 Folks, it's been a several very long days and while we were
promised some sort of statement by Registerfly, it never came. There was supposed to be a statement provided by Registerfly to be posted on
this site today and the officers of Registerfly failed to come through once
again... should we be surprised?
Registerfly could have easily put something up on their website letting customers know what's going on. A simple message to it's users or others that land there accidentally. As it currently stands, any innocent internet surfer unaware of the news can in fact, make unsecured purchases via the Registerfly website... without having a clue as to what's going on. Now ICANN says it's time to fly!
Registerfly... Time to Pony Up!
Days have passed with no real response out of the mouths of the flies at
Registerfly.com. Although I was personally promised that a statement was
being written to be made public via Registerflies.com, when it came time to
produce Registerfly failed us once again.
It's time now Registerfly to step up to the plate and provide all of us here
some answers.
ICANN's Call To Action
Today, February 21, 2007 ICANN finally did something they had
previously claimed they couldn't do.
ICANN's Senior Vice President, Services, Kurt J. Pritz
issued an official Notice of Breach of ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement
to Registerfly stating: "Registerfly has 15 working days to cure the breaches described in this letter".
Due to the volume of complaints submitted to ICANN, it's
forced ICANN to finally step into the picture and do something they previously
claimed they could not do... Issue a warning to strip that Accreditation away
from Registerfly.
These breaches as you can read in the official letter
include:
- Failure
to issue Authorization Codes
- Failure
to Unlock domain names
- Failure
to supply proper documentation
- Failure
to provide customer service
- Failure
to pay ICANN
- Failure
to fund registry accounts for domain names
It's was quite obvious to the customers that there were
failures in every system of Registerfly and although ICANN was made aware of these failures they let it go on for more than a year. ICANN started seeing these
complaints from Registerfly customers in late 2005 and early 2006 and did very little about it.
Registerfly CEO Kevin Medina and ICANN
Kevin Medina, Registerfly's Chief Executive Officer claimed
in April of 2006, to Mike Zupke of ICANN, that the failures to provide service and
support to their customers was due to growing pains. Not long after, there were complaints rolling
into ICANN stating that Kevin and Registerfly were literally stealing domain
names. After a reportedly heated
argument with one customer, CEO Kevin Medina allegedly changed the whois on all
220 of the customer's domain names to "Kevin Medina"... literally stealing the
domains away from the customer that paid for them... but it gets worse. ICANN simply requested documentation and
after 7 full days, announced an on-site audit of the Registerfly data. The problem was, this was just an announcement. As you read further you'll see that this audit has never taken place.
After repeated failures of Registerfly and Kevin Medina to
provide the documentation requested by ICANN, and a meeting at the Marina del
Rey headquarters on June 15, 2006, ICANN still didn't do the on-site audit that
Registerfly was notified of back in April of 2006.
Who Accredited ICANN?
As we are understanding this situation better every day, and after more
than a year of complaints flooding into the office of ICANN, one has to wonder
who Accredited ICANN? Why has ICANN
taken so long to make a move? Why has ICANN only talked about performing an on-site audit and not taken action? Have they ever done and on-site audit? These are the questions going through the
minds of domain name registrants around the world.
On a complaint that I had sent in to Frank Fowlie via email
on January 24th:
I'm am writing in regards to
Registerfly and am pleading to you that you look into their fraudulent acts of domain theft and everything else they are
doing. Please visit www.registerflies.com
We don't know how they gained the approval of ICANN because they were doing bad
business with Enom prior to the Accreditation but we are asking you to
investigate these issues immediately. Just do a search on Google and you'll
find nothing positive or business like about this cancerous company, supported
by the ICANN Organization. Many other letters have been sent and they are
still able to continue the fraud.
This letter was forwarded to Mike Zupke and a response was received within the same day. Here is a copy of Mr. Zupke's response:
I am very familiar with the many websites and web-forums that have sprung up over time regarding shoddy and inadequate service provided by RegisterFly. I am also familiar with the types of specific complaints ICANN receives regarding this registrar / reseller.
Please understand, however, that ICANN is not a federal or state agency. We do not have a general police power, nor do we have the ability to enforce laws or private contracts between registrars and registrants. ICANN's power is derived from the Registrar Accreditation Agreements (RAAs) we hold with all accredited registrars, and as such, we can only legally require a registrar to take actions (or abstain from taking actions) that are specifically addressed in those agreements. (You can find a copy of the agreement online at http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may01.htm.)
