ICANN today issued a formal notice of termination of RegisterFly.com’s Registration Accreditation Agreement (RAA).
ICANN has issued a letter to RegisterFly indicating that it will cease operating as an ICANN-Accredited Registrar on March 31, 2007. Under the terms of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), ICANN must provide 15 days written notice to RegisterFly of its intention to terminate.
Effective immediately ICANN has terminated RegisterFly’s right to use the ICANN Accredited Registrar logo on its website.
Between now and 31 March RegisterFly is required to unlock and provide all necessary Authinfo codes to allow domain name transfers to occur. Any and all registrants wishing to transfer away from RegisterFly during this period should be allowed to do so efficiently and expeditiously.
Paul Twomey, ICANN President and CEO said today that “Terminating accreditation is the strongest measure ICANN is able to take against RegisterFly under its powers”.
Once the Agreement is terminated, ICANN can approve a bulk transfer of all current RegisterFly domain names to another ICANN Accredited Registrar.
Of course no one needs to wait till then for that to happen. RegisterFly is at liberty to act in the interests of Registrants and ask ICANN to approve a bulk transfer immediately. If they won’t do that they should explain why.
Beyond this immediate action to do with RegisterFly, ICANN intends to hold a forum to discuss the reform of the Accreditation policy and process at its Lisbon meeting in a week’s time*. It will be a searching and comprehensive discussion that will inform necessary changes to the Accreditation Agreement policy and process into the future.
A set of questions and points to inform the discussion will be made public prior to the Lisbon meeting.
* The Lisbon meeting is one of three meetings held a year by ICANN to meet with global stakeholders. It will take place from 26-30 March 2007.