ICANN being sued by irate RegisterFly customer

[»1587200]

ICANN Lisbon The Dummit Law Firm announced today on its website that it has filed a class action lawsuit against internet registrars Registerfly and Enom, as well as internet standards body ICANN.

 

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Anne Martinez, a Registerfly customer and the registered owner of GoCertify.com, which provided the main source of income for her and her children. The lawsuit was unsealed on March 23 and officially announced by the plaintiff and her attorney's today.

Click here to find out more!

 

According to the site, "the lawsuit (Anne Martinez v RegisterFly, ICANN et. al.) filed by Attorney E. Clarke Dummit alleges that RegisterFly has systematically defrauded its customers who attempted to register or renew Internet domain names, causing them to lose their domain names, finances, and even entire businesses. The lawsuit was initially sealed due to fears of retribution by RegisterFly.com towards plaintiff Anne Martinez for filing the suit, but since then other concerns have become more pressing, and the case was opened to the public."

 

Plaintiff Martinez initially sought a temporary restraining order (TRO) against RegisterFly, which the court rejected on the grounds that ICANN had already obtained sufficient data from RegisterFly to protect the interests of the plaintiff. Thus, the standard of immediate and irreparable harm required for a TRO had not been met. Ms. Martinez responded by going public with her complaint in the hopes of discovering enough similarly-situated potential plaintiffs to receive class-action certification.

 

The RegisterFly fiasco has proven to be a major public relations and operational headache for ICANN, the nonprofit corporation responsible for determining the technical standards for internet communication. It has been a major topic of discussion at the current ICANN meeting in Lisbon, and has provoked a lot of soul-searching about just what ICANN's quasi-regulatory role should be. The filing of the class action suit - the service of which on ICANN tellingly happened the day before ICANN finally decided to revoke RegisterFly's accreditation is sure to fan the flames against ICANN itself.

 

It also threatens to overwhelm substantive discussions currently going on between ICANN and its varied stakeholders regarding important issues such as the internationalization of domain names and revisions of the current Whois database, which provides important contact information regarding domain holders, and has privacy implications for all internet users.

 

RegisterFly began as a domain name reseller for ICANN-accredited registrar Enom. Even prior to receiving its own accreditation from ICANN - which is itself the matter of considerable finger-pointing - RegisterFly had been the subject of relatively large numbers of customer service complaints. Although never formally approved by ICANN, since it received its accreditation through purchase of another accredited registrar, RegisterFly did post an ICANN accreditation logo on its site, and ICANN acquiesced. That logo is still on the RegisterFly site, and the company allegedly continues to register domains.

 

ICANN today protested the continued use of that logo on its blog, though the blog studiously declines mention of any ongoing litigation with RegisterFly customers. ICANN was served process two weeks ago - is this just more self-serving obfuscation by an organization notorious for exactly that?

 

Although ICANN has been receiving complaints about RegisterFly for nearly two years, apparently it takes a lawsuit against ICANN, not by it, to get anything done. The RegisterFly mess was publicized for a year on a customer gripe site, Registerflies.com. But it only received widespread attention after a particularly bitter and personal lawsuit between two of the founders revealed allegations of liposuction, escorts, and a $6,000 chihuahua on the corporate tab.

 

Customers were being double or triple-charged for registration services that were never performed, as the company CEO Kevin Medina lived a lavish lifestyle in a Miami Beach penthouse, which the company apparently also covered. Enom's role in this new twist remains somewhat obscure, although the suit alleges that Enom engaged in some of the same sketchy billing activity as RegisterFly during a transitional period where RegisterFly registered domains itself while continuing to act as a reseller for Enom.

 

It seems that it takes a class action lawsuit to teach ICANN a lesson - with other suspect registrars recently acknowledged by ICANN, it might not be the last.®

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/28/ic...it_registerfly/

[»1587200]

RegisterFly must die. Kevin Mendia (CEO) must die... I've lost all the domains I've registered with them now. prittk.com/net/org, mackieman.com/net, joesweird.com (my personal site which I've owned for years), syrusmx.com...all lost due to this bull!@#$%^&*. You have no idea how much I hate you right now RegisterFly... Not to mention all the domains I pushed off to other people...f-serve.com, smxnetworks.com...ffs...

