Marina del Rey, CA — RegisterFly has been ordered by US Federal Court  Judge, Manuel J. Real, to hand over to ICANN current and accurate data for all of its domain names now that ICANN's application for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against RegisterFly was granted yesterday.

Under the TRO, RegisterFly is also obliged to provide this data every seven days, plus immediately allow ICANN staff access to the company's records and books in order to perform an audit.

"We ask RegisterFly and its management to co-operate fully with the order," said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN President and CEO.

The TRO, entered by the Judge Real in the US Federal Court located in the Central District of California on Monday April 16, 2007, encompasses all domains registered by RegisterFly customers, including those registered under any proxy registration service, such as the company's own "ProtectFly." The Court has also scheduled a preliminary injunction hearing for April 26, 2007, which, if ICANN prevails, will extend the force and effect of the TRO for a longer period of time.

ICANN's repeated requests for accurate registrant data from RegisterFly were initially refused by the company and then later partially-granted, although ICANN has remained concerned over the accuracy of some of the data, finding a significant portion of it deficient.

With current and accurate registrant data, ICANN will be in a position to initiate a bulk transfer to another registrar, either with RegisterFly's cooperation while the company remains an ICANN-accredited registrar, or unilaterally if RegisterFly's accreditation is terminated.

In addition to seeking a Preliminary Injunction, ICANN will continue pursuing RegisterFly in the Central District of California for, among other things, breach of contract.

The TRO is available at: http://www.icann.org/legal/icann-v-registerfly/pdf

Aside from the lawsuit, ICANN has also initiated a review of its Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) in an effort to reduce the possibility of this situation being repeated in future.

This is an official ICANN Annoucement

The above is an official ICANN Annoucement

One of the most important parts of this Order is ICANN's right to use the Data in order to protect the domain names of Registerfly's customers.  This is found on the pdf order itself.  So this means that right away, ICANN can use this data to get our names into a safe Registrar.  Does this mean they can start moving names tomorrow?

While this is a big step, the next step is getting the data.  While there is a court order, you have to question whether or not Kevin Medina would really care about a court order.  Based on what we've seen happen and how long it has taken there's not a doubt that this could drag on for another year.

To expedite the process of getting names out of Registerfly and into safety there are in fact certain things you can do to help your current situation.

1. Explore this site and look in the forums
2. Register and post comments at http://public.icann.org.  It is important to be registered there and to post your opinions.  While they will delete anything they can't answer or are uncomfortable with, we still should be on there and posting our questions and concerns.  ICANN opened this Public blog for us to participate in and contribute so I certainly encourage all of you to register and participate there as well to show that we are not few but many.  Also, there's been some abuse on this http://public.icann.org site with posting stuff like this: http://www.kierenmccarthysucks.com/mccarthy.jpg .  Please refrain from the abuse.  At the same time we ask that ICANN not ban people for speaking their mind.
   
3. Be patient and pray!  Whether you choose to pray (meditate), it probably wouldn't hurt your situation at this point.  We're dealing with problems that are much greater than Registerfly and it's a tragedy this all happened but had it not happened now to us, it would have happened to someone else.  Either way it was going to happen and we're going to have to deal with it.

1. How much is Registerfly still receiving per day from existing and new customers?
2. Who is accepting payments for Registerfly Services?
3. Is Registerfly able to Register domain names?
4. If so, who are they reselling for?
5. Is Kevin going to give up the data?
   
