Domain Spats & Disputes

WhoIs, the universal registry of domain name registrant information, does not represent evidence of domain ownership or legal rights, according to a federal court decision from 2007.

According to reports in Domain Name News and the Internet Library, the court declared that a change in a domain’s registrant information does not constitute legal change in ownership, because the WhoIs records are a privately maintained system and not a statute-based system of title.

The case involved the domain express.com, which was owned by Express Media Group, LLC. Apparently, the domain’s registration information was changed without the knowledge of Express Media Group, and subsequently, the defendant, Greg Ricks, bought the domain from the “new owner.”

The court ordered the domain returned to Express Media and held that Ricks was guilty of conversion, which in California is “the wrongful exercise of dominion over the property of another.”

It’s unclear in the various reports how the domain’s registration was changed, or whether the defendant in the case was involved in that change. The court’s decision states that the registration information was changed by “unknown persons, presumably cyber criminals,” and noted that the defendant contacted the “new owner” about purchasing the domain “very soon after the contact info on the registration was changed. ”

The domain was registered through Network Solutions. The registration agreement authorized Network Solutions to process account transactions initiated through the use of the user’s password, and cautioned that use of the service was at the registrant’s own risk

In two weeks, a Kentucky judge will hear arguments on the ordered seizure of 141 gambling-related domains that Kentucky doesn’t like because online gambling competes with the state’s hugely profitable horse-racing industry.

In the report at domainnamenews.com, a Kentucky district court has dismissed all objections put forth by the owners of the domains to be seized.

Judge Thomas Wingate (a moron of the highest order) ordered the seizure of the domains purportedly to protect innocent Kentucky children from the evils of gambling, but the action was a transparent move to protect the state’s revenue from horse racing.

It has been pointed out elsewhere that the move is the equivalent of Saudi Arabia seizing jackdaniels.com because drinking is illegal in Saudi Arabia.

His Dishonor Judge Wingate ordered the seizure in September, requirig the owners to block access to Kentucky residents or lose their domains. According to DomainNameNews, a hearing will be held Nov. 17, 2008.

The well-known registrar GoDaddy promptly rolled over for Judge Wingate and turned over the domains. Network Solutions sent a legal team to fight the action. (More here.)

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.

Two hackers highjacked the comcast.net domain in May, hacking into the domain’s registrar account and changing the DNS settings for the domain — which took down the ISP giant’s website and knocked out its webmail services for more than five hours.

According to the report in Wired, the hackers used a combination of technical hacking and social engineering to break into Comcast’s account with Network Solutions, which gave them access to change the nameservers for the comcast.net domain. A Network Solutions representative denied that NetSol’s system was compromised.

In gaining access to Comcast’s NetSol account, the hackers gained control of more 200 domain names in the account. They changed the contact information for comcast.net to the e-mail address of one of the hackers; for the street address, they used the “Dildo Room” at “69 Dick Tard Lane.”

Official-looking e-mails are really attempts to steal your domains

Both eNom and Network Solutions, two very large registrars that handle millions of domain registrations, are the target of a major phishing attack. It is believed that the perptrator(s) purpose is to acquire the login details for victims’ domain registrar accounts and thereby steal or otherwise compromise their domain registrations.

The phishing warning on Network Solutions home page

Phishing warning on eNom

If you receive any e-mail about your domain registration (or any other online account you may have) you should never click any link in the e-mail. Go the website where you have your account by entering the address in the address bar of your browser.

And it never hurts to drop into your domain registrar account to double-check that your contact information (particularly your e-mail address) is current, and to lock your domain, if your registrar offers such an option.

The Sarasota Association of Realtors first charged one of its members, Marc Rasmussen, with an ethics violations, and then, after losing that case, dragged him to an ICANN hearing to get control of his domain.

Even though he won the ethics hearing, Rasmussen lost the ICANN arbitration, which ordered that the domain be transferred to SAR. He has filed a federal lawsuit to regain/retain control of his domain. Then, even though Network Solutions, the registrar of the domain, told him they would keep it in place and locked until the litigation was over, NetSol almost immediately transferred the domain to SAR, which promptly began redirecting it to their own lame site.

Read more about it here and here.