4 ms·

They got lucky, because if it were me and I left on mild terms I would be invoicing them $50k a year to renew their domain.

jacquesm 8y ago
You are lucky, because if I ran that company I'd haul your ass in court so quick you wouldn't know what hit you. The fact that you can doesn't give you a right to do so and in this case it is pretty clear that you would be acting maliciously. I've seen such 'tricks' up close a couple of times and judges tend to take a very dim view of this kind of behavior.
- matte_black 8y ago
  Good luck proving I have any connection to the company in the foreign country sending you the invoice. Also, if payment isn’t received within 30 days you can expect to see the domain forwarded to a “for sale” page. And given how fast the legal system moves especially across international borders, you will lose hundreds of millions in revenue before getting any kind of verdict, possibly even go bankrupt.
  - scrollaway 8y ago
    Could you do an AMA once you get out of jail? I'd love to see how this all turns out for you. You seem to be the kind of person who just makes fantastic life decisions.
  - yrro 8y ago
    Wow, breach of contract, theft and extortion all in one convenient package!
    - cuckcuckspruce 8y ago
      Who says technology doesn't have a sociopath problem
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    Yeah, corporate attorneys and the legal system at large have never dealt with extortionists with your creativity before. I mean, doing it anonymously AND with a ticking time bomb element, only a true master villain could have thought of such a brilliant scheme!
DenisM 8y ago
Do check with a criminal attorney before doing any such thing. “It’s a nice domain you have here, be a shame if something happened to it” sounds cool in the movies, but in the real life it may be treated as extortion and land one in jail.
amatecha 8y ago
Domain name dispute resolution policies would find in the company's favor pretty much immediately (due to their trademark rights, and your registration with bad-faith intent), so they'd get it back reasonably quickly one way or the other. :P
quickthrower2 8y ago
Yep, great ransom plan! 1. They do not need to pay you. You have zero chance of getting paid. 2. They can easily identify you as a suspect (even with foreign company or whatever) and the police can investigate further. So you risk going to jail, with no upside.
- matte_black 8y ago
  I know everyone thinks police are going to investigate and that I’m definitely going to prison, but the sad reality is they probably won’t and I’d probably never see a jail cell. They might look into it, maybe even setup a sting operation, but then in the end nothing might come of it anyway. Trust me, I know of a ex-cofounder in a previous who company who took off and disappeared with $175k from the company bank account, and despite our best efforts at getting justice or the money back, no one really gave a fuck, and there wasn’t much we could do unless we wanted to get into very expensive legal battles using money we didn’t have, against a person that was hard to get a hold of and with no guarantee of getting our money back, at least anytime soon (years). It was much more practical to just cut the losses and move on, making sure we could do everything to prevent it from happening again by someone else. And the truth is this is how it is for a lot of things, the successful cases you hear of are really just a small percent of the crimes. Just don’t pick a fight with someone who has the money and determination to hunt you down to the bitter end. Most people eventually give up. Unless you’re killing people or running drugs, there’s a lot of criminal arbitrage you can get away with due to how slow and how apathetic the law is. Though I sometimes do think about the price I would have to pay if there was a reckoning.
  - mhneu 8y ago
    You’re a little off here. The Chickenshit Club (that is, federal prosecutors in the last ten years) means that big company management can get away with white collar crime, paying other peoples’ money to make charges go away.[1] Workers or little people at big companies are still subject to prosecution for white collar crime. And apparently since criminal prosecutions are time consuming DOJ has decided to deprioritize them, so if you commit white collar crime for small dollar amounts you’re also likely to get away with it. [1] http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Chickenshit-Club/Jesse-Eisinger/9781501121364 http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Chickenshit-Club/J... “The Chickenshit Club Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives”

jacquesm 8y ago

You are lucky, because if I ran that company I'd haul your ass in court so quick you wouldn't know what hit you. The fact that you can doesn't give you a right to do so and in this case it is pretty clear that you would be acting maliciously. I've seen such 'tricks' up close a couple of times and judges tend to take a very dim view of this kind of behavior.

matte_black 8y ago
Good luck proving I have any connection to the company in the foreign country sending you the invoice. Also, if payment isn’t received within 30 days you can expect to see the domain forwarded to a “for sale” page. And given how fast the legal system moves especially across international borders, you will lose hundreds of millions in revenue before getting any kind of verdict, possibly even go bankrupt.
- scrollaway 8y ago
  Could you do an AMA once you get out of jail? I'd love to see how this all turns out for you. You seem to be the kind of person who just makes fantastic life decisions.
- yrro 8y ago
  Wow, breach of contract, theft and extortion all in one convenient package!
  - cuckcuckspruce 8y ago
    Who says technology doesn't have a sociopath problem
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  Yeah, corporate attorneys and the legal system at large have never dealt with extortionists with your creativity before. I mean, doing it anonymously AND with a ticking time bomb element, only a true master villain could have thought of such a brilliant scheme!

DenisM 8y ago

Do check with a criminal attorney before doing any such thing. “It’s a nice domain you have here, be a shame if something happened to it” sounds cool in the movies, but in the real life it may be treated as extortion and land one in jail.

amatecha 8y ago

Domain name dispute resolution policies would find in the company's favor pretty much immediately (due to their trademark rights, and your registration with bad-faith intent), so they'd get it back reasonably quickly one way or the other. :P

quickthrower2 8y ago

Yep, great ransom plan! 1. They do not need to pay you. You have zero chance of getting paid. 2. They can easily identify you as a suspect (even with foreign company or whatever) and the police can investigate further. So you risk going to jail, with no upside.

matte_black 8y ago
I know everyone thinks police are going to investigate and that I’m definitely going to prison, but the sad reality is they probably won’t and I’d probably never see a jail cell. They might look into it, maybe even setup a sting operation, but then in the end nothing might come of it anyway. Trust me, I know of a ex-cofounder in a previous who company who took off and disappeared with $175k from the company bank account, and despite our best efforts at getting justice or the money back, no one really gave a fuck, and there wasn’t much we could do unless we wanted to get into very expensive legal battles using money we didn’t have, against a person that was hard to get a hold of and with no guarantee of getting our money back, at least anytime soon (years). It was much more practical to just cut the losses and move on, making sure we could do everything to prevent it from happening again by someone else. And the truth is this is how it is for a lot of things, the successful cases you hear of are really just a small percent of the crimes. Just don’t pick a fight with someone who has the money and determination to hunt you down to the bitter end. Most people eventually give up. Unless you’re killing people or running drugs, there’s a lot of criminal arbitrage you can get away with due to how slow and how apathetic the law is. Though I sometimes do think about the price I would have to pay if there was a reckoning.
- mhneu 8y ago
  You’re a little off here. The Chickenshit Club (that is, federal prosecutors in the last ten years) means that big company management can get away with white collar crime, paying other peoples’ money to make charges go away.[1] Workers or little people at big companies are still subject to prosecution for white collar crime. And apparently since criminal prosecutions are time consuming DOJ has decided to deprioritize them, so if you commit white collar crime for small dollar amounts you’re also likely to get away with it. [1] http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Chickenshit-Club/Jesse-Eisinger/9781501121364 http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Chickenshit-Club/J... “The Chickenshit Club Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives”