Domain Spats & Disputes

TechCrunch reported in April that Network Solutions was highjacking subdomains to serve advertising-link filled pages when a user requests a subdomain that isn’t used by domains hosted with NetSol.

This means, for example, that if I hosted domainspats.com with Network Solutions, and if I did not set up a subdomain for domains.domainspats.com, or spats.domainspats.com, or anything.domainspats.com, if anyone typed that address into their browser, instead of getting my standard error page, they would get a page filled with ads for which NetSol gets paid.

This would include domains that aren’t set up to resolve the www version of the domain (e.g., www.domainspats.com), and even with www set up properly, it would apply to any and all typos, such as 222.domainspats.com or eee.domainspats.com, or ww.domainspats.com or wwww.domainspats.com.

According to TechCrunch, this practice is affecting hundreds of thousands of sites hosted with Network Solutions.

Shame on Network Solutions. It’s not the first time they’ve been caught engaging in questionable behavior, and it almost certainly won’t be the last.

The High Road (aka THR, formerly found at thehighroad.org, now thehighroad.us) is one of the largest and most well-respected guns and shooting messages board on the Internet. It was launched by photog Oleg Volk when The Firing Line (TFL) was shut down. From the beginning, the site and domain were considered to belong to Oleg. The domain was originally registered by Rich Lucibella, who owned and operated TFL. Technical support and hosting were provided by Derek Zeanah.

At some point, Rich wanted to transfer the domain from his own registrar account into Oleg’s. Oleg asked Derek to handle the transfer. Unbeknownst to Oleg, Derek handled the transfer by transferring the domain to himself. The site continued to operate “as is” with no one but Derek aware of the status of the domain’s registration.

Later on, down the a piece, Oleg was exploring the idea of a commercial sponsorship for the site. There was disagreement among Oleg, Derek, and the forum’s moderators about whether or not this was a good idea.

This post is not about whether THR should have any sort of commercial sponsorship. That decision is rightfully the owner’s decision to make.

Derek decided at that point that he was co-owner of the site. He objected vigorously to the sponsorship. He shut down the site briefly. He locked Oleg out of the forum’s Admin area, along with other forum moderators who sided with Oleg in the dispute. He refused to turn over the site’s files and database, and refused to transfer the domain into Oleg’s name.

Rich Lucibella, at the time he transferred the domain, intended to transfer the domain to Oleg, and believed that Derek was properly acting as Oleg’s agent. Rich in fact has stated publicly,

At no time was I aware that Derek was acting as anything but Oleg’s personal agent. Had I been aware that Derek was acting for his own benefit I would never have transferred the domain name to him. It is my position that Mr. Zeanah had fraudulently misrepresented himself to me. If he persists in publicly hiding behind my statements, taken out of context, I will have little choice but to join this legal fray, recover the domain name thru the courts and pursue Mr. Zeanah for my legal fees.

Attempts to settle the matter in private have failed. Oleg has re-opened The High Road at thehighroad.us, and has filed a suit in federal court to resolve the matter.

Read more about TheHighRoad Highjacking here.