Registerfly's Accreditation Terminated by ICANN

Punker22 writes "Effective immediately ICANN has terminated RegisterFly.com's accreditation. Between now and 31 March RegisterFly is required to unlock and 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. 'Terminating accreditation is the strongest measure ICANN is able to take against RegisterFly under its powers,' Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN said today."

Comments

So when is it GoDaddy's turn? :p

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been trying to transfer my fiancee's small business domain from them over to DynDNS for about a month with no success. I tried initiating the transfer through GoDaddy's management tools (which seem to be really geared towards domain squatting, btw) and found nothing useful. It's a real rat's nest in there. Initiating the transfer from DynDNS got us nowhere. No transfer request notification is ever sent by GoDaddy, and everything silently fails a week or so later.

She's so frustrated with it that at this point, she'd rather wait for the domain to expire and just re-register with someone else. Understanding how easy it is for someone to snatch up a freshly expired domain, I'm thinking that's a bad idea.

Has anyone else had a similar problem (or success?) trying to transfer away from GoDaddy? We are running out of ideas.

Re:So when is it GoDaddy's turn? :p

[elmarkitse]

Have you tried calling into GoDaddy? Whenever there's an issue I can't resolve online, calling them produces great results. Try to lay off the 'you work for soul-less domain squatting evildoer company' when you ring in and just mention you'd tried to do a few transfers with no success. Their CS people will give you their name, an e-mail, and a way to get back in touch with them unless someone treats them like crap.

For domain management, their interface is great, especially if you have more than just a few domains. I have about 150 or so (no squatting, thank you) and basically just ignore everything about them except for the domain control panel.

If you just want to use DynDNS services, just point the domain's nameservers and you've got all the benefits without what has apparently been quite a hassle for you. I have transferred in and out of Godaddy well over 50 domain names and the only times I've had problems are with odd TLD extensions, usually because I don't have the right auth codes, and almost always from the other registrar, not GoDaddy.

Good luck

EK

Re:So when is it GoDaddy's turn? :p

[Nethead]

If you have 150 domains with Godaddy then you should look at BlueRazor.com, the wholesale side of GoDaddy. I signed up for it and have saved a boat-load with my 30 odd domains. Same interfaces and customer support (even the phone number.)

Tucows

[KonoWatakushi]

Now, if they would only follow suit with Tucows.

I have a domain at with of their resellers which can not be contacted. (In fact their site certificate expired last October.) Unfortunately, Tucows offers absolutely no recourse, and the phone number listed in the whois will let you sit on hold forever, and eventually (after an hour or so) spit you into a voicemail box, which goes unanswered. Likewise, the email contact forms simply forward to the resellers. Very useful.

The reseller is domainsnare.net, which is also related to mailsnare.net. Not recommended...

Political Issue

[Frosty Piss]

A lot of people don't like GoDaddy because they gave up to pressure from some corporation or another and killed an offending domain. But I've had nothing but good luck with them. Their management tools are leaps and bounds better than many of the other services I've used, and just 100's of miles ahead of most of the free DSN joints. I've transfered dozens of domains without issue.

Your dislike of GoDaddy for political reasons may be valid, but functionally, they aren't bad at all.

Re:Political Issue

[Nezer]

I refuse to use GoDaddy simply because I find their television ads offensive and degrading to women.

Re:Political Issue

[VGPowerlord]

A lot of people don't like GoDaddy because they gave up to pressure from some corporation or another and killed an offending domain.

More accurately, they caved to a DMCA request from News Corp because a list of MySpace passwords were posted on the full-disclosure mailing list, which seclists.org archives.

You can see the seclists.org posting and the /. coverage of it for more details.

What's more, GoDaddy offers to unlock domains it has shut down for a fee. I don't know about where you come from, but where I come from, we call that "extortion."

