Its about time someone, with some credibility and standing in the domain industry actually pointed out what the hell is going on over at Registerfly.

Since Registerfly really went down the tubes (its been happening all along, but the past 2-3 months its reached critical mass), I was waiting for some domain company, any company at all, to capitalize on the problem. Bob Parsons, the founder/owner of GoDaddy finally has.

Apparently much of Registerfly’s problems are being blamed on shareholder and “key employee” Kevin Medina. A lawsuit posted on Registerflies.com alleges Kevin Medina embezzled money from Registerfly Inc. Apparently Registerfly fired him on the 18th, but he decided to go postal (digitally) and really fuck some stuff up at Registerfly. As far as I can tell, this is a nightmare scenario for an internet company. On the positive side, may be if this guy is an actual crook, he’ll be spending some time in prison.

Then again, what if Kevin is just a scape goat for the rest of Registerflys owners? I have to call into question their credibility as well because the company does not have a good history. For at least the past 12 months Registerfly has had serious customer service problems. If the other owners were merely investing capital, hands off, with little knowledge of the business, then their in-action is explainable.

So what will happen? “In the event Registerfly loses its accreditation, ICANN will work to migrate those customers — who have remained with Registerfly through this disaster — to other registrars.” Still questions remain unanswered, what if you have domain names with privacy protection? Registerfly could easily claim they are the owner. I know my control panel information is completely messed up. Domains that were transferred out weeks ago still show up as registered. Domains renewed until the end of the year show up as expired.

Godaddy.com is offering a transfer special to Registerfly’s victims (hell, the url even has registerfly as the filename!) Not sure exactly how special $6.25 is for Godaddy, but its an offer none the less. One word of warning, Godaddy has been known to suspend domain names for a “ransom” if they recieve certain complaints (namely email.) Considering I run double-optin CAN SPAM compliant newsletters that recieve complaints daily, I’m not to comfortable using them. Otherwise, Godaddy seems to be an ok company, and I’ve had domain names with them for years.

Its going to be a busy, and interesting, week.