Site Registration fraud

can someone explain the issues to me?

[richards1052]

I've been following a brutal, nasty political website which I'd rather not talk about in great detail in case someone fr. that site might read this.

One webhost has taken the site down though they found another willing to host them. But someone discovered that their domain registration info was fraudulent & their registrar has cancelled/suspended their registration.

My question is can the owner re-register at another registrar & get back up again? Or does the registrar who cancelled them have proprietary interest in the registration & can they lock up the registration? Also, what, if any involvement could ICANN have in this? Can ICANN cancel the domain or take any punitive action against a registrant who engages in fraud?

[bill]

The current registrar is the one they'll have to deal with. If it were that easy to simply use another registrar can you imaging the amount of domain name sniping that would go on?

[richards1052]

Do you think that fixing this would simply be a matter of the site owner filing accurate contact info in order to get re-registered? What types of actions might the registrar take that might affect whether or when the site might go back up again.