One Domain Slammer Gets Slammed by Judge
A U.S. federal district court judge in June froze U.S. assets and ordered a stop to fraudulent domain “renewal notices” that were sent to domain registrants by a Canadian company called Data Business Solutions, which also does business as Internet Listing Service, ILS, ILSCORP.NET, Domain Listing Service, DLS, and DLSCORP.NET.
The practice consists of sending official-looking “invoices” warning registrants that their domain will expire if they don’t renew it in time. This is, of course, true, but the notice further implies that the company behind the “invoice” is the actual registrar. In reality, it is not, and when unsuspecting victims pay for the “renewal,” their domain is transferred to Data Business Solutions from the registrar where they registered it. Alternatively, the “invoice” billed for an annual “domain listing service” or “search engine listing,” leading consumers to believe that the invoice was for a service they had signed up for and that was necessary for their site to be found in search engines.
According to the report in Network World, the the FTC charged that “the ‘invoices’ represented that the defendants had a preexisting business relationship with the consumer. The ‘invoices’ also represented that consumers owed money for the continued registration of their Web site names and that the defendants would provide continued registration services for consumers.”
The FTC’s report can be found here. Further information is also available at flyteblog.com and the webmail blog.
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