RegisterFly Targeted By Class Action Lawsuit
The legal eagles at The Dummit Law Firm have their sights set on RegisterFly.
They are calling for persons who have been wronged by the registrar to join a class action lawsuit sparked by allegedly wronged domain owner Anne Martinez.
More specifically, the law firm is calling for persons who have experienced one or more of the following:
- Denial of access to domains
- Loss of domains while trying to transfer or renew domains
- Inappropriate billing for services not rendered by the registrar
- Changing of ownership and / or contact information associated with the domain to RegisterFly or someone else without your knowledge
According to the class action lawsuit, ICANN knew, even before certifying the company as an ICANN registrar, that RegisterFly had a number of customer service issues. The lawsuit also claims that ICANN has been aware of the infractions listed in the lawsuit since last summer but neglected to take the appropriate action.
What would the appropriate action have been? Well, according to section 5.3.4 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), it would have been to demand that all issues be rectified within 15 days of ICANN’s awareness of the complaint or risk loss of accreditation. Since that didn’t happen until February 21, 2007, ICANN has been named in the class action lawsuit. eNom has also been named in the lawsuit. RegisterFly had been a reseller for the company for a period of time.
On March 16, 2007, ICANN gave notice to RegisterFly that action has begun to revoke its ICANN accreditation. According to a post on the March 28, 2007 ICANN blog though, ICANN is having just as much difficulty getting answers and cooperation from RegisterFly as RegisterFly’s customers have. The post states that ICANN has requested documentation from RegisterFly so that a bulk transfer can be completed and that RegisterFly has been remiss in submitting complete, accurate, up-to-date data.
As of today, Martinez has had only partial success in transferring her domain names from RegisterFly, ICANN has yet to receive the requested up-to-date data, and the courts have yet to make further rulings in this lawsuit. RegisterFly CEO Kevin Medina has made no public comments on the allegations, but has privately rejected offers to purchase the embattled registrar.
Daily Domainer comments:
If that's what it takes to get RegisterFly to authorize the bulk transfer of domains to another registrar, so be it. But beyond that, a class action lawsuit is probably a waste of time and energy. RegisterFly appears to be insolvent and while ICANN did act too slowly, they have certainly learned their lesson for the future.
The only thing that can come out of this action is some money for the lawyers, some token compensation for RegisterFly customers (how about a fly swatter?), and the righteous satisfaction that "something that had to be done, has been done". Enraged RegisterFly customers who think that that's worth the trouble can join the suit here.
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