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Registerfly comes down to the wire... |
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Wednesday, 28 March 2007 |
As the Registerfly Debacle comes to yet an another important stage in it's self inflicted demise, customer still have a lot of questions that aren't being answered. On Thursday, 16 March 2007, ICANN officially announced the de-accreditation of ICANN and made if effective IMMEDIATELY... Well sort of...
ICANN Terminates RegisterflyAs of March 16, 2007 ICANN stated: "Effective immediately ICANN has terminated RegisterFly's right to use the ICANN Accredited Registrar logo on its website." Taken that this is coming from ICANN, one could wonder whether or not this is a suggestion or a direct order. Either way Registerfly still carries that ICANN logo on their site. The next sentence of the letter states this: "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." So basically ICANN has given them 15 days notice of losing accreditation, which essentially is the right to sell domain names under the ICANN Accreditation. Which means Registerfly could only sell domain names through another Registrar once ICANN actually pulls the plug... the date of that is March 31, 2007.
However, the most interesting two paragraphs in this ICANN announcement are these:
"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.
"ICANN has been frustrated and distressed by recent management
confusion inside RegisterFly," Dr. Twomey, President said. "I
completely understand the greater frustration and enormous difficulty
that this has created for registrants."
Frustrated and distressed by recent management confusion... so that's the reason? There's nothing "recent" about the problems with Registerfly. You can read the complete letter here.
What's Registerfly doing and Why?So what is Registerfly doing? Based on what's being discussed, it's business as usual. By the looks of their website, nothing has changed. So why and how are they operating and taking money from people who end up on their site? So if you weren't away of the problems with Registerfly and somehow or other ended up on their site or were going to renew your domains, you'd simply fund your account and away you'd go. Isn't this against the law? Why is Registerfly still in operation and why would ICANN allow it to continue?
There are many questions about ICANN and Registerfly at the moment many of us sit here puzzled as to what is going on. The facts are Registerfly has lost the ICANN Accreditation and will no longer be able to operate by selling names after March 31, 2007 through ICANN. This means that the only way they could stay in business is to resell domain names through another company... The question is which company? Is there a company that is going to keep Registerfly and Kevin Medina in the domain business? The Registerfly.com domain name was recently moved over to Tucows.... has Kevin struck a deal with Tucows through Mark Klein?
The biggest question here is what is motivating Kevin and Registerfly to continue on? Based on the news and the recent decisions by ICANN and the charge-back rates of Registerfly merchant accounts and Paypal, you would think Kevin would just close up shop and give it all to ICANN as they requested. What's the motivation behind having some Oscar guy helping people out and answering phones once in a while and providing authorization codes once in a while.... Why would Kevin be hiring and paying employees to work with you and I or ICANN for that matter? What is going on inside the mind of Kevin Medina and he goes to work everyday?
The ICANN DebacleThe inactions of ICANN have really put many of you in a pickle when it comes to your intellectual property and your domain names. Based on the circumstances and the fact that ICANN is headed by the US Department of Commerce, couldn't the have, (based on the evidence) gone into a federal court and petitioned for immediate action from Registerfly? Some sort of legal document forcing Registerfly to not only remove the ICANN logo but also a cease and desist order for Registerfly to stop selling names? This is like the wild west here. A federal judge would have looked at the circumstances surrounding this as well as the potential damage an issued something immediately... Why didn't ICANN do this? Should they have?
Although ICANN has claimed to be powerless in during this entire Registerfly scandal, the power to remove the accrediation and take over the database of domain names is actually quite powerful indeed. When a company's primary business is domain registration and you take that away from them, that could in fact sink their entire business. ICANN has the ability to strip accreditation away from any Registrar which amounts to a very powerful non-profit entity.
What's happens after March 31, 2007?That's the big question. Maybe ICANN will issue a notice of intent to sue or serve Kevin a Summons and Complaint to come in and get the data. There is nothing posted about this on the ICANN website that I have found. If ICANN doesn't have a court order or an injunction of sort, couldn't Kevin just refuse entry into the Registerfly business? Then again, maybe Registerfly will receive another 15 day notice of notice that they disregarded the first 15 day notice and if it happens again they'll get another notice... it's not funny anymore. This whole thing is like the wild west.
I believe that ICANN will somehow acquire the data they need to get some of these names that are left on Registerfly to a safe registrar. My thoughts are that Godaddy will be on the receiving end of this deal to assist ICANN in doing something they've never really done before. How it will all pan out is yet to be seen.
Anger can destroy you
I understand that there are a lot of angry customers out there struggling during this Registerfly ordeal. I've receive many emails from angry customers and there are posts in the forum saying all kinds of stuff. It's completely understandable to be angry and you have every right to be. Because of this Registerfly Debacle and the lack of direction within ICANN, many people are losing it... the cries for help keep coming in but nothing is being done soon enough and people are losing their businesses and income from all of this. I've heard of some of you having to purchase domain names from cyber squatters as well. I know you're angry and understand the pain that some of you are going through and although I'd like to help everyone individually, that's impossible for me to do.
With that in mind, I'd like to offer some relief. Let's remember that being angry only hurts the person that harbors that anger. Some of you may not think this makes much sense but it's the truth. Hate and anger will eat you up inside and destroy every part of your life. Don't let this happen to you. No matter what happens during this ordeal try to take a step back and take a deep breath and rest assured that it will all work out in the end. While you may be angry now, 10 years from now you'll have forgotten, (lets hope). Let's continue to work through this and continue to keep this industry a safe and secure one so this never happens again. I also ask that you take the time to think before you react and say something that you may later regret or get you into legal trouble.
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