GoDaddy.com will assume management of the over 850,000 domain names left high and dry by RegisterFly in the wake of the latter's financial problems and imminent loss of accreditation by ICANN. GoDaddy.com, RegisterFly, and ICANN reached an agreement under which GoDaddy.com would automatically move the domains still under RegisterFly's control to GoDaddy.com.
The problems at RegisterFly came to light in February, when the registrar violated ICANN's Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy by failing to unlock tens of thousands of domain names. RegisterFly had also neglected to pay its accreditation fees to ICANN. A court battle for control of RegisterFly ensued, with CEO Kevin Medina being ousted and then reinstated by a federal court.
Medina had been accused of misappropriating company funds to pay for liposuction and escort services, among other things. After he was fired, Medina reportedly deleted some passwords and kept others at RegisterFly from accessing billing records.
The agreement marks the end of ICANN's efforts to find a solution to the mess at RegisterFly, one that would ensure that RegisterFly's customers would maintain control over their domain names. "ICANN had been actively seeking participants to act as a transfer provider to bulk transfer RegisterFly records to another accredited registrar," said ICANN CEO Paul Twomey. "We have ended that process because the GoDaddy.com agreement is a better solution for RegisterFly customers since it's a direct and automatic transfer to a competent and experienced customer service oriented organization."
Under the terms of the agreement between GoDaddy.com, RegisterFly, and ICANN, all RegisterFly domain names and the data underlying its proxy service will be transferred to GoDaddy.com. All RegisterFly customers will be notified of the switch by GoDaddy.com, which has set up a page to help owners of the affected domains with the switch.
reader comments