ICANN have been granted a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) against RegisterFly (registrar). The TRO orders RegisterFly to "hand over to ICANN current and accurate data for all of its domain names" and "to provide this data every seven days, plus immediately allow ICANN staff access to the company’s records and books in order to perform an audit."

The TRO "encompasses all domains registered by RegisterFly customers, including those registered under any proxy registration service, such as the company’s own ProtectFly. The Court has also scheduled a preliminary injunction hearing for April 26, 2007, which, if ICANN prevails, will extend the force and effect of the TRO for a longer period of time."

ICANN have been repeatedly denied requests for this information, and then given only partial access. It is possible that ICANN will now be able to use this victory for pending lawsuits following the RegisterFly incidnet and "ideally for ICANN, the TRO will render enough of the issues in those cases moot to make them not worth the hassle of litigation. [T]he best thing for ICANN would be a revision of the registrar agreement and some kind of transparent and public auditing system."

ICANN announced yesterday a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against RegisterFly, (the ICANN-accredited domain registrar accused of allowing thousands of domains to lapse unlawfully). The TRO orders RegisterFly to provide copies of the current registrant data within 48 hours, and provide updates weekly to ICANN.

The RegisterFly saga has been a pain for ICANN, and some good news is encouraging for the often criticised company (charged with maintaining integrity of the internet). The RegisterFly personal dispute between two founders disintegrated into litigation and resulted in losing over 75,000 domains in January alone, provoking thoughts at the ICANN meeting in Lisbon last month over how ICANN should be policing registrars.

ICANN may be able to use this victory to head off lawsuits in the wake of RegisterFly’s collapse. Ideally, the TRO will render issues in those cases moot to make them unaware of the problems with litigation.

Cases where large numbers of plaintiffs have suffered damages not large enough to file individually are the kinds of cases the class action system is designed for, although it seems doubtful that it will make a difference with class action already underway.