RegisterFly Ordered To Hand Over Registrant Data
Troubled domain registrar RegisterFly has been ordered by a US Federal Court to hand over to ICANN current and accurate data for all of its domain names, and to immediately allow ICANN staff access to the company's records and books in order to perform an audit.
"We ask RegisterFly and its management to co-operate fully with the order," said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN President and CEO.
The order encompasses all domains registered by RegisterFly customers, including those registered under a proxy registration service, such as the company's own "ProtectFly." The Court also scheduled a preliminary injunction hearing for April 26, 2007, which, if ICANN prevails, will extend the force and effect of the order for a longer period of time.
ICANN's repeated requests for accurate registrant data from RegisterFly were initially refused by RegisterFly and then later partially-granted, although ICANN has remained concerned over the accuracy of some of the data, finding a significant portion of it deficient.
With current and accurate registrant data, ICANN says that they will be in a position to initiate a bulk transfer to another registrar, either with RegisterFly's cooperation while the company remains an ICANN-accredited registrar, or unilaterally if RegisterFly's accreditation is terminated.
The Court's order is available here.
Aside from the lawsuit, ICANN announced that it has initiated a review of its Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) in an effort to reduce the possibility of this situation being repeated in future.
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