Here's where things went wrong. (Note: IANAL) In order to file a DMCA with GoDaddy, GoDaddy's relationship with Seclists.org would have to be subject to one of the first four provisions of Title 17 Section 512.
Those are:
a. Transitory Digital Network Communications (i.e. network routing, No)
b. System Caching (No)
c. Information Residing on Systems or Networks at Direction of Users (No, it's not hosted by GoDaddy)
d. Information Location Tools (Not by the definition given in this section, which is linking to it from a search site/directory)

So, where is News Corp claiming to get this justification? For that matter, since when do passwords fall under copyright?

Re:Political Issue

[fermion]

Killing a domain is not a political issue. It is a bussiness issue. One cannot run a reliable service if there is a chance that your domain might be pulled for arbitrary "offensive content"

That said, I have had no trouble with godaddy. The only reason I began to switch was thier increasing annoying registration process. It was just easier to register at another provider, a provider that gave extras for almost the same money. In particular I did not like the fact that godaddy encouraged people to register domains for the sole purpose of flipping them. I hate to want a domain only to find that someone has picked it up just to flip it.

It was in fact that process of looking for a less hostile registration process that lead me away form Godaddy. One of the places I tried, cheapnames.con, looked very similar to Godaddy. On surmise,with no evidence, this lead me to believe that godaddy might be losing lots of customers due to customer service issues, and rather than fix the service, they created another firm to try to catch them on the backend.

In the spirit of not putting all ones eggs in one basket, I have been using two registrars for the past year. I am now happy with the new provider, and recetly tried to move my last domain to the new provider. In spite of all my efforts, godaddy will not let me transfer. No matter. The domain expires soon, and I will not be in a hurry in go back.

You see, there are no political issues, just customer service issues. Although I was happy at godaddy, another service gives me a better value with less annoyances. All too often the paranoid business community creates these conspiracies to cover up their own incompetence and greed. They think that the liberals or conservatives are out to get them, when in fact the business leaders have just let their personal political beliefs distract them from the core function of a firm, which is to provide a good value in goods and service to the customer. Pretty much more of the US is agnostic enough not to care if the CEO is worrying the sheep, as long the value is good. It is, more often than not, the short sighted firms that brand themselves as "christian" or "conservative" or whatever in hopes of attracting those few people that shop on solely on the basis of politics. It can be a good strategy, because those people will buy the goods and services no matter the quality of price. Just look at Whole Food market, which I also like, but has gone down since it has become hip and mainstream political.

Re:Political Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

By that logic, WOMEN are degrading to women. GoDaddy advertises by using a big breasted model. Women dress provocatively, flash it all on myspace, go on webcams, wear practically nothing at clubs and when hanging around... why? To get attention, jobs, exceptional treatment. So I guess you don't like women, either... because they're offensive and degrading to themselves.

404?

[6Yankee]

From the first linked article above:


RegisterFly.com, which according to ICANN has its offices at 4th Floor, 404 Main Street, Boonton, NJ

With that address, what did people expect? :-)

Obviously they're jumping to attention.

[Oshawapilot]

FWIW the Registerfly main page still displays the ICANN logo, and based on a little experimentation a short while ago it seems that I could still register a domain there if I was so foolish to want to give them my money.

They seem to be taking that letter very seriously.

Re:How about some back story as well?

[AngryNick]

A great tutorial on the problems

Re:story?

[dindi]

Short:

2 owners got into power struggle. One locked the other out, the other locked everyone out.

Effect:
1. you cannot renew domains,
2. Support cannot help (just promise)
3. You do not have auth codes to move your domains away
4. Finance system does not work
5. domains are changing data randomly -> dns settings

For me: my domains were to expire, so I deposited money. Renewal failed, money disappeared, domains expired.
I spent hours on the phone, they promised to renew manually. Now whois shows it is renewed, Regfly shows it is not. Info changed back to their nameservers and "expirefly".

So some of my domains I renewed and I paid for are making pay-per-click for them, losing ranking and customers, and I cannot even change the nameservers or transfer them, because they show up as "expired" in their system.

Just make a search for "registerfly" and you will see all kinds of horror stories.

I am looking at spending over $400 for unnecessary renewals, and who knows what in revenue. I am in the process of finding a good lawyer and see what I can do about this mess :(.

