Of ICANN and the Registerfly meltdown: What needs to be done
Burke Hansen, an attorney in San Francisco writes a commentary for The Register commenting on RegisterFly, noting that ICANN acknowledging it is “responsible for holding its accredited registrars to certain ethical standards” is “a start”. Hansen is critical of ICANN taking around one year “repeatedly referring customers back to Registerfly, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of misconduct”. Further, Hansen comments “For those … whose domains were lost through either neglect or malfeasance on the part of Registerfly, and whose domains are now occupied by cybersquatters, the loss of a business or personal website formerly hosted by Registerfly still burns.” The article also notes RegisterFly is not alone, and that ICANN needs to develop some procedures to deal with issues such as these, noting that this is what ICANN takes a cut of registration fees for. Hansen concludes “ICANN performs a function in cyberspace somewhat analogous to the hall of records in a local community, organizing and documenting property rights. If ICANN feels that enforcing certain ethical standards on its partners runs counter to its bureaucratic instincts, it could still subcontract out such enforcement to a third party security group, much as it subcontracts out domain registration to groups like Registerfly.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/03/icann_registerfly_domain/