I’ve been following with interest the recent metdown occurring with Registerfly and as more and more sordid details see the light of day the story is getting jucier by the minute. The popular domain name registrar has been the source of a growing number of complaints over the past few months. A website, registerflies.com, has even been put up specifically to detail complaints about the embattled company, which finally had their Registration Accomodation Agreement (RAA) revoked by ICANN last Friday. Registerfly, a registrar with over 900,000 customers and controlling over 2 million domains, have apparently had their servers down since February 12th, leaving customers scrambling to find the fate of their domains. Criticism has been flying from all over the place at ICANN for not intervening sooner, the situation now is so uncertain that many, many people may be left without their domains.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story here’s a brief summary:

The whole thing apparently started with a falling out , both romantic and business, between CEO Kevin Medina and corporate secretary John Naruszewicz. This led to Naruszewicz leveling claims that Medina had used company funds for a variety of personal expenses including two Cadillacs, a Penthouse apartment in Miami, escort services and even liposuction. Not only that but Medina was apparently taking online registration orders, pocketing the money, then failing even to register the names!

This led to a lawsuit by Naruszewicz to try to force Medina to sell his controlling share in the company as well as having him stripped of his position as CEO. The judge refused to do either, but Medina did end up being replaced by Naruszewicz as CEO, who promptly fired Medina and then tried to get the company back on even keel before the company was stripped of it’s accreditation by ICANN. He was however unable to do so with ICANN finally pulling the plug on the company last week.

As to what will happen to the domains registered by registerfly, ICANN is trying to sort it out, but the whole ordeal is becoming more and more complicated as customers scramble to transfer their domain names. Registerfly’s claims that they can’t even access their own servers are not helping either. ICANN themselves were the target of vast criticism for not taking action to protect customers sooner, but the have now admitted their responsibility in helping sort out the quagmire. Search Herald will continue to follow the story and keep our readers up to date.
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