RegisterFly

Industry:	Registrar (Terminated)
Founded:	2003
Country:	USA
Key People
John Naruszewicz Kevin Medina

RegisterFly was a domain name registrar. Its accreditation was terminated by ICANN in 2007 due to massive customer complaints and violations of provisions in the Registrar Accreditation Agreement RAA. It was formerly operated by co-owners Kevin Medina and John Naruszewicz.

History

RegisterFly was originally doing business as a reseller for eNom, an ICANN accredited registrar. The company became an ICANN accredited registrar through a "back-door accreditation" after acquiring Top Class Names, a registrar accredited by ICANN in 2004. The new management changed the name of Top Class Names to RegisterFly and assumed the ICANN accreditation and role of its predecessor in 2006. At the time of operation, the company was based in New Jersey. There were more than 2 million registered domain names owned by approximately 900,000 consumers under its management. Some of its registrants include the government of Thailand, the Easter Seals charity and late pop star icon Michael Jackson.

Massive Customer Complaint

ICANN started to received multitude of complaints from users regarding RegisterFly' poor service in 2005. Some of the customers complaint include the company's failure to respond to e-mails and support tickets, more than 30 minutes call hold time, domain name deletion, over charging of credit cards two times or more per transaction and denial of customer access to all their registered domain names once the credit card companies reversed the overcharges. The company also withheld the authorization codes to prevent customers from transferring their domain names to other registrars. Seventy five thousand customers was reported to have lost their domain names.

Internal Conflict

According to reports, the company started to crumble after the personal and professional relationship of RegisterFly co-owners Kevin Medina and John Naruszewicz went sour. The two men fought for control of the company in court. Naruszewicz accused Medina of corruption and took over the control of the company.According to him Medina stole money from the company since the middle of 2006 to pay for two Cadillac Escalades, a penthouse apartment in Miami's South Beach, an escort service, and a liposuction. On the other hand, Medina accused Nariszewicz of using fraud to be able to take control of the company.

On March 2007, Medina was able to proved to the court that he is the only rightful owner of the company bec ause Naruszewicz never paid for his stock. New Jersey District Judge Peter Sheridan ordered Medina's reinstatement as CEO of RegisterFly.

ICANN's Actions Regarding Complaints

ICANN Investigated eNom/RegisterFly Regarding Complaints

On January 2006, ICANN's Chief Registrar Liaison Tim Cole contacted eNom twice regarding the huge volume of complaints against RegisterFly, which was still acting as a reseller. Cole forwarded the complaints to eNom and reminded the registrar that all domain names registered by RegisterFly under its accreditation is its responsibility. Cole also warned eNom of its possible breach of its registrar accreditation aggreement due to complaints that RegisterFly was intentionally changing the Whois data with inaccurate information. eNom explained that RegisterFly intended to transfer all the domain names under its management to its own credential. On April 2006, ICANN communicated with Kevin Medina regarding the continuous complaints that customers are locked out of their accounts and the disappearance of domain names.Kevin Medina explained to Mike Zupke, ICANN's Registrar Liaiso Manager that the problems were cause by "growing pains.

ICANN Requested Documentation and On-Site Audit

ICANN stepped up its investigation and requested documentation from RegisterFly about a complaint that the Whois information of 220 domain names owned by a registrant was changed reflecting Kevin Medina as the registered domain owner after a heated argument with the company.Kevin Medina voluntarily provided incomplete records to ICANN and it required the internet governing body to pressure the registrar until all information were obtained. ICANN also announced that it will conduct an on-site audit to obtain information regarding the issue on May 26, 2006. Medina and Glenn Stansbury, RegisterFly's vice president of operations met with ICANN Staff regarding the complaints against the company to avoid the on-site audit. They admitted that the staffs of the company in the Risk/Fraud department were paid "strictly on commission" but they also promised to work hard in resolving the problems and to improve its customer service.

ICANN Issued Notice of Breach

On February 21, 2007, Kurt Pritz, senior vice president if ICANN issued the notice of breach to RegisterFly. Obviously, the company failed to comply with the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) after the flood of customer complaints against it. Pritz enumerated the provisions in the RAA which the company violated. Pritz gave RegisterFly 15-days ultimatum to resolve its violations if not ICANN will terminate its accreditation. On March 2, 2007, ICANN through its legal counsel issued its second notice of breach to RegisterFly due to its failure in resolving its violations in the RAA and it threatened that company with lawsuit.

ICANN Filed Lawsuit

On March 29,2007, ICANN filed a lawsuit against RegisterFly and asked the court to compel the company to turnover all its registrants data, update it every 48 hours and allow the internet governing body to audit the books of the company. On April 26, 2009, US Federal Court Judge Manuel J. Real ordered the immediate termination of RegisterFly's accreditation and directed RegisterFly to post the termination on its website with the text, "NOTICE TO CONSUMERS: ICANN HAS TERMINATED THIS COMPANY'S ACCREDITATION TO SERVE AS AN INTERNET DOMAIN NAME REGISTRAR. THIS COMPANY MAY NOT REGISTER DOMAIN NAMES.PLEASE SEE www.icann.org FOR FURTHER INFORMATION." Immediately after the court order, ICANN announced its invitation for all interested accredited registrars to submit their proposals to serve as transfer providers and temporarily hold the domain names so that registrants will be able to access their domain names and make the necessary transfers to any ICANN accredited registrar.

GoDaddy Took Over RegisterFly Data

On March 29, 2007, ICANN announced that GoDaddy will take over the entire 850,000 domain names under RegisterFly's portfolio. According to ICANN CEO and President Paul Twomey, ICANN had been actively seeking proposals from registrars to provide bulk transfers for the RegisterFly's records but it stopped the process. According to him, "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."