ICANN granted the right to act on transfers as soon as possible; plan in action
Under a preliminary injunction issued on Thursday 26 April 2007, ICANN now has the right to terminate RegisterFly’s accreditation as soon as possible. RegisterFly failed to meet the conditions of a temporary restraining order (TRO) which the Court issued on 16 April.
ICANN is immediately inviting statements of interest from accredited registrars to act as a transfer provider, so domain name registrants can gain full access to their domains. The registrar handling the transfers will temporarily hold the names and help registrants transfer to any ICANN accredited registrar of their choice.
“Registrants are our first concern. ICANN is following a very determined approach to returning access to domain name registrants impacted by the collapse of RegisterFly,” said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN President and CEO. “ICANN knows that many registrants are anxious for a transfer to occur. We are committed to making sure this process is put in place as quickly as possible. While we understand that this process may be frustrating for some RegisterFly customers, it is the first time that ICANN has had to intercede in such a way and these steps are being taken to ensure that the system introduced works as effectively as possible.”
In order to become the transfer provider, registrars must be:
- ICANN accredited for at least two years
- In compliance with the Registrar Accreditation Agreement
- Able to demonstrate that it possesses the technical and financial qualifications necessary to operate a registrar with the number of registrations that the applicant will need to manage if it is selected as the services provider.
The draft Terminated Registrar Procedure is available on ICANN’s website here.
The Court decision also requires RegisterFly to immediately post a notice on its web site as follows:
NOTICE TO CONSUMERS: THE INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS, THE NOT-FOR-PROFIT ENTITY THAT ADMINSTERS THE INTERNET’S DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM, HAS ISSUED A NOTICE OF TERMINATION OF THIS COMPANY’S ACCREDITATION TO SERVE AS AN INTERNET DOMAIN REGISTRAR. PLEASE SEE www.icann.org FOR FUTHER INFORMATION.
Once ICANN finalises RegisterFly’s termination, the website notice must be revised to reflect the actual termination of RegisterFly’s accreditation.
More information on the RegisterFly situation can be found on this dedicated webpage on ICANN’s public participation site.
{ 45 comments }
repb 04.28.07 at 2:30 am
Good news!
Some issues need to be take special care though
1. Domains efectively hijacked by RF, where whois has been changed to RF’s own credentials.
2. Proxy registrations
3. Domains already expired, in RGP or Pending Detele.
As for 1. and 2. RF/KM must be prevented from transfering names out to another registrar unless they can clearly prove that they are the legitimate owner of the name.
As for 3. a wider time frame should be granted to registrants, as some of them might have accumulated a number of domains in these states that they can’t afford to renew at once.
Dave Zan 04.28.07 at 2:31 am
I don’t recall if anyone’s posted this anywhere on ICANN’s site, but is there perhaps a contact form or an email address where one can submit a list of domain names successfully transferred out of Registerfly? I’m suggesting the contact form since it might have better chances of getting to you as opposed to sending an email directly.
For example, my one domain name I’ve moved out from Registerfly is still showing up in my account with them. Given your potentially enormous workload trying to verify all the data, I figure every bit helps.
opditch 04.28.07 at 12:33 pm
I have the same concern about “hijacked” domains that RF stole from me. How do we prove we owned them before RF changed the registrant? Will a screen shot from our account, or a printout from our RF account suffice?
opditch 04.28.07 at 4:19 pm
The RegisterFly is doing some flunky things with the domains that they hijacked. I’ve had one expire and thought I would be able to pick it up with a “backorder”, here is the report I got after RegisterFly had renewed the domain for themselves. They changed the DNS servers today:
The domain name servers have been changed:
OLD: DNS1.REGISTERFLY.COM
DNS2.REGISTERFLY.COM
NEW: DNS1.EXPIREFLY.COM
DNS2.EXPIREFLY.COM
The domain status has been changed:
OLD: ok
NEW: clientTransferProhibited
clientUpdateProhibited
UFO 04.28.07 at 5:27 pm
I’m absolutely gobsmacked that ICANN is now “calling” for expressions of interest from registrars.
DOH…
Doesn’t ICANN have any CONTINGENCY planning?
