ICANN May Act Against RegisterFly

1sockchuck writes "ICANN says it will terminate RegisterFly's accreditation as a domain registrar if the company can't fix its problems within 15 days. The edict comes with RegisterFly in chaos and current management blaming a departed executive for its woes. The situation is complicated by the fact that RegisterFly sold some of its domains through a reseller agreement with eNom, and others using its own accreditation."

Comments

Coincidence

[lbft]

Isn't it a nice coincidence that, despite all the troubles Registerfly's had, the only time ICANN stepped in and did anything was when they were owed money?

Re:Coincidence

[rs79]

"Isn't it a nice coincidence"

No, it's not.

They've been behind for a while and have made some pretty hfty payments and seem to be stalled over five grand.

From icann's letter:

III. Accreditation Fee Breaches
Under section 3.9 of the RAA, ICANN-accredited registrars are obligated to pay yearly and
variable fees to ICANN in a timely fashion. This portion of the notice of breach concerns
Registerflys obligations under section 3.9 of the RAA, under which Registerfly agreed to timely
pay its accreditation fees. Despite this agreement, Registerfly has a substantial outstanding
balance to ICANN that it has failed to pay.
On 10 October 2006, ICANN notified Registerfly that it had an outstanding balance of
$131,422.86 in fees immediately due to ICANN, of which $44,985.16 was over 90 days past
due. A month later, on 10 November 2006, ICANN had not received any response from
Registerfly. Mike Zupke called Glenn Stansbury to inquire as to why Registerfly was not paying
its invoices to ICANN. Mr. Stansbury reported that he was unaware of this issue. Kevin Medina
then called Mr. Zupke and claimed to be unaware of the issue but promised to wire $49,000
ICANN that week and another $44,000 at the beginning of the next week. During that
conversation, Mr. Zupke expressed to Mr. Medina that failure to pay ICANN invoices is a breach
of Registerflys RAA that, if unresolved, could result in proceedings to terminate Registerfly's
accreditation.
On 4 December 2006, ICANN received a wire transfer from Registerfly in the amount of
$70,000. ICANN received an additional $59,999 the next day. On both 11 December and 19
December 2006, ICANN requested from Mr. Stansbury and Mr. Medina payment of
Registerflys remaining balance. Mr. Medina promised that payment would be made on 22
December 2006. No payment was received. ICANN again requested payment of the
outstanding balance on 9 January 2007 and 2 February 2007. To date, $5,423.86 remains
outstanding, and is over 60 days past due.

Re:Coincidence

[lbft]

That's the last time I'll try being subtle on Slashdot.

It's obviously not a coincidence - it does tell you that ICANN doesn't give a crap about anybody getting screwed as long as it's not them.

Its why I use Netsol for eveything:P

[WarlockD]

I think its just me, but I just don't "trust" my webhost provider ordering my domain for me. Heck, its still hard for me to trust GoDaddy, even if they are a resonable provider, just because the name dosn't sound profesional

Bleh, I am not hip anymore.

Re:Its why I use Netsol for eveything:P

[db32]

The better reason to not trust Godaddy is that they will yank domains on you without notice if anyone cries foul to them. I don't have the link but it was a previous story here. Further, they are suspected of being one of the worst offenders of watching what people are looking for, registering it themselves, and then selling that instagrab service of theirs to register it for you as soon as it expires.

Re:Its why I use Netsol for eveything:P

[nuzak]

> I don't have the link

Your wish is my karma whoring opportunity: http://www.nodaddy.com/

not entirely accurate reporting

[aonaran]

The article says that Register Fly started issuing SSL certs in November, however I have one that we bought in March 2006 and I had an older one from them for a personal site.
Not that SSL is where their issues are anyway, but I thought that I'd mention it.

Re:not entirely accurate reporting

[DA-MAN]

The article says that Register Fly started issuing SSL certs in November, however I have one that we bought in March 2006 and I had an older one from them for a personal site.
Not that SSL is where their issues are anyway, but I thought that I'd mention it.

Prior to Nov, they were a reseller of RapidSSL, and during the ordering process you were forwarded to RapidSSL.com to complete the transaction.

RegisterFly started selling even cheaper ($9.99/year) chained link, ala Comodo. They bought their own chained root cert and now "issue" ssl certs on their own.

Apologies to Don McLean

[Anonymous Coward]

Bye, bye, old RegisterFly.
Took my addy to the webby,
but the webby was dry.

Here are some of the links

[SNR monkey]

MySpace and GoDaddy Shut Down Security Site
GoDaddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat
GoDaddy Holds Domains Hostage
Some slashdotters talk about the Godaddy registering domains that were being browsed here

Sorry to say

[slashdot.org]

As can be seen on RegisterFlies, it appears that some of the officers at RegisterFly are trying to fix the problems. The new CEO claims to have put in all his private assets to make this work.

There is some skeptisism in the forums because people aren't seeing immediate results. Well fair enough. BUT.

There's something that bothers me a lot more though.

Assuming that RegisterFlies doesn't make all this stuff up, then the other officers (John & Glen) keep on making very strong allegations towards Kevin Medina. (e.g. from the official statement by the new CEO John: "Mr. Medina is a selfish, cold hearted, self loving, criminal.") Well, I don't know much about the legal system, but I would suspect that any lawyer would give you the strongest advice not to even mention the guy's name until all lawsuits have been settled. I mean this is just asking for counter libel/slander (whatever the proper word is) suits.

If you just put all your private assets into a company, why would you make it susceptible to that?

Next, if you read the forums, people have sustained extremely serious damage. Kevin Medina may have been causing all this, a court will have to decide, but it's very likely that some very hefty lawsuits will be filed against RegisterFly by their customers (and not Kevin Medina, their contract is with RF after all). Why would anyone invest all they have into a company that is set up for this sort of trouble?

If John and Glen are doing what is being reported on RegisterFlies, then all the power to them. I hope for them it works out, but I'm sorry to say that it's hard to see a positive future for RegisterFly.