I've just aquired some assets from another company some of which were their domains which are registered at map name.com. So far I've been unable to disable the private registration to initatate a transfer to our registrar, nor have I been able to contact their tech support. Even map name.com and its parent domain dew designs.com is a private registration.
I managed to create a new account by buying a new domain just to get the domains transferred to my own account there, which worked. However, I am still unable to disable the private whois or update the whois details at all for that matter.
I did a search on here for map name and found some threads back from 2003 but nothing recent at all...other than the censoring of their name.
Not looking good!!!

I did a search over at DNForum - not much information came up (a few posts), one Cheap Domain Registrations (http://www.dnforum.com/f122/cheap-domain-registrations-com-2-95-a-thread-90909.html). That one says something about them being a Tucows reseller (about three years ago).

I've personally never used/heard of them. But, the name is censored here on WHT meaning they did something bad. I know WHT doesn't censor unless they have a very good reason.
All the best,

Well it's obvious at this point nobody is at the helm since around 2003 or so. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

If its that bad and you are the legal owner of the domains, i would contact ICCAN about it. You could be chasing ghosts for ages otherwise. Registrars are legally bound to certain terms.
Go to the source and report your findings and evidence of ownership and of non response from the holding registrar. Hopefully they will sort you out:
http://reports.internic.net/cgi/registrars/problem-report.cgi
Edit: Before you do that, maybe post one of the domains here? Lots of experts here can delve deep into the domains registrar history and maybe get you a direct contact to get it sorted out. Just a thought.

Do another search on the namepros forums. They are big experts in the area and they have official threads for the each domain name registrar.

This is revolving around .us TLD domains, and it looks like ICANN doesn't have authority here? Where to go now short of legal proceedings?

Contact NeuStar/NeuLevel, they are far more useful then ICANN would be.

Just an update...
NeuStar has by far been the most responsive so far, but it's still out of their hands, we are going to keep them close by and in the loop as this progresses closer and closer to a legal battle.
Directi/publicdomainregistry which map name resells for has been extremely difficult and is standing up for map name.
In fact, directi told me, that since I cannot contact map name (their reseller) then I should contact "the local cybercrime unit". Are they serious???
To top things off, a domain I registered with map name just to gain access to their system in order move the domains from the other party (reg->reg transfer impossible), was charged to my credit card twice (double charge as I discovered today) and never registered. The money is no skin off my back but the principle remains...these guys are a complete and utter fraud.
And just as a final note, I didn't choose this registrar, I "inherited" the account from another company that folded. I would have never let anything like this happen on my own watch.

i've never heard about *******.com...
I just did a whois search for map name.com, and it seems that its registrar is Tucows.
Are you sure that it is a reseller of directi??

For .us TLD which this case is revolving around, they resell directi.

Final update...publicdomainregistry had a change of heart and allowed us to move the domains into their panel. All is good now...so if this happens to any of you guys just don't give up. Someone can help and eventually will if you're persistant enough.