Oh yes… there probably is an agreement in place to transfer the domains… to a verisign subsiduary I guess…
ChiTown 04.29.07 at 6:47 pm
“The registrar handling the transfers will temporarily hold the names and help registrants transfer to any ICANN accredited registrar of their choice”
I can transfer them now without a problum, my problum is they should be reassigned to another Registrar NOT Transfered as
that implys $$$$.
I have over 1100 domains at RegFly some with over 6 months left
on them so why should I have to come up with 8 to $9,000.00 to
pay again for something I already paid for.
As far as adding another 1 year with the Transfer goes that’s a load as if I wanted to register them for 2 years I would of in the first place.
The money to renew them when expiring would be there as planed but isn’t now!
When I bought them my contract and ICANN said they were good
for 1 year from purchase date, now the way things are worded
they’re not.
Is ICANN going to loan me the money to Transfer them?
Unless I’m reading things out of context people are still going to
get the shaft as everyone can’t afford to transfer all of them, and
will lose some.
Isn’t it enough for a Registrar to get the new domains which
WILL be renewed with them?
I think this matter had better be looked at or it’s still going to be a long nasty road with Attorneys getting rich and Registrars & ICANN
looking even worse as far as any credibility goes.
Someone better get on the ball and think about things or this mess
will be around till Hillary finishes her 2 terms!
.
Mike Brown 04.30.07 at 1:02 am
This is a very serious suggestion and I hope that someone with influence at ICANN investigates it thoroughly.
I have written to Verisign asking that pending a bulk transfer they set my domains in RGP to active status. I’m not asking that they renew the domain, just change it’s status back to active. The reply I got basically said that they can’t interfere whilst ICANN is still making a decision and pursuing it through the courts.
Following this court ruling, can ICANN now please go back to Verisign and request that all RegisterFly domains in RGP are set back to Active status pending transfer?
This will help thousands of domains to come back on line and save $millions in losses for domain Registrants. I understand that technically speaking this is a very simple process that Verisign could complete in minutes.
I can see no justifiable reason why ICANN couldn’t request this from Verisign to help alleviate some of the very real and immediate problems faced by RF customers.
ChiTown 04.30.07 at 1:23 am
Expirefly.com was created in 2001 and is owned and
reg’d at Registerfly.
They put their first page up in March 2003
Then they were pushing something called Expirefish which
they advertised as
“ExpirefishNET provides you with a powerful mechanism to obtain a domain that is soon to expire, or that has already expired but is locked in “registrar hold”
I wonder how many people got taken for bucks on that??
expirefish.com is Reg’d at Enom and owned by
Kevin Medina (kevin@unifiednames.com)
+1.9737580880
Fax: +1.8883145646
254ElmwyndDrive
Orange, NJ 07050
As of March 19, 2007 Expirefly.com had 47,983 Domains
April 24, 2007 they now have 87,295
So anyone looking for lost domains I’d look in that direction first…
repb 04.30.07 at 1:46 am
I did sugest this from the start but looks to me that now there is no legal reason not to “revive” these domains.
And again, people with expired domains should be given adequate time to renew the names and not be forced to renew them at once now, as that would be a heavy financial burden to many.
Doug Mehus 04.30.07 at 10:25 am
If this helps, ICANN has previously ordered all registries with names still in Redemption Grace Period or Pending Delete statuses to place them in Registry Hold status pending the termination of RegisterFly as an accredited registrar and transfer to another registration service provider.
Cheers,
Doug
Anastacia Leigh 04.30.07 at 10:46 am
Registerfly hijacked one address from me last year by cancelling my auto-renew and then changing my WHOIS information to their email address so I wouldn’t get any reminder notifications. They did the same thing to another site that is about to expire on 5/2/07. Fortunately, http://www.enom.com has taken over many of the URL’s registered at Registerfly – just call them at 425-274-4500 and speak to tech support about updating your WHOIS information and paying for the renewal.
bigfoot 04.30.07 at 11:55 pm
Enom haven’t ‘taken over’ the domains or registration.
registerfly acted as a reseller of enom until they bought a registrar of their own to become a registrar ‘in their own right’.
enom can only help if you can prove you’re the legitmate owner and the whois info is correct.
libdib 05.01.07 at 5:55 am
Not only was our domain hi-jacked, but Registerfly charged us 4x for our renewal under a company called Hostingfly (hmmm, same people?). Then they changed our contacts to theirs (nonexistent) and disabled our domain in our account. ICANN keeps giving me the runaround, saying that don’t have a protocol in place yet and no one else seems to be able to help (I got the same “You have to wait for ICANN” from VeriSign). When is there going to be REAL regulation of registrars?
Judy 05.01.07 at 1:36 pm
Does anyone at ICANN have any idea how much longer it’s going to take for me to get access to my domains? I have companies that can’t get their email because the records are locked.
Please help!
restorator 05.01.07 at 2:39 pm
I just found out about the whoile registerfly thing, AFTER now losing several domains, ONE of which was my email domain for all my domain contact info! Why wasnt this news blasted all over as it appears this has been going on for a looooong time? Now hat do I do and where do I turn? Is there some sort of procedure? Why isnt there more information on the front page of the website HERE at least to tell me what I need to do NOW!? HELP!
John K. Lawlor 05.01.07 at 7:24 pm
I have numerous domains at registerfly and I have tried to transfer them with no luck as registerfly has them locked. My main one died on the 14th and I was not notified of it’s expiration. I discovered it on the 16th and have not been able to get it unlocked so I can do a transfer. I tried to renew and of course they charged and renewed for all the domains I was not using at the moment. I contact eNom and they were only able to transfer the ones they had registered back in 2003. So when will someone tell us what we can do as three of my revenue generating accounts are now down.
Dave Zan 05.02.07 at 12:56 am
Try this:
http://blog.icann.org/?p=85
Try also to “push” your domain names into a new Registerfly account (it’s free). With luck, you might be able to unlock them and get auth codes.
bigfoot 05.02.07 at 2:02 am
Push from the original to a ‘second’ account, then on to a ‘third’ account.
I found you needed to do the double push to release some locks and Protectfly.
Daniel 05.02.07 at 1:01 pm
I was able to unlock, get the authorization code and initiate a transfer of almost all my domains at RegisterFly. They’re all showing a status (on my new registrar) of “Pending Losing Registrar Approval”… so I hope it goes through.
My problem is the four domains that they let expire (even with the auto-renew on) and now they are on Redemption Period…I’ve tried “renewing” with them, so that I can transfer them out, to no avail.
I’ve browser all ICANN website and blog and I can’t find a solution of who to talk to to get them transfered. Please help! as the time goes on, more and more people will find their domains expiring to no fault of our own, and being left in this “no-email / no-website” limbo!
RobM 05.02.07 at 5:12 pm
Can something be done for the domains people lost due to this failure??
Dave Zan 05.02.07 at 10:02 pm
Unfortunately domain names in redemption period can’t be renewed the “regular” way through your registrar. Neither is Registerfly likely going to redeem them for you.
However, the relevant Registries have reportedly put a lock on them to prevent anyone else from possibly re-registering them. I’m sorry to say that issue won’t be resolved anytime soon.
Dave Zan 05.02.07 at 10:04 pm
Yes and no, depending on what state they are and what has happened since then.
Not everyone is going to come out happy when this situation has finally been concluded.
Rmahlert 05.03.07 at 6:47 am
In the past 2 days I have received 4 domain transfer request. 3 from godaddy and one from Enom.
The 3 from GoDaddy say I am the register in whois. I’ve NEVER heard of these sites before. The one from Enom is listed under the protectfly info, so I can’t get the info. I don’t have a GoDaddy account and I use to have ENOMCentral, but moved off that site. (After they told me I had to pay $120 and $80 to get domains out of redemption with the regfly debacle)
I tried the domain websites to see if I could find who owns them, but none work.
Anyone else see anything on this issue??
RobM 05.03.07 at 6:56 am
One was registered by someone else.
And I don’t have the $1500 to fight for it.
I did pay to renew it, but I understand Enom and the others didn’t get the money for it.
But something should be done to fix the situations like this caused by the registerfly failure. I’m not the only one who lost a domain due to the registerfly failure. I renewed in good faith, my money taken.
I should have some chance to prove this and get the domain back. Not pay an arm and a leg for it.
ChiTown 05.03.07 at 7:07 am
Can anyone answer my question, I asked it before in this thread.
Verisign told me a few months ago that the domains would just be assigned to another registra, now ICANN is using the word Transfer.
To transfer a domain cost money, I have 6 months left on alot of my domains.
I have over 1100 domains there, that’s alot of $$$$ and I should
have quite some time befor I had to come up with it.
When I bought them my contract and ICANN said they were good
for 1 year from purchase date, now the way things are worded
they’re not.
Is ICANN going to loan me the money to Transfer them?
RegisterFragged 05.03.07 at 8:09 am
I don’t know where else to post this. I feel it should be headlining the Registerfly FAQ page, because it is extremely important. This may not be news to a lot of you, but newbies like me keep getting suckered every day.
REGISTERFLY STILL CLAIMS THAT IT CAN REGISTER DOMAINS, despite the fact that they cannot. This week I attempted to register a domain through RF. I was charged, recieved confirmation, and was notified that the order went through. All was peachy.
48 hours later I happened to check the whois database and saw that the domain was still available. After numerous [unanswered] support tickets to Registerfly, I decided to go with another registrar and place the order. It was processed instantaneously, and the whois database was updated that day.
I don’t know what sort of fantasy world Registerfly is purporting with its claims of successful domain registration. But someone has to make it stop. Please, ICANN, for the sake of the newbies like me, make it clear that REGISTERFLY CANNOT REGISTER NEW DOMAINS. It’s too late for me; my money is gone, and I don’t expect being able to get a refund. But I’m appalled that there were no warnings, even though this debacle has been going on for months.
If anyone can post any helpful advice on how I can get my money back, please do. (No, I cannot afford a lawyer.)
Glenn Davis 05.03.07 at 5:53 pm
The RF databases are corrupted and my not show the real information. Once you move your domain to a new registrar. Then go to a third party – whois – like this one: http://whois.domaintools.com
It should reflect your current registrar as the correct one. If it does you are fine and have no worries.
Internic master database will also show the correct information as well.
The only people that will possibly be getting screwed long term are those that used protectfly and could not change their domain information back to their own. Thus it will be hard to prove you are the real owner of the domain name.
I include me self in this statement – I too have a few domains names in the same situation. Where RF shows as the owner and not me!
I also have a few that the transfer code is bad, and hope that when the new temporary registrar takes control I will be able to move them.
Dave Zan 05.03.07 at 9:47 pm
In theory, any remaining term will be carried over to the new registrar. So if your domain name has been with Registerfly for 6 months, the remainder will be carried over.
In reality, anything goes. We’ll just have to see where this leads to.
Chris NIVARD 05.04.07 at 6:48 am
I advise all RegisterFly customers to fill a complain at Paypal.com IF they used their Paypal account to pay RegisterFly~.
With more than 5 persons, RegisterFly’s Paypal’s account will be blocked/freezed! This will lock their assets.
Note: their Paypal’s account is registered as…”Unifiednames Inc” (?? WTF!!).
Raymond 05.04.07 at 11:09 am
I called enom (they were the registrar of record for my registerfly accounts) and they were great. They answered the phone in less than one minute, knew about the problem and sent me an email with instructions. I completed the request in 10 minutes and emailed in the documentation and had access to my domains through enom in 31 minutes WITHOUT PAYING A DIME and my domains had protectfly contact info on the WHOIS. One of my domains was in the Redemption Grace Period (RGP) and while I had to pay to get it renewed the bottom line is I got my domain back. I don’t know anything else about enom but I couldn’t have gotten better treatment that I got from them today!
David Schwartz 05.04.07 at 11:48 am
GIVE REGISTRANTS CHOICES!!!
Why allow only ONE registrar to act as a recipient? Why not allow SEVERAL? Problems are bound to arise with the bulk transfer of domains, and by allowing several providers to participate, there will be alternatives available to registrants already suffering from problems with RegisterFly.
Why not just allow registrants to choose where they want to move their domains and then allow registrars to act on those requests?
Also, having multiple registrars involved will stimulate some competition for business, and result in a net benefit for people who’ve been getting screwed by RF for so long.
I personally have been moving my domain names to NameCheap.com, which does not fall under the qualifications to even attempt to be a recipient registar — they’re currently an enom reseller. So my interest is that whomever is chosen better not put a bunch of barriers in place that prevent me from moving my names to my PREFERRED provider.
