Embattled registrar RegisterFly will transfer 850,000 domain names to GoDaddy.com, the world's largest domain registrar under an agreement brokered by ICANN, the parties announced today. The move will be welcome news to domain owners who have been unable to manage their names since RegisterFly collapsed into financial and management turmoil in February.

"We worked with ICANN to effect a migration of the RegisterFly domains to GoDaddy.com and help those customers left in limbo,” said GoDaddy.com CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. “It’s what many RegisterFly customers asked us to do. After they are moved over to GoDaddy.com, all RegisterFly customers will once again be able to manage and renew their domain names with confidence and will also enjoy the world-class support we provide all our customers. We expect the move to be completed over the next week."

"The RegisterFly situation has been extremely difficult -- first and foremost for registrants, as well as for the entire registry and registrar community," said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's President and CEO. "The GoDaddy.com agreement is the best possible solution for RegisterFly customers since it’s a direct and automatic transfer to a competent and experienced customer service oriented organization."

ICANN is continuing to press RegisterFly to repair its management systems so domain owners can manage their names, but is now dealing directly with company founder Kevin Medina, who has been awarded control of RegisterFly by a New Jersey court. ICANN met Saturday with Medina to demand immediate action on RegisterFly's failure to provide adequate WHOIS information and make critical transfer codes (known as auth-info codes) available to customers.

ICANN's task would appear to be complicated by the fact that there are currently two RegisterFly web sites running on different infrastructures - RegisterFly.com at The Planet, and Registerfly.net at Sago Networks.

The dueling web sites are the result of a nasty split between Medina and business partner John Naruzewicz, who claimed that he owned 50 percent of RegisterFly and said the company's board had fired Medina. At the direction of "new CEO" Naruzewicz, the company filed a lawsuit accusing Medina of mismanagement and misuse of company funds. Medina denied all charges, saying he remained the sole owner of RegisterFly. Last Thursday a Newark, N.J. court agreed, awarding sole control of the company to Medina. Naruzewicz indicated that he would not appeal. "We lost and it's all over," Naruzewicz told Business Week.

Embattled domain registrar RegisterFly will lose its accreditation if it can't fix serious operational problems in the next 15 days. ICANN has informed the New Jersey-based registrar that it is in breach of its operating agreement, threatening enforcement action (PDF) after months of complaints from RegisterFly customers. The registrar's operations have descended into chaos this week, with its web site paralyzed amid allegations that the former president and CEO misused company funds.

As the company's principals battle one another, thousands of domain names have been caught in the crossfire. RegisterFly says that at least 75,000 customer domains expired as a direct result of the company's financial and management problems. RegisterFly is also an SSL certificate authority, making its stability an issue for about 460 site owners who are currently securing sites with FlySSL certificates.

A lawsuit filed by RegisterFly's parent company, Unified Names, blames the meltdown on misuse of company funds by President and CEO Kevin Medina, who was fired by the company's board. The suit alleges that Medina spent company funds on liposuction surgery and escort services. "After his termination, Mr. Medina deleted email accounts, access to support tools, and access for our risk/billing department to issue refunds," RegisterFly's Glenn Stansbury said in a statement posted at RegisterFlies.com, a customer protest site. RegisterFly is also reported to have changed the root password of its web server to prevent sabotage.

Microsoft has become an ICANN-accredited domain registrar, giving it the ability to sell domains directly to its customers. Microsoft has been reselling domain names from Melbourne IT, a registrar based in Australia that also provides wholesale domains to Yahoo and other hosting providers.

Microsoft's could use its new status to sell domain names for its Office Live small business hosting service, which is scheduled to come out of beta on Nov. 15 and provides a free domain name with each account. This would probably save Microsoft money on each domain sold, as wholesalers like Melbourne IT typically charge a small mark-up over the base fees from the central registry.

But not all companies that gain ICANN accreditation use it to sell their own domains. Google became a registrar last year but has yet to sell domain names to the public, preferring to use its status to focus on reducing spammy domains from its search results. Amazon.com also has ICANN accreditation, but has not pursued retail domain sales.

Go Daddy has decided not to attempt an initial public offering, citing difficult market conditions, the company said yesterday.

eNom has bought rival registrar BulkRegister. The deal makes eNom the second-largest domain registrar after Go Daddy, the company said.

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EURid has suspended 74,000 .eu domain names and sued 400 registrars for breach of contract, citing "abusive behavior from a syndicate of registrars who have systematically acquired domain names with the obvious intent of selling them."

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iPowerWeb lowers its domain pricing to $2.95 a year, following Yahoo's lead.

The business of placing advertising on parked domains is facing a shakeout, as a shift to pay-per-action business models could dampen the rampant speculation in the domain name market.

A British gaming company has paid $1.4 million to acquire the domain name vip.com, while news.net has sold for $150,000.