Woops! Court Appointed Receiver Lets Zuccarini Domains Expire, Auctioned Off on NameJet
Friday, June 4th, 2010
Domains that were part of legal judgment are accidentally auctioned off.
Congratulations Michael Berkens, you’ve just uncovered a big mess by accident.
On May 25, Berkens wrote about the auctioning off of GovermentGrants.com on NameJet for $53,022. The story also mentions other expired domains that sold on NameJet at the same time, such as USGoverment.com for $4,950, GovermentGrant.com for $3,950, GovermentAuction.com for $2,750, and GovermentAuctions.com $2,500.
But there’s a problem. These domain names were part of the estate of John Zuccarini. Office Depot won a cybersquatting judgment against Zuccarini and later assigned its rights under the judgment to DS Holdings. DS Holdings was to recover part of the penalties against Zuccarini by selling the domain names. The court appointed a receiver, Michael Blacksburg, to hold onto the domains during the lengthy court process. But Blacksburg appears to have dropped the ball and let the domain names expire!
Since the domain names were at Network Solutions, they were automatically sent to auction at NameJet, where just the domains sold on one day topped $65,000 combined. The domains include:
govermentgrants.com
usgoverment.com
govermentgrant.com
govermentauction.com
govermentauctions.com
floridagovernment.com
californiagovernment.com
britian.com
greatbritian.com
dictionarys.com
perscriptiondrugs.com
wresteling.com
wrestleing.com
emailadresses.com
Now the court is being asked for an emergency injunction to lock down the domains. That could be a headache for the new owners of these domain names who bought them on NameJet.
I called Blacksburg yesterday and left a message for comment but he hasn’t responded.
You can read the court filings here (pdf, pdf), which includes as Exhibit A Berkens blog post.
Further Reading:
- Court Denies Emergency Injunction for Zuccarini Domains Sold at NameJet
- Zuccarini Sues NameJet, eNom, VeriSign, and Network Solutions
- Those Zuccarini Domains on NameJet? They Sold for $302k in April.
Tags: injunction, lawsuits, NameJet, Network Solutions, zuccarini
Oh boy, where’s the popcorn…
This is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on, my friends…
Wow. Pretty Incompetent.
For those who havent paid yet they got lucky you wrote this article Andrew!
Who’d want to be part of this legal mess.
GovermentGrants.com was not paid for due to the legal status of the domain.
@junebug – good catch. Looks like many of the others were automatically paid for by credit card b/c of the low price. Domains were transferred.
Smart bug
These names will be tied up in legal proceedings for years as a result of this unfortunately. Best of luck to everyone.
hopefully everyone parked these domains names in the meanwhile and they don’t change the dns! too bad govermentgrants.com is not resolving it gets like 50 uniques a day and 100% ctr
Not bad but I bet you heard 100 uv a day is better lol
this is a good example of what happens when an attorney who doesn’t understand domains is put in charge.
Yeah JP you know everything lol
half those domains are trash anyway
typo or no typo
“half those domains are trash anyway
typo or no typo”
Actually those domains are great and they went for bargain prices.
For the reason I explain on Mike’s site, I believe the injunction will be granted, the domains returned to court control, and the buyers refunded.
Nice bug….
Incompetence like this is actually kind of expected from a non-owner, 3rd party, non-domainer.
why dont court takes any action against such auctions ?
Or why doesnt NJ have an ethics?
Also did you know (last I checked) that namejets executive(s) also hold a spot high up at partnering registars!
So lets say you or your lawyer contact registrar X and explain reasonable circumstances and not to let name X expire and go to Namejet for auction. They say we are so sorry nothing we can do, mean while the person who gave you that answer is also on the board of Namejet.
One big happy family and one big conflict of interest so it appears.
@ Josh – I assume you mean Network Solutions? They partnered with eNom to launch NameJet.
The entire domain name business, all registrars, lawyers, courts, businesses, it’s all one big conflict of interest since everyone is so interested in the conflict!:)
…and everyone’s interests conflict. lol
@Andrew, yes Namejet directors are also Netsol employees!
I discovered this accidently a year ago when I purchased a name set to expire from a company. They lost their login/pass, had their lawyer contact Netsol with no luck. So I picked up the phone and as a result spoke with a very high up man at Netsol who insisted he couldnt do anything, Namejet wouldnt agree to stop an auction etc. Turned out when I went to Namejet the same guy was on their board! Conflict of interest, no doubt.
@ Josh – conflict of interest or a business partnership?
@Andrew, obviously its a big happy family and sometimes in business companies swap employees for board purposes etc, I know this… But where I take issue is a guy telling me he has no control, cannot do anything etc all the while being THE MAN who would make the decision for the other company but never telling me that! To me its a conflict, kind of like your mechanic telling you he cant get the parts supplier to back up your defective brake pads mean while he runs the parts supplier!
@ Josh, I see what you’re saying.
Beautiful..
I like what you do and I like the way you do it
Hey John, it is Beautiful isn’t it?
And what else are your’ thoughts on the matter? After all, it was your’ name dragged through the mudd by FTC for use of the names….
Though they are typos, typos of generic domains should be his anyway.