The stickier problem is what will happen to names that have expired while stuck at RF, and that registrants have been unable to renew. Registrants should not be forced to renew them with the chosen registrar in order to transfer them out.
-David
Kieren McCarthy 05.04.07 at 11:54 am
David,
I think you have misunderstood what the transfer provider will do. The provider will do exactly as you are asking – contact people, provide them with auth codes etc and allow them to choose their own registrar to move the domain over to.
Kieren McCarthy
General manager of public participation, ICANN
Abdul 05.04.07 at 12:03 pm
I have some very valuable domains that RegisterFly hijacked out of my account by changing the contact information to their own and changing the contact email addresses, and actually moving the domain out of my RegisterFly account.They changed Whois Records for those domains, registerfly only put their contact and no real contacts. Registerfly had replaced my email address on the domains with support@registerfly.com no real admin contacts.
They don’t reply my support request.
Sander J. Rabinowitz 05.05.07 at 7:27 am
RegisterFragged,
Someone may have already spoken to this, but let me just clarify.
1) While you still have access to R’Fly’s control panel, go in and make sure you’ve got your credit card information removed from their system (they have a place there for stored number–I think it’s under your user profile). This should (hopefully) prevent unwanted charges in the future.
2) If the new domain (the one you had to re-purchase somewhere else) is the ONLY domain you have with R’Fly, then you should be able to go to your credit card company or to PayPal and dispute the changes. Basically, you say, “I dispute this charge because the merchant refused to perform the requested service and will not respond to my questions.” You should then get a credit back to your card. At that point, R’Fly will lock you out of their account, but that doesn’t matter because you don’t have domains with them anyway and they can’t touch the ones you register elsewhere.
3) If the new domain is NOT the only domain you have–say you have others–and you have not transferred them from R’Fly to another provider, be cautious when disputing charges because there are numerous reports of R’Fly locking you out of ALL domains on your account over a “chargeback.” Additionally, they have reportedly transferred all such domains to themselves. At the moment, I don’t know of a workaround for this tactic. Again, this caution applies only to domains that you managed to SUCCESSFULLY register with R’Fly so that they are the registrar of record. –SJR
Andrew Staroscik 05.05.07 at 7:45 am
“The provider will do exactly as you are asking – contact people, provide them with auth codes etc and allow them to choose their own registrar to move the domain over to.”
WHEN!?!
Alan DeRossett 05.05.07 at 8:12 am
Hi,
Is ICANN monitoring RegisterFly?
It’s May 5th ,2007 and Registerfly still is operating their website soliciting Renewal money and Domain Registration Money.
They still State on there Website that They are ICANN accredited and Still Charge the ICANN TAX (FEES) on new Registrations.
We’ve had many domains Hi- jacked by RegisterFly and their Employess.
We’ve payed multiple times for renewal of the same domains only to have them expire.
We have multible Domains that have Expirered that ICANN has promised us we can transfer and renew.
WHen?
Your last News was the court order dated April 27th.
ICANN should transfer the RegisterFly.com ExpireFly.com domains
immediatly and redirect all email inquires to ICANN staff even if you have to Cancel your meeting Trip to Purto Rico.
Get Busy ICANN the Internet doesn’t sleep!
Jonathan 05.05.07 at 3:01 pm
This is alarming. I hope as a community we can come together and get our domain names back. While I have only six domain names with RegisterFly, I sympathize with those who have hundreds. I mention this because I am only now finding out that my RegisterFly account does not work. While I am able to login, I am unable to update any whois profile information or change any nameservers. This is a real problem for me because all of my domain names have incorrect e-mail addresses associated with their whois profiles. As a result, I am unable to transfer any of my domain names away from RegisterFly. I have one domain name that is still registered with eNom, but it is unclear to me at this point if I will be able to push it to a new eNom account without first having a correct e-mail address in place. Like many others, I have read the FAQ that eNom has made available on their website, but the advice about contacting RegisterFly to update whois profile information is unrealistic. Two of my other domain names were recently transfered from eNom by RegisterFly in connection with each being renewed. The problem I am experiencing with these two domain names is that while neither domain name shows as expired in their respective whois profiles, each of them has had their nameservers changed to dns1/dn2.expirefly.com and both show as expired in my RegisterFly account. I hope that ICANN will take notice of the many real-world problems that registrants like myself are having and make available an appropriate solution. In addition, I would encourage other registrants to comment publicly about their own experiences with RegisterFly/eNom/ICANN so that we can better understand as a community what is going on with our domain names. Why is ICANN not being more proactive?