 

So...

frickin...

IRATE!....

[Smong]

What actually happened to the domains anyway? Did they all get automatically bought by squatters or what? Isn't there several days "cool off" period that allows the original owner to rebuy it before squatters can move in?

[»1587200]

Most registars give a 30 day grace period after a domain has expired before they release it completely. Problem is, RegisterFly isn't letting anyone move their domains away from RegisterFly, ie, I can't transfer my domains because they don't release them. So they're just going to hold on to everyone's domains until they expire I guess...

[»doc flabby]

smxnetworks.com and omegafire.net are safe

 

i transfered them

[»1587200]

Good.

 

I'd like to transfer my remaining domains, but RF won't give me the EPP codes...

[»doc flabby]

Good.

Do not change anything using the bulk transfer you have to do it one domain at a time.

 

This worked for me to transfer the domains away:

 

First thing u need to do i turn off whois guard ASAP (as in do it now) even if you do nothing else

 

Make sure all your whois data is correct (ie refers to your name, address and email)

Also ensure (important) the whois data has uptodate email addresses

That way if you cant transfer them your domains won't get lost when icann sorts our this mess, and u keep ownership.

 

If you open the domain and click "modify contact information" in registry fly you can get the EEP codes

 

Its called "authorization code" and will be at the bottom of the page

 

You also need to make sure the domains are "unlocked"

 

I then used namecheap.com to transfer the domains then

 

The email address in the whois must be correct (ie your email address - the whois guard ones do not work) for the transfer to work.

[»1587200]

I'd love to do all that, but whenever I try to make changes to my domains, I get, "Unable to connect to remote API server" and that's been going on for 3 days now.

[»Maverick]

The domains you have given me I also transferred away to my own registrar (mydomain.com).

[Gravitron]

*is most pleased to have registered with godaddy.com*

[»Maverick]

Well when I got the domains from SyrusMX I really thought RegisterFly was a nice registrar, they even offered free whois protection. Nobody could have known what was going on behind the scenes.

[»1587200]

I still get the error about connecting to their API server whenever I try to modify my domain in any way. Also, when I edit the contact info, there is no EPP code, just my info...

 

They've also decided to not respond to any tickets I create.

[»Maverick]

I can imagine Registerfly blocking any domain transfer one way or the other.

 

However, according to ICANN, Registerfly won't hold the domains forever because ICANN can transfer the domains to another registrar once they have terminated them on March 31, 2007.

 

When the Agreement is terminated, ICANN can approve a bulk transfer of all current RegisterFly domain names to another ICANN accredited Registrar.

 

Maybe they will especially since Registerfly isn't doing 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.

 

I think it's best to wait until Sunday / Monday to see what happens.

[»Maverick]

P.S. This might be an interesting read.

[Smong]

I have no experience with the domain process. What is the purpose of locking/unlocking domains? If they have to be unlocked before you can transfer them why not just leave them unlocked all the time. Plus surely this is all automated, I can't imagine employees filling out a bunch of forms for each domain and mailing them somewhere.

[»Maverick]

You can lock a domain to prevent certain registrars from hijacking your domain from you (there is/was a small loophole that this could be done if you didn't reply to an e-mail within 5 days or something).

Domain transfers are mostly automated indeed apart from the smaller companies where those procedures might be requested by paper.

[»D1st0rt]

Wow, just read this in the newsletter

http://blog.dreamhost.com/2007/03/19/register-flight/

[»1587200]

Dreamhost is only making that offer for one domain, so us with multiple domains still have to pay the transfer fees.

[»Maverick]

Several Registrars are making offers for former Registerfly customers. For example, my own registrar, mydomain.com is offering $5 for each transfer. Maybe there are cheaper offers around though.

 

Maybe one of your domains can be transferred to Dreamhost and then you also have free hosting

[»1587200]

Tried that, RegisterFly isn't releasing my domain. I don't see the EPP code anywhere, and every time I try to make changes to my domain they don't take and I get an error about connecting to their API server.