I fear though, that for the time a lawsuit would go through they would declare bankruptcy and retract to their Miami Beach villas (yes one owner lives there).

The Marketplace is not always right

[fm6]

I tried initiating the transfer through GoDaddy's management tools (which seem to be really geared towards domain squatting, btw)

Well, duh. That's what happens when you make domain registration an open market. Registration is not a complicated product, so the only way vendors can compete is price. The natural result is a service like GoDaddy which charges a few bucks for a single registration, and provides a corresponding level of service. And why is it news that they facilitate domain squatting? They (and a lot of other registrars) have been advertising cheap bulk registrations for years. And why shouldn't they? If we say, "Compete any way you can", this is the natural result.

If it were up to me, we'd go back to one having one registrar that charges $35/year for every second-level domain. No, better yet, raise it to $100 a year. Allow the registrar a reasonable profit, and put the rest of the money into something useful: research, or bridging the digital divide.

Shazam! No more domain squatting. It's not longer profitable. And that single registrar has every incentive to provide good service: if they don't, they lose their cash cow.

"No way! Why should I have to pay that much for my personal domain name??!!" Hey, if a vanity web site is that important to you, you should shell out. If not, get a third-level domain. When a web site contains nothing but family photos and rants about gun control, nobody cares whether its on JoeBlow.com or JoeBlow.CheapISP.com.

But of course that's never going to happen: ICANN couldn't possibly stand up to all the whinning that would result. So we're stuck with the current situation, and there's no use complaining about companies like GoDaddy. So you're just going to have to live with domain squatting. And remember that when it comes to registering your domain, you get what you pay for.

Re:story?

[AK Marc]

I fear though, that for the time a lawsuit would go through they would declare bankruptcy and retract to their Miami Beach villas (yes one owner lives there).

People get confused about the protections of a corporation. It protects investors that aren't involved in the decisions. If the two owners caused the trouble, and it would be possible to prove in court (provided you subpoenaed the right documents), then sue the company and name the owners as co-defendants. You can't sue owners just because you think the company will go bankrupt. But you can sue the person at the company who made the decisions that harmed you (regardless of whether they are owners). That way, you can get judgements from the owners directly. If they have director/officer insurance (nearly all do) and you have a reasonable case, you will get quick cash. Insurance companies know that settling is cheaper than a court battle, no matter who wins. And if it does go to court, you'll get your losses, and your lawyer will have a nice new Miami Beach villa. If the company declares bankruptcy, as well as both owners and neither had appropriate liability insurance, then you'd be screwed, but I think the chances of that are relatively small, not to mention the changes in bankruptcy laws designed to screw the little guys would actually hit them (it's harder to get judgements wiped away via bankruptcy now).

Wrong...

[msimm]

Two heads, who happened to be ex-lovers got into a fight. One (John) in conjunction with a board member fired the other (Kevin). This went to court just last week I believe. Kevin holds majority owner ship of the company and was awarded control once again.

Meanwhile ICANN was had issued several notices to correct these issues are lose accreditation. This week ICANN made good on its threat. A lot of people lost domains due to problems RegisterFly started having long before the news picked this up.

Mike Zupke from ICANN has stepped in and has been helping RegisterFly customers obtain authorization codes on locked accounts (with a good deal of luck). Likewise eNom, whom RegisterFly was originally a reseller, has been helping customers who were unaware of the shift (eNom terminated its agreement with RegisterFly effective I believe at that start of this month) retrieve domains RegisterFly had hold of (ProtectFly, RegisterFly's whois/privacy service made some of this more difficult).

Renewals for clients that were eNom registered (though the reseller program) probably didn't even realize RegisterFly wasn't in fact their registrar (RegisterFly communicated the eNom's whois through a backend API, so you could manage domains seemlessly without realizing it).

Auth code can be difficult to get, but no matter what now that ICANN finally has stepped in a little patience and you will get your domain.

The best single source for real information is RegisterFlies who apparently intend to stay on after the end of this debacle and become a source for information and help with other domain registry issues. They have a big help and there are a lot of people there going through the same thing.