RegisterFragged 05.05.07 at 4:00 pm
That’s exactly the point I was making above (buried in one of the many unanswered posts…)
Registerfly is still claiming that it’s a fully functional domain broker; they’re taking peoples’ money every day (including MINE last week); and with all the big talkin’ regulation that’s going on, no one has thought to pull the plug on the Registerfly site?
*shakes head*
What good is all this legal volleyball if people are still getting suckered every day? Is ICANN really that impotent in the matter? If so (and I don’t mean to sound offensive), what exactly IS the job of ICANN?
Kieren McCarthy 05.06.07 at 6:30 am
Are you seriously suggesting that ICANN is giving the right and ability to turn off people’s domains and websites?
First of all, that has some pretty devastating consequences were it allowed to happen. And second, as has been demonstrated countless times in the past, the Internet just doesn’t work like that.
As for RegisterFly, apologies for not providing an update before now. There is a static page on the Public Participation website that we seek to keep as up-to-date as possible.
http://public.icann.org/issues/registerfly/review
The short news is that ICANN expects the problem to be dealt with one way or another next week. Depending on what exactly happens at that point, registrants could either gain immediate access to their domains, or if may take a few weeks to run the hundreds of thousands of domains through the system.
Yes are right though. In this highly unusual circumstance – where a registrar actively works against its own interests and the interests of its customers – ICANN does not have sufficient authority to be able to bring the situation to a close fast enough.
Once this RegisterFly situation is over, that loophole will be closed so no one need go through this particular situation again.
Hope this helps
Kieren McCarthy
General manager of public participation, ICANN
Kristen 05.07.07 at 6:14 am
I have 2 domains at registerfly that I am trying to transfer out…just now finding out what’s going on.
Anyways, I got the authcodes from my control panel and gave them to the new registrar. However, I think the domains are locked.
domain1 STATUS: DELETE PROHIBITED/PENDING TRANSFER
…but I noticed the registry whois changed to whois.afilias.net
My email and contact info are still the same.
Transfer Status: transfer submitted to registry (5)…on step 5
domain2 STATUS: clientUpdateProhibited
Whois Server: whois.registerfly.com
Transfer Status: acquiring admin email address (1)…on step 1(stuck there)
Both domains are unlucked in my control panel.
I feel for anyone going through this. My domains are also important to me.
Susan Gilbert 05.07.07 at 9:10 am
I have a problem that I can’t find where anyone else has had the same experience and resolved it…
When I attemped to transfer 31 of my 50 domains from Registerfly to another Registrar in mid-April, ALL 50 doamins disappeared from my account.
I have a list of all the domains I registered with Registerfly in a spreadsheet downloaded from Registefly before this happens which lists the URL, the date of registration, the registration ID, etc.
My support tickets submitted within Registerfly go unanswered, my emails go unanswered, my fax support information sent goes unanswered, and if I can get through to the Registerfly voice mail hold I never get a live person (up to 5 hours on hold). Can anyone tell me how to resolve this?
Susan
Mark Witting 05.08.07 at 6:07 am
There is a class action lawsuit, go to registerflies.com for links.
Kristen 05.09.07 at 11:27 am
Just wanted to update on my situation.
Registerfly answered my support ticket.
They gave me the correct authcodes.
The only thing is….
My new registrar says the domains are locked by registerfly(“registrar locked”).
Registerfly says “they are” unlocked.
We’ll see what happens.
My domains expire 5/19 & 5/31.
HR 05.20.07 at 6:30 am
How do I get control/renew my domain that is is DELETE PROHIBITED status?
RE 06.11.07 at 5:11 am
Since nothing seams to works on the RF site, and since I have an account balace with them that I would like to use up (and knowing that they don’t send any refunds). Aside of using bullets to settle these issues, how does one go about renewing my domain names to eat up my account balace at RF? Remember: this can’t be done using the RF site? Anyone every bring up the issue of RF extorting account monies from their registered users?
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