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It cost $480,843 to defend IMI.com

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

Costs of defending domain name in jury trial add up.

Jeffrey Black successfully defended his domain name IMI.com in court, but it cost a lot of money.

A filing by Black’s attorney reveals that the total billings to date are $480,843.

Black is asking the court (pdf) to force Irving Materials, the company that filed a UDRP against the domain, to pay the costs.

His attorney, Mike Rodenbaugh, outlined the saga in DNW Podcast #249. I’ve been following the case since a UDRP panelist awarded the domain to Irving Materials.

Black wasn’t aware of the UDRP case and was forced to turn to the courts to defend his domain name from the transfer. He won a jury trial, but at great monetary cost.

In addition to the legal costs, Black says he lost a venture funding deal because of the lawsuit.

Stolen domain lawsuit filed over $100k domain name 1001.com

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Company that bought domain name for $100,000 in 2013 says that it has been stolen.

Picture of thief at laptop computer

Netherlands corporation Diginus BV has filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) against the domain name 1001.com, which it alleges was stolen from it.

The company paid $100,000 to acquire the domain name on Sedo in 2013, according to NameBio.

Based on historical Whois records, it appears that the alleged theft occurred in May this year. That’s when the Whois record changed from Namecheap Whois privacy to GoDaddy’s DomainsByProxy.

DomainsByProxy was subsequently removed to reveal a registrant in China.

Diginus filed the lawsuit in U.S. Federal District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia, where .com registry Verisign is located.

David Weslow of Wiley Rein is representing Diginus.

Don’t give your web developer access to your domain registrar account

by — Policy & Law 54 Comments

Another business says it lost its domain to a web developer.

Image of megaphone with words "Public Service Announcement" below it

I know I’ve written about this many times, but if these stories prevent just one legal issue then it’s worth it.

Please, don’t give your web developer full access to your domain name registrar account.

Yesterday, a web site owner in Nevada filed a lawsuit (pdf) against a contract developer alleging that the developer has taken over his domain name and business.

EB Publishing, Inc. publishes ApplianceRepair.net. It hired Adrian Bursill to do work on its website. Now it alleges that he abused his access to the registrar account and switched the ownership of the website to his name.

Historical Whois records for the domain show that it changed from EB Publishing to Bursill in 2016. The domain has not switched registrars.

EB Publishing has operated the website since 1998 but says it has now lost control of it.

Your web developer should not need access to your domain registrar account. If they want access to change nameservers (which I still recommend you do yourself), make sure the access limits what they can do in the account. They should not be able to change domain contacts or transfer the domain.

Greenberg & Lieberman is representing EB Publishing.

SiteLock sues GoDaddy over troubled partnership

by — Domain Registrars 3 Comments

Security company claims GoDaddy didn’t pay what it owes.

SiteLock logo

Website security company SiteLock has sued domain name registrar and hosting company GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) for breach of contract and trademark claims.

The two companies signed a reseller agreement in 2013 under which GoDaddy could sell SiteLock’s website security services. SiteLock charged per subscription and GoDaddy could mark up the price however much it wanted so long as it met a minimum retail price. For example, SiteLock charged GoDaddy $5 per customer for a basic annual site scan service. GoDaddy could sell it for $12 or more per year and keep the difference.

SiteLock claims that GoDaddy only paid it when a customer paid for and activated the service but did not pay if a customer paid for the service but did not activate it. It argues that GoDaddy should have paid even when a customer failed to activate the service. It also alleges that GoDaddy did not provide required reporting in an effort to obscure this.

The relationship soured further after GoDaddy bought SiteLock competitor Sucuri in 2017. GoDaddy transitioned customers to Securi and forwarded pages on its site that used to be for SiteLock products to pages promoting Securi. According to the lawsuit, links on GoDaddy for people to sign up for SiteLock instead forwarded to pages about Securi.

SiteLock is owned by Abry Partners, the same private equity company that owns top level domain company Donuts.

The full lawsuit is here.

Lawsuit filed to recover EQN.com domain name

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Domain was stolen in 2016, according to lawsuit.

A California company has filed a lawsuit (pdf) to recover the domain name EQN.com, which it says was stolen from its Enom account.

Blackshore Properties, Inc. of San Marino, California acquired EQN.com in a NameJet auction in 2011 for $4,950.

According to DomainTools historical Whois records, the domain name was transferred to a Chinese registrant at domain registrar 22.cn between May 5, 2016 and September 23, 2016. The lawsuit alleges that this transfer was theft.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia where .com registry Verisign is located. Assuming no one shows up to defend the in rem lawsuit, the just will likely enter an order of default judgment and order Verisign to transfer the domain name.