Today Phil Corwin, lobbyist for the ICA sent a letter to ICANN expressing deep concern relating to the ongoing Registerfly.com debacle.

Salient highlights:

"It has come to our attention that an ICANN-accredited registrar is in the midst of what appears to be a near-complete operational breakdown, and that its ongoing failure to carry out its responsibilities is causing substantial economic loss to tens of thousands of DN registrants in both the United States and multiple foreign jurisdictions."…

…"We hope you agree that this is an extremely serious situation and that failure to expeditiously resolve it in a manner that protects the interests of RegisterFly’s customers will cast a serious pall over the credibility of ICANN’s registrar accreditation program." For some time members of the professional DN community have been aware of reports of serious problems in RegisterFly’s operations. Even if ICANN was not privy to those reports, it is clear that ICANN is well aware of the present situation, as the February 12th entry of your Ombudsman, Frank Fowlie, states, “In the past couple of weeks, over 70% of the non-jurisdictional contacts my Office has received have concerned registerfly.” However, Mr. Fowlie really provides no meaningful assistance to the registrants who have been victimized by RegisterFly’s dysfunctional condition, saying little beyond that he has referred the matter to another ICANN employee, who will pass the concern on to his RegisterFly contact – and then goes on to state, “If, however, Mr. Zupke determined that the matter you are complaining about is unrelated to the Registrar’s Accreditation Agreement, or any other ICANN policy, he will likely encourage you to work out the situation with the registrar.” There has been no further word from Mr. Fowlie since that February 12th posting. His advice is of no assistance to the victims who have contacted ICANN because they were unable to receive any meaningful resolution from RegisterFly. It is also difficult to believe that RegisterFly’s current operations can be in compliance with its Accreditation Agreement, yet we are aware of no corrective action being taken by ICANN. In light of this very serious ongoing situation we would appreciate ICANN’s response to the following questions:

1. Has ICANN determined whether the situation at RegisterFly is a violation of its Accreditation Agreement or any other ICANN policy?

2. If so, what steps is ICANN taking to resolve the matter, including revocation or suspension of that Agreement?

3. What oversight procedures does ICANN have in place to monitor ongoing registrar compliance with accreditation agreements and other ICANN policies?

4. What assistance is ICANN able and willing to provide to the tens of thousands of DN registrants who have reportedly suffered significant economic harm as a result of the RegisterFly situation?

Thank you in advance for your response to our inquiry.

:::END LETTER:::

ICANN staff point out there is no simple mechanism for dealing with this. WHY?!  Why is there no mechanism for policing bad registrars and serving registrants (the public)better?

ICANN and the Verisign registry should have a Delta force or Plunge Protection team to reach in take over the failing registrar (it should be in the registrar contract [and maybe parts of it already are]) ICANN and the registries (Verisign, PIR) should work with large existing registrars such as Godaddy, Enom, Tucows to migrate historical whois info (provided independently by Name Intelligence [domaintools.com] ) and move domains to a lifeboat registrar. I saw this coming years ago (unscrupulous registrars) so I bought into a registrar for protection. But it’s RID-DICULOUS that I need to provide for my clients protection in that manner because there is no police force or sheriff in this town.

WHY ARE WE PAYING PROPERTY TAXES IN THE FORM OF RENEWAL FEES?

SOMEBODY at Verisign and ICANN needs to do SOMETHING. Hold a meeting. Create a plan. Act!!!  Protect the billions of dollars in Intellectual property that could expire or get frittered away by unscrupulous parties. It is a ‘Miracle’ it has taken this long for a Registerfly to happen.