Re: [ga] Registerfly loses approximately 75,000 customer domains

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul and all,

  Well done Paul, and thank you.  I still have the concern for those
registrants that were damaged by Registerfly's mismanagement?
What if anything is going to be done for them? Seems ICANN's
approach is lack luster.  Seems to me that both ICANN and
Registerfly should be offering financial compensation for those
damaged registrants.  I recognize the ramifications if they did so,
as in doing so their might be a resulting flud of damage suits asking
for even more financial restitution from those same registrants.  However
showing an effort in good faith may also have the effect of stemming
the tide of even higher $$ ask for in damage suits by Registerfly
registrants...

  In any event it seems reasonable to me that even ICANN staff members,
and executives bare at least in part some liability for knowingly allowing
this mess to go on for so long and damage increasingly more registrants
as a result of not taking more direct action much sooner than they did
knowing at least to some degree early on something was seriously amiss...

  It again now looks as though that ICANN's "Accreditation" is more paper
than substance.  However I have been declaring this refrain sense such
was conceived....

Paul Stahura wrote:

> I didn't know that number came from their website.  Obviously, *I*
> believe it is inaccurate.  The purpose of my email was to contribute my
> opinion which I believe more accurately states the magnitude of the
> impact of this event on the registrant community, which is part of what
> this GA email list is about.
>
> Knowing the number of names that remain in the registerfly eNom account
> (yes, we recently terminated their reseller agreement, but this is after
> approx one year since they've become ICANN accredited and moving names
> out of eNom; there are now less than 90K names left), and knowing the
> number of names in their ICANN accredited registrar, and a decent guess
> of how many of those .info names are registered to registerfly itself
> (or one registrant), the impact is still sizable, but VERY much less
> than 2 million names.  300-400K customer-registered names?
> If 1/12 expire per month, that's about 30K names in the next 30 days
> (this does not count updates).  Unfortunately, the vast majority of
> those are not at eNom so we cannot help those registrants.
>
> Regarding your valid comment about registrant confusion: eNom's customer
> service dept is working overtime and diligently with any registrants we
> can reach (or who reach us), and who have names in the registerfly eNom
> account, to minimize the impact of the registerfly situation on those
> registrants... and we have been for a very long time.  It's difficult to
> directly reach all the registrants who would be potentially affected,
> and I think it would also be appropriate to make a more detailed
> statement to this list on this subject, so I will have our customer
> service folks prepare one and send it out tomorrow.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Prophet Partners Inc. [mailto:Domains@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2007 2:59 PM
> To: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ga] Registerfly loses approximately 75,000 customer
> domains
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> The 2 million figure comes from Registerfly's own website.
> http://registerfly.com/info/about.php
> Quick Facts
>
>   a.. Founded in 2000
>   b.. ICANN Accredited
>   c.. 100% Debt Free
>   d.. Customers in all 50 states and 120 Countries
>   e.. 1,000,000 paying customers
>   f.. 300,000 + sites hosted on our Flyservers.com
>   g.. Over 2 million names registered
> >From what we understand, the 2 million figure includes names that are
> directly registered through Registerfly's ICANN accreditation, as well
> as
> names registered through the eNom reseller relationship. As eNom only
> recently terminated their relationship with Registerfly, many of the
> domains
> registered under this arrangement would appear to be in some type of
> limbo.
> Given the large number of registrants, it is axiomatic that some level
> of
> registrant confusion exists, especially regarding paid renewals that are
> now
> in redemption period or pending delete. As the President of eNom,
> perhaps
> you could clarify the situation and set the record straight.
>
> Sincerely,
> Ted
> Prophet Partners Inc.
> http://www.ProphetPartners.com
> http://www.Premium-Domain-Names.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Stahura" <stahura@xxxxxxxx>
> To: "Prophet Partners Inc." <Domains@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
> <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: "John M.R. Kneuer (U.S. Department of Commerce)"
> <jkneuer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>;
> "Vint Cerf" <vint@xxxxxxxxxx>; "Anick Jesdanun (Associated Press)"
> <netwriter@xxxxxx>; "Arik Hesseldahl (BusinessWeek)"
> <Arik_Hesseldahl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Paul Sloan (Business2.com)"
> <psloan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Scott Ard (c|net)" <sard@xxxxxxxx>; "Rachel
> Rosmarin (Forbes)" <rrosmarin@xxxxxxxxxx>; "Adam Gaffin (NetworkWorld)"
> <agaffin@xxxxxxx>; "Brian Krebs (Washington Post)"
> <brian.krebs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "CNN News Tips" <ireport@xxxxxxx>; "NY
> Times News Tips" <news-tips@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2007 4:24 PM
> Subject: RE: [ga] Registerfly loses approximately 75,000 customer
> domains
>
> um, I do not believe they manage anywhere near 2 million domains.
