JuliannaAs an ICANN Accredited Registrar, Webnames.ca follows the domain name industry very closely and the recent RegisterFly saga has been on our radar this month. The Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will revoke RegisterFly’s accreditation by the end of this month and plans to review how it accredits and disciplines domain name registrars after this fiasco put tens of thousands of websites at risk. ICANN president Paul Twomey has called for decisive action to reform its standard Registrar Accreditation Agreement to help protect domain customers. 
You can rest assured that your domain names are safe with Webnames.ca. If you’re still concerned, read Ross Dunn of Stepforth Placement’s summary of the RegisterFly meltdown and his sage advice on what to look for in a Registrar relationship to ensure that your domain names are safe and secure. Here’s a sample:
- Do your due diligence and check on the reputations of your prospective registrar before registering domains with them. Try searching with their name followed by “complaint” or any other related words and see if you find anything alarming. Most large registrars will have a complaint or two which is understandable but definitely go the other way if you too many or if, in the worst case scenario, you see a movement such as www.registerflies.com.
- Be careful registering your domain with a hosting company. Just like a registrar, a hosting company can leave you in hot water if it goes South. Generally hosting companies are just resellers of domains so all is not lost; with some effort you may be able to skirt around the hosting company and contact the core domain registrar.
- If you must make your information private then use a 3rd party privacy service – one that is not directly affiliated with your registrar. This way you can be reasonably sure that your privacy options are under your control only.