If you have a specific complaint about Registerfly, I would encourage you first to perform a whois search (either at www.internic.net or elsewhere) to determine whether Registerfly is the registrar of record or whether they registered the name in their capacity as a reseller for eNom, Inc. If eNom is the registrar, you should then contact them for resolution of the issue. You can find their contact information at www.internic.net (click Registrars). If the name is registered through Registerfly as the registrar of record, please contact Glenn Stansbury, VP of Operations for Registerfly at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or by phone at +1 973 909 4169. This is his direct dial line at the Rfly office. Although Glenn asked ICANN to provide his contact details to assist customers in resolving complaints, if you find he is not responsive or not helpful, I would strongly encourage you to consider retaining legal counsel to determine what rights you may have with regard to Registerfly's actions or inactions. In addition, you might consider filing a complaint with the New Jersey Attorney General (where Rfly does business)and the US FTC (and the appropriate law enforcement agency if you feel there has been a violation of criminal law). Links:
http://www.nj.gov/oag/ca/comp.htm
https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01
Of course, if you believe the matter involves a breach of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, you should also send a copy of the complaint to ICANN via our internic registrar complaint form (at www.internic.net). Be sure to include the affected domain name(s) as it is nearly impossible for us to research a complaint without that.
While we cannot resolve individual complaints due to the volume we receive, we do use the data collected through the registrar problem report form to take compliance action as appropriate. Such action could include de-accreditation, assuming the circumstances warrant such action under the RAA. Unfortunately, letters like yours below, which do not include any actionable specifics or domain names, are not particularly helpful to our compliance efforts, nor would they be particularly helpful to resolution of your specific complaint. I appreciate your frustration; we just need greater detail.
Thank you for taking the time to write to ICANN about your concerns. I hope you find this information helpful. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Best regards,
Mike Zupke
Registrar Liaison Manager
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
You can find the entire correspondence back and forth at
this link: ICANN
CORRESPONDENCE
Who's to blame?
So who is the guilty party in this mess? Certainly we're aware of the problems involving Registerfly that have been ongoing under the nose of ICANN for more than a year, but what about the role of ICANN and the actions of Frank Fowlie and Mike Zupke?... After all, Registerfly was "unjustly enriched" by the ICANN Accreditation the entire time Registerfly was conducting in the breaches mentioned in the letter.
What about the lost revenue and stolen domains? Who is liable and which party is responsible? Based on the information state in the breach letter and in Mr. Zupke's response above, ICANN was well aware of the situation and failed to take affirmative action... Doesn't this make you wonder if ICANN is almost fully responsible for the monetary damages caused by the actions of their Accredited Registrar, Registerfly? So what is ICANN's roll as an accredited registrar?
What about Enom?
Considering the fact that Registerfly was in fact a domain Reseller for Enom, what was Enom's roll in all this?
Based solely on my personal opinion and after discovering the Verisign issued notice on July 27, 2006 requesting that registrars must be on the EPP platform, (which is the system of issuing authorization codes to top level domain names) by October 28, it was a little unclear as to the deadline of domain names already registered. Verisign simply encouraged the accredited registrars to migrate to EPP in advance of the RRP decommission date of October 28, 2006. However, there was no stated deadline for this migration or population of these codes. Meaning, a registrar could essentially be on the EPP Platform but have failed to have populated the existing names with authorization codes.
After understanding that resellers have all their domain name information populated automatically from ICANN Accredited Registrars, they have very little control of things such as Transfer Authorization Codes, it is then the sole responsibility of the providing registrar to supply these authorization codes to populate these fields in the reseller's customer interface. Although there were problems with Regiserfly prior to this, it really started getting worse with transfers after the October 28 deadline. Could there possibly been a problem within Enom that prevented the supplying the codes? This certainly is an interesting thought.
Speculation on Authorization Codes
When a customer would call into Registerfly and request and authorization code, Registerfly support would tell them that they cannot provide these and that they had to call Enom to requested the Authorization, (EPP) code. So the now even angrier customer would call Enom and Enom would give this customer their auth. code... all the while making it's resellers like Registerfly look bad, while Enom looked like a savior. Why wasn't the code showing in the available field to the customer? Pure speculation would make you wonder if Enom couldn't have been a catalyst in the final fall of Registerfly.
Registerfly Today
As John and Glenn at Registerfly have in fact contacted me and offered support to our users at Registerflies.com, they've failed to come through with the statement that was requested and promised. Are these guys for real? That's something we are going to have to see with their actions. As it sits, Kevin Medina has indeed been fired and is being forced to sell his shares in the company. ICANN during the Registerfly scandal, has still not done their intended on-site audit.
So how is your intellectual property being protected and where are the checks and balances in ICANN?.. The public demands some answers! I request everyone here to submit this story to Anderson Cooper 360 and let's get this on National Televised News. There's a lot here that needs to be exposed and Anderson Cooper will do it!
Please join us in the Registerflies.com CHAT ROOM for the latest discussion.
Please also see these other articles of interest:
Frank Fowlies Blog
TheRegister.co.uk
Registerfly Reviews
Big News
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