6. Is ICANN going to act swiftly once they secure the data?
7. What's going to happen with your domain names?

Comments

Add New Search RSS

triangle - More questions Registered | 2007-04-18 03:33:51 1. Why isn't the data stored at the Registry? RegisterFly were a Registrar who could add (sometimes) records to a 'Registry'. Surely the data is there? 2. The Court Order refers to 'current' data. What about domains that RF have hijacked, put in redemption etc and changed WHOIS records for? 3. Why can't ICANN make arrangements to at least activate the DNS on current domain records? Our domains show our DNS on a WHOIS lookup, but due to a RegisterFly 'connection' problem or some such, the DNS is not propogating. ICANN's role is for security and stability. There's a massive chunk of the web that's just gone offline. 4. What was ICANN's accreditation procedure in the first place? On what grounds were RegisterFly given accreditation. Surely a technical audit should have been carried out. RegisterFly have had problems since the moment they became accredited. 5. Don't ICANN realise they're going to be sued for $millions if they don't act quickly? We are currently losing $100,000 a month. Someone will pay for that. 6. Why doesn't Mr Medina accept defeat and simply name a Registrar for bulk transfer? He could sell the whole package for $millions and walk away. I'd be happy to broker a deal on his behalf for 10%! 7. I believe that ICANN don't have any contact with anyone at RegisterFly. Can they confirm that there is ongoing dialogue? 8. When the 30-day arbitration period is up, will ICANN bulk transfer the portion of domains that they do have accurate data for? My domains were not covered by ProtectFly and I don't want them to be held up over that particular issue. Come on ICANN, give us some bold indication of what you plan to do and when. The longer this goes on, the bigger the claim against you.

Kieren McCarthy - Re: Public participation site Registered | 2007-04-18 04:48:16 This part of your post: "While they will delete anything they can't answer or are uncomfortable with..." is simply untrue. Unless of course by "can't answer" you mean responding to "you ICANN fu**ing fuckers are fu**ing f**cked-up" or by being uncomfortable you mean responding to "I still see that it is all the ones from eNom and too late for them as one by one they are being STOLEN and the law said that if you allow something you already sold to be sold again that is FRAUD". Anyway, they are blog posts that have been deleted (including one or two from someone representing themselves as RegisterFlies that have also been aimlessly abusive). The only public participation comments deleted have been the repetition of personal abuse from one individual. If anyone is able to contain themselves sufficiently not to swear, make threats or pour out personal abuse then their comment appears on the site. That strikes me as a perfectly reasonable approach. I have a suggestion that I hope you will take seriously - if you can use this site to draw up an agreed statement over the RegisterFly problem (perferably including changes that will make sure it won't happen again) and then get people to agree to actively agree to it and *then* send that statement to ICANN with the number of people supporting it I will make sure it is given the proper attention. Cheers Kieren McCarthy General manager of public participation, ICANN

admin - an agreed statement Super Administrator | 2007-04-18 09:09:41 Kieren, thanks for responding. I did ask that people refrain from abusing the ICANN public site as read above. I believe people are trying to be civil however there is a lot at stake here and can also understand why they would be down right livid about the situation. The agreed statement you mention is something we can certainly bring in to the forum and open discussion. This should never happen again. Kieren, could you please start a discussion in the forum on this site solely for discussion on this statement you mention. People here are more than willing to participate as this is a very important issue.

Kieren McCarthy - Couldn't agree more Registered | 2007-04-18 16:19:04 re: this should never happen again - I couldn't agree more. It's all come out about through history. The original system in place was all about competition and so ICANN took a purposefully free-market approach with tiny powers. The irony is that even just a year ago if ICANN had said it wanted to change the RAA to give itself greater powers in case anything went wrong, there would have the most enormous outcry within the Net community. I think it is vital therefore that the average Net user is given a strong role in ICANN so we can strike the correct balance. I also fear there are other issues like this one lurking because the systems put in place six or seven years ago didn't give the Net user sufficient consideration. And the only way to find them and fix them before we have another terrible situation like this RegisterFly one is to have Net users point out what they are and then insist they are fixed. I am doing what I can in my role to involve people more and then make sure their input is heard, but if people want to do something themselves and want to find out what is going on with the Net and how to make it better, there is a system now in place to make that happen. You gather a group of like-minded people and apply to ICANN's ALAC to become an "At Large Structure" and then you are part of the system. The more people, the more ALSes, the more authority the ALAC has and the more the average Net user's voice will be listened to. You can find out how to do this on ALAC's site at http://alac.icann.org/. If you have problems figuring out how this works, email me with what exactly isn't explained well and I will get it fixed. Cheers Kieren

