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Former SNN.com owner goes to court to recover domain name

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

Original registrant files lawsuit after failing to recover domain name through UDRP.

The former owner of SNN.com, who says his domain name was stolen, has filed a lawsuit (pdf) in Virginia to try to recover the domain name.

The suit was filed by Delbert Terrill, who registered the domain name in 1995, along with domain name registrar Brandon Gray Internet Services, Inc dba NameJuice.com.

(If that registrar name looks familiar, it’s because it was suspended by ICANN for the “Domain Registry of America” domain slamming issue.)

The lawsuit alleges that someone used a fake passport & business license to steal the domain name and transfer it to a different registrar.

Terrill tried to recover the domain name through UDRP earlier this year. It failed after not providing evidence of common law rights in the term “SNN”.

Also, unusual in cases of alleged domain theft, the current registrant of the domain responded in the dispute. The registrant claimed it acquired the domain legitimately.

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June’s top DNW stories

by — Uncategorized 0 Comments

Here’s a rundown of the top stories and podcasts on DNW from last month:

1. Timing is everything: why .XXX dwarfs other adult top level domain names – The .XXX namespace and others recently sold by ICM Registry paint a picture of how difficult it is to market a new TLD in a crowded environment.

2. Yes, your domain name registrar has made it impossible for people to contact you – The general internet public is just learning about the Whois ramifications of GDPR.

3. Man gets 20 years in prison for trying to steal a domain name – A man is headed to prison after an unusual physical attempt to steal a domain name.

4. Web.com to go private in $2 billion acquisition – The final price could be higher if competing offers come in.

5. Namecheap starts sending expired domains to GoDaddy Auctions – Namecheap is the latest domain name registrar to sign up to sell expired domains through GoDaddy.

Podcasts

All About .Me – I chat with .Me registry CMO Natasa Djukanovic about how the .Me domain name came to be.

Three companies using new TLDs – Three individuals who registered new TLDs for their businesses explain why.

The Amazon FBA business model – Learn about FBA, a unique ecommerce opportunity.

John Pollard: How to grow the usage of domain names – Donuts’ EVP of Registry explains how he believes domain names can find new uses.

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Man gets 20 years in prison for trying to steal a domain name

by — Policy & Law 11 Comments

Man tried physically force domain owner to transfer the domain name.

A Cedar Rapids, Iowa man will head to prison for 20 years for trying to steal a domain name, the Associated Press reports.

By steal a domain name, I mean physically.

Sherman Hopkins Jr. broke into a man’s home on June 21, 2017 with a handgun and demanded that the resident transfer the domain name DoItForState.com to another account, the AP reports. He shot the man with the gun and used a stun gun, but then the man got control of the gun and shot Hopkins back.

Domain name theft happens all of the time, but rarely does it involve a physical altercation. Usually, it’s a matter of stealing someone’s domain name registrar credentials or hacking into their email.

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Stolen domain name Roxi.com returned through lawsuit

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Court enters default judgment and domain is transferred back to the prior owner.

In November I wrote about a lawsuit for Roxi.com.

The owner of the domain name since 1999 claimed the domain name was stolen from him after his email account was compromised. Although this apparently happened back in 2015, the owner became aware of the theft much later and filed a lawsuit to try to recover the domain name.

As is usually the case, the thief didn’t show up to defend the domain name. So the court ordered the domain name to be transferred back to the prior owner John Lee of Precision Telephone Services, Inc. The transfer has been completed.

Stevan Lieberman represented the plaintiff.

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Newtek domain theft has major impact on customers

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

Customers have to make quick switch to avoid security risk and potential outages.

I frequently write about domain name theft. Usually, the only loss in the theft is the domain name. But it can be much worse.

Three domain names belonging to Newtek Business Services Corp. (NASDAQ:NEWT) were recently stolen, as Brian Krebs explains in a post today. Unfortunately, customers used these domain names to access and point to their web services, potentially leading to outages and leaked information.

Krebs details Newtek’s bungled response in his post, but let’s dig a bit deeper into the domain theft.

The three stolen domains were webcontrolcenter[dot]com, thesba[dot]com, and crystaltech[dot]com.

Looking at historical Whois records at DomainTools brings up many interesting points. Click here to continue reading…

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