I try and keep up with the news and obviously things that pertain to the web catch my attention. Reading this morning's news I noted a blip (paragraph) in an article about ICANN and RegisterFly. Since I had not heard anything related to either i decided to do a bit of investigating.
Turns out that RegisterFly is mid-sized a registrar for domain names and by the end of the month it will have it's accreditation revoked by ICANN for fundamental breaches in the ICANN contract. The controversy? Well according to the news sources I have read they have had deteriorating customer service that has lead to people losing their domains, being unable to transfer to competitors, having domains whois data changed, and the locking of domains - breaking the "rules" of an ICANN accredited registerer - and all of which the customers have been unable to do anything about.
The customers then turned to ICANN for assistance . Only one problem - ICANN does not see itself as a regulator and provided no public forums for problems such as this.
As one whose liveliness can quite easily be linked to a specific website - losing control of that site (and thus my ability to make money) would be incredibly stressful. Not just for the money involved - but the work involved in nurturing the site to where it currently is (not quite a child - but...). websites come and go - so it's (and by reflection my) reputation mean a lot.
So now it seems that ICANN at a meeting to be held in Lisbon this week will be reviewing it's various procedures amongst other things. Will ICANN change it's purpose and role - don't know, but it should be interesting to see what the fall out of all this will be.
The News articles I read:
Business Week
Washington Post
The Register
Internet Search Engine Database
(image taken from 