dsmj - ICANN and Registrars Registered | 2007-04-18 11:43:50 Thanks Kieren for stopping by. I have a Blog on public.icann.org and quite frankly it has not been put to use much by those that really should also be there. Nothing is perfect... but getting closer to decent goals and attempting to restore intergrity all around should include the ALAC various representation from the registrant community. ICANN has provisioned that and resourced it in a puclic site. I suggest that someone with a complete and cogent statment to make should register at http://public.icann.org ( its a basic drupal site, very easy to use ) and contribute. I would like to re-iterate here, that the authcode mechanism assumes registrar integrity, and release of domains also assumes compliance. registrants now have less control than they should. Transfer away processes are much akin to putting the Fox in charge of the Hen House. Therefore, In the absence of a moral backbone this falls apart, transfers fail, and all this time the "tranfer-away" registrar has a negative $ incentive to perform that function. I have had a lot of transfer hassles since last october when this authcode thing kicked in. Registerfly and Melbourne IT have been unwilling to perform the transfer task ( authcodes or rejecting a tranfer ) , and such stuff should not require interventions. I preferred the old days.

captainfly - ICANN is not the problem Registered | 2007-04-18 05:41:53 It continues to amaze me that people still blaming ICANN for not acting As far as i can see they are doing what they can in the bounds of current RAA. One can argue that there should be provisions for dealing with sucha case. Well, i guess it would, but who could foresee such a paranoid beahviour as KM and friends are showing right now? On the other hand and as for the fraud part of Kevin's biz, i really wonder how is it possible for him to keep going? Is there no law in Florida, New Jersey or wherever their offices sit now? Let me know so i can start a realtor business there: I have some nice propreties for sale/rent such as the Capitol, the eiffel tower or the Taj Mahal. All for $9.95/year? Really!

captainproton - re: ICANN is not the problem Registered | 2007-04-18 07:01:32 captainfly wrote: As far as i can see they are doing what they can in the bounds of current RAA. ICANN's lack of imagination here is startling. I can think of half a dozen ways to deal with these problems without any effort. The revocation and restraining order should have happened six months ago. I honestly think that you have to step inside a courtroom for ICANN to get off their collective butts. It's great that they might get the registration data from RF. But that does nothing for all those with hijacked domain names. Even if they are able to do an audit, it's pretty much guaranteed that the books are not only cooked, but deep fried.

LegalWorker - Please! dont let the victums d Registered | 2007-04-18 10:33:08 Dear ICANN, This is your chance to redeem yourself and regain some credence once again as the official FTC agency,not only to the Internet registrar industry but to the aggrieved victims and the general public community world wide at large. The TRO states Immediately that should mean that federal marshals will be at Registerfly.com doors if there is any NON-COMPLIANCE to this specific court order,to seize all and any data,records,equipment and to commandeer the facility and make arrests should they be considered to fulfill this directive. [CANN] official Assignment ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has overall responsibility for managing the DNS. It controls the root domain, delegating control over each top-level domain to a domain name registry. For ccTLDs, the domain registry is typically controlled by the government of that country. ICANN has a consultation role in these domain registries but is in no position to regulate the terms and conditions of how a domain name is allocated or who allocates it in each of these country level domain registries. [Read On] On the other hand, generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are governed directly under ICANN which means all terms and conditions are defined by ICANN with the cooperation of the gTLD registries. * ICANN please don't let the victims down *

cymoo - Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Registered | 2007-04-18 14:59:10 I have filed a complaint with the FTC. Below is a quick and easy source for a electronic filing that may be of value for registrants. https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

freddieb - Restraining Order effectivenes Registered | 2007-04-18 17:31:10 I still feel that ICANN is being very naive in expecting that RF can/will hand over accurate data. Rf do not have accurate data. If they did it would show in their customer accounts. Their data is woefully inaccurate and out-of-date and if they hand this over to ICANN it will be almost useless. All of my domains have been transferred away from RF foe some weeks now but they all still show in my account at RF. How is ICANN going to know which domains have been stolen, pirated, lost in the system and which whois are they going to deem as being the "accurate one" for trying to sort out ownership of domain names? ICANN, I know that you are doing what you can, but you're going to get lost with this one.

