RegisterFly in chaos

FYI…

- http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/03/…es_offline.html
Mar 6, 2007 ~ "…RegisterFly's operations descended into chaos last week amid allegations that the former president and CEO misused company funds. As the company's principals battle one another, thousands of domain names have been caught in the crossfire. RegisterFly says that at least 75,000 customer domains expired as a direct result of the company's financial and management problems. A lawsuit filed by RegisterFly's parent company, Unified Names, blames the meltdown on misuse of company funds by President and CEO Kevin Medina, who was fired by the company's board.
ICANN has taken heat from RegisterFly customers, who say the group should have acted sooner. "ICANN is not a regulator," the unsigned blog post stated*. "We rely mainly on contract law. We do not condone in any way whatsoever RegisterFly’s business practice and behaviour." While it has taken steps to prevent domain deletions, ICANN offered little solace to domain owners hoping to transfer their names to another registrar: "The options for customers to transfer their names to another registrar at this stage are limited. We will advise if we have more information on this point."
* http://blog.icann.org/?p=32

FYI…

- http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/03/…eo_returns.html
Mar 12, 2007 ~ "ICANN is continuing to press RegisterFly to repair its management systems so domain owners can manage their names, but is now dealing directly with company founder Kevin Medina, who has been awarded control of RegisterFly by a New Jersey court. ICANN met Saturday with Medina to demand immediate action on RegisterFly's failure to provide adequate WHOIS information and make critical transfer codes (known as auth-info codes) available to customers. ICANN's task would appear to be complicated by the fact that there are currently two RegisterFly web sites running on different infrastructures - RegisterFly.com at The Planet, and Registerfly.net at Sago Networks. The dueling web sites are the result of a nasty split between Medina and business partner John Naruzewicz, who claimed that he owned 50 percent of RegisterFly and said the company's board had fired Medina. At the direction of "new CEO" Naruzewicz, the company filed a lawsuit accusing Medina of mismanagement and misuse of company funds. Medina denied all charges, saying he remained the sole owner of RegisterFly. Last Thursday a Newark, N.J. court agreed, awarding sole control of the company to Medina. Naruzewicz indicated that he would not appeal…"
- http://preview.tinyurl.com/2s253g
"…On Feb. 21, ICANN filed notice with Registerfly.com that it would remove accreditation if it didn't straighten out accounts. The company has until Mar. 14 to comply…"

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FYI…

ICANN terminates RegisterFly with extreme prejudice
- http://www.theregister.com/2007/03/17/ican…_accreditation/
17 March 2007 ~ "ICANN yesterday gave notice to terminate RegisterFly.com's right to handle domain transfers. The internet-oversight organisation has given RegisterFly 15 days notice to cease operating as an ICANN-accredited registrar. When the notice period expires on March 31, ICANN can approved the bulk transfer of domains to another ICANN registrar but in the meantime it says RegisterFly is required to provide "all necessary Authinfo codes to allow domain name transfers to occur. Any and all registrants wishing to transfer away from RegisterFly during this period should be allowed to do so efficiently and expeditiously." Dr Paul Twomey, president and CEO of ICANN said: "Terminating accreditation is the strongest measure ICANN is able to take against RegisterFly under its powers. ICANN has been frustrated and distressed by recent management confusion inside RegisterFly. completely understand the greater frustration and enormous difficulty that this has created for registrants." New Jersey-based RegisterFly controls around two million domain names for 900,000 different owners…"
> http://www.icann.org/announcements/announc…t-2-16mar07.htm

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