign at ICANN Sydney 2009 they suggested further price increases were unlikely. What's changed?

With the approach of the ICANN domain name liberalisation due early next year, this could either cement COMs status as a premium extension, or drive people to look for and explore other extensions. What do you think?

.PT domains available at Gandi

Ryan — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:05:00 +0100

With the addition of this highly-anticipated extension, we have completed the coverage of southwestern European countries!

In order to register a .PT domain, you must have a Portuguese taxpayer ID, as well as a document that proves that the domain name corresponds to a trademark, family name etc. (for example: the TVA number of the company Martin would be needed to register martin.pt).

If you do not meet this criteria, you can nonetheless register a .COM.PT domain. These domains are open to everyone, with the condition that individuals must provide a national ID number or passport number, and companies must provide their intra-Community VAT number.

The registration .PT and .COM.PT domains are sold at €24 ($35, or £22) excl. VAT per year under A rates. Transfers of .PT or .COM.PT to Gandi are available at only €1 ($1, or £1) for all.

See the .PT information page.

Your first monthly share 100% refundable! Money back whether you like it or not ;-)

Ryan — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:48:00 +0100

Note: I am republishing this entry, because of the number of customers that are writing to us to express their surprise at the fact that they are not being charged for the renewal of their first share. As a reminder, your first monthly share is refunded whether you decide to keep it or not. So if you don't keep your share, we'll refund the cost of the first month, but if you do keep it, we'll renew it for the second month for nothing.

To help you test our hosting service without any risk, your first hosting share is 100% refundable! Which means you'll get your money back on your first share whether you stay with our service or not!!

(No, there's no fine print that says that this is only available for the next two days, 4 hours and 24 seconds, and if you have an IP address that ends in 256 and only if you have Hungarian nationality on your mothers' side and Finnish on your fathers... it really is for everyone )

So regardless of whether you stay with us or not, you will be fully refunded for your first monthly hosting share when you test our hosting service.

Yes, yes, whether you are SATISFIED OR NOT!

This is not quite a classic 'satisfied or your money back' guarantee because as we are Gandi, we like to do what is right for all of our customers. So we will also add a satisfied AND money back guarantee! (So satisfied AND/OR money back guarantee. I'm sure there's a clever way to right that in code...)

This means that if/when you keep your shares and renew them, the first share will cost you €0.00 incl. VAT Or if you decide to leave us and cancel your share before the first renewal date we will recredit your account with the cost of the share.

Ah! This offer is of course only valid once per customer (same name, same address) and for monthly shares only