> Why does the 2 million number keep circulating?
>
> According to Webhosting.info
> http://www.webhosting.info/registrars/reports/total_domains/tld/REGISTER
> FLY.COM/
> they have 882K names in their cred, of which 563K are .info names.
> I suspect the vast majority of those .info names are not registered to
> customers (but to rfly itself).  Only about 300K are .com .net .info and
> .biz names.  If each customer has on average 3 names, thats 100K
> customers, that's still a ton of registrants but a far cry from 2
> million.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Prophet Partners Inc. [mailto:Domains@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:50 AM
> To: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: John M.R. Kneuer (U.S. Department of Commerce); Vint Cerf; Anick
> Jesdanun (Associated Press); Arik Hesseldahl (BusinessWeek); Paul Sloan
> (Business2.com); Scott Ard (c|net); Rachel Rosmarin (Forbes); Adam
> Gaffin (NetworkWorld); Brian Krebs (Washington Post); CNN News Tips; NY
> Times News Tips
> Subject: Re: [ga] Registerfly loses approximately 75,000 customer
> domains
>
> Hi Jeff,
>
> That's correct, no one on this mailing list sees this as being a
> surprising
> event.
>
> Registerfly with an estimated 2 million domain names, is one of the top
> 10
> domain registrars in the world, as measured by the total number of
> domains
> under management. By their own admission in the court document mentioned
> earlier, they recently failed to register or renew approximately 35-40 %
> (75,000 / 200,000) of their customers' domains. Complaints are rampant,
> with
> customers that paid for timely renewals later receiving notification
> that
> their domains were expiring. To compound the problem, many people
> complain
> that their domains are now locked at Registerfly, without the ability to
> transfer out to another registrar. Customer accounts of customer support
> being unresponsive or unreachable are also widespread. This is far from
> being a small problem and certainly not representative of a secure and
> stable DNS.
>
> Given that Registerfly is ICANN accredited and ICANN's primary objective
> is
> to maintain and ensure the security and stability of the DNS, what has
> ICANN
> done and what should they do to protect domain registrants who are
> customers
> of Registerfly? Note that Danny Younger's message was sent to Vint Cerf,
> Chairman of ICANN's Board, nearly 3 months ago. What consumer benefits
> are
> there to choosing an ICANN accredited registrar over one that is not?
> What
> is ICANN doing to earn the $0.25 "tax" (without representation) for each
> annual domain registration / renewal paid by domain registrants (who
> have no
> influence on the shaping of ICANN policies)?
>
> ICANN wants to eventually gain autonomy from the U.S. Department of
> Commerce, but what have they demonstrated through past actions to prove
> that
> they are capable of being autonomous? To the contrary, ICANN has
> repeatedly
> shown that they do not act in the best interests of the public community
> of
> domain registrants.
>
> Sincerely,
> Ted
> Prophet Partners Inc.
> http://www.ProphetPartners.com
> http://www.Premium-Domain-Names.com
>
> CC: John M.R. Kneuer (Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications
> and
> Information, U.S. Department of Commerce - NTIA)
>     Vint Cerf (Chairman of the Board, ICANN)
>     Anick Jesdanun (Associated Press)
>     Arik Hesseldahl (BusinessWeek)
>     Paul Sloan (Business 2.0)
>     Scott Ard (c|net)
>     Rachel Rosmarin (Forbes)
>     Adam Gaffin (NetworkWorld)
>     Brian Krebs (The Washington Post)
>     CNN News Tips
>     The N.Y. Times News Tips
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jeff Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Prophet Partners Inc." <Domains@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:30 AM
> Subject: Re: [ga] Registerfly loses approximately 75,000 customer
> domains
>
> > Ted and all,
> >
> >   Interesting, but not all that surprising.  On the surface it would
> seem
> > that the allegations are more based on poor expense reporting
> mechanisms
> > and even worse employee supervision or Registerfly is trying to cover
> > up some mistakes in registrar management.
> >
> > Prophet Partners Inc. wrote:
> >
> > > A February 12, 2007 complaint was filed by UNIFIEDNAMES, INC. d/b/a
> > > Registerfly and JOHN NARUSZEWICZ v. KEVIN MEDINA in the U.S.
> District
> Court
> > > of New Jersey. It states that as of December 2006, roughly 200,000
> domains
> > > were registered on behalf of customers and that approximately 75,000
> of
> > > these customer domains were lost since January 2007, due to the
> actions
> of
> > > the Defendant, which resulted in failure to pay the required
> registry
> fees.
> > >
> > > The Plaintiff alleges that the Defendant wasted company money to pay
> for
> a
> > > personal escort, rent on a Miami penthouse, personal credit card
> bills
> and
> > > liposuction, in addition to withdrawing thousands of dollars from
> company
> > > accounts for personal spending.
> > >
> > > http://registerflies.com/docman/cat_view-2.html
> > >
> > > This would certainly explain the Registerfly problems addressed by
> Danny
> > > Younger on November 30, 2006.
> > > http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga/msg05232.html
> > >
> > > However, ICANN's failure to act and protect Registerfly customers
> remains
> > > unexplained.
> > >
> > > Sincerely,
> > > Ted
> > > Prophet Partners Inc.
> > > http://www.ProphetPartners.com
> > > http://www.Premium-Domain-Names.com
> >
> > Regards,
> > --
> > Jeffrey A. Williams

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
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