jackinmalta Registered | 2007-04-19 15:41:28 Today out of the blue I got the auth codes for 5 of my last 6 domains, I gave up asking ICANN weeks ago and my support tickets went un answered so I was totally stunned to get an email with the codes, they are valid BUT were generated recently because theyare consecutive numbers and the domains were registered years apart which suggests they are being "made to order"

rfkma Registered | 2007-04-21 14:47:24 Please don't forget hosted accounts. I know domains are important but so is intellectual property. Sagonet.com is holding all hosted data hostage and will not release it to the customers. We must demand they cooperate with this transition process just like Enom. Sagonet.com Attention: Mike 4465 West Gandy Blvd Tampa, FL 33611 (866) 366-3640

EVENTHOLDER Registered | 2007-04-22 18:22:43 I believe that Icanne should not need a court order to takeover all rfly's business dealings. It just doesn't make sense. I would lilke to knwo what others think about ANY domain registrar having the right to lock you out of your acct and not give you access to your domains while taking your money. I think they have no right to do this and, if you have a chargeback then they should have to notify you immediately(which they didn't0 and provide you an easy access to correct he problem. As it stands RFly has illegally taken names which I cannot believe any Judge would agree with since those names are already paid for.

EVENTHOLDER Registered | 2007-04-22 18:25:37 Not to mention, if any registrar ever did this again then they wouldn't have a leg to stand on by preventing you from taking your domains elsewhere. Additionally....why not make a buy out on names so they are ours and not the registrars? Actually the whole idea leaves open to Domain robbery...makesome price a buy ot price for all and then if you want to let it go back you can and get rid of ongoing regsitrar involvement except on new names...

Batmunkh Registered | 2007-04-23 04:47:11 i want to know WHEN and HOW i transfer my expired domains to another registrar from RF.

PPNSteve Registered | 2007-04-23 18:19:15 All this talk is good and fine for the future.. but we are not able to get our names NOW and we demand action NOW to gain control of our stolen domains. The future stuff can be worked out later, AFTER the immediate crisis is over and people once again have their names under their own control. I say ICANN should be force-allowing any and all authorized transfers (i.e. identity confirmed) regardless of the domain's status.. this limbo we're forced to wade though is not only just plain wrong, it's adding to the aggravation of this whole situation. I WANT MY DOMAIN NOW! not next week, next month or whenever ICANN decides to do something..

stevehadley - Coordinator: Underride Network Registered | 2007-04-24 15:19:18 I see this problem from a somewhat different perspective. The horror stories of people losing their livlihoods and thousands of dollars are real and tragic. There is another role for the value of the internet rather than just commerce and that is the true public interest role of protecting free speech around the world. When voices are silenced we all lose, including society at large. I represent a small non-profit that speaks on issues relating to the safety of large vehicles including big trucks for victims internationally. Our website is our voice and we have been silenced for two weeks now since our domain was hijacked in early April. We have been in operation for about 11 years and many legal publications and research papers cite our domain name in their papers. Many government agencies link to us and legal publications cite us as a top resource for attornies involved in trucking litigation. Victims rely on our site as their voice and to learn the details involved in the death of their loved ones. Losing our domain is not an option and allowing this to happen is certainly not in the public interest protection role of ICANN. How many other .orgs have been silenced or soon will be, how many other voices will not be heard. What story was not aired this week because a producer came to our site and was met with Google ads? We spoke out recently about large vehicles and their relationship to poor fuel economy. Our site was not only visited by all of the major vehicle manufacturers but by the governments of the major oil exporting countries. What law might not be passed because we were silenced? Even little voices matter and many have been silenced and are waiting for action and justice! ICANN must begin to swiftly protect the public interest.

Only registered users can write comments!