8 ms·

As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign

199 points by ESBoston 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dlgeek 12y ago
This reminds me a lot of the no-ip.com case. Did anyone ever find out how that was resolved? Apparently Microsoft gave back the domains[1], but did they face any payments for damages or censure? [1] http://www.noip.com/blog/2014/07/10/microsoft-takedown-details-updates/ http://www.noip.com/blog/2014/07/10/microsoft-takedown-detai...
- sadfaceunread 12y ago
  Out of court settlement. Microsoft and No-ip both issued press releases/updates to their original blog posts about it. No details about the settlement were released but No-IP certainly got paid.
  - dsl 12y ago
    Details are obviously not public, but noip did not receive any money as a result. Regardless of popular opinion on the matter, Microsoft managed to get a lot of harmful malware shut down.
    - the_ancient 12y ago
      and the ends justify the means right? Who care how many innocent people are victimized in the process, as long as Microsoft can get some good PR it is all A-OK I bet Microsoft could shutdown all kinds of malware if we all just allow them to continually monitor all of our computers at all times....
sadfaceunread 12y ago
I'll be following this case. I don't understand why this would be filed under seal. I'd enjoy some legal experts comments on the matter.
- fleitz 12y ago
  It's really difficult for anyone to speculate on a sealed court order. Probably a deal gone bad and the person convinced a judge that if it went through normal channels the persons owning the domains would liquidate them. That or the transfer was deemed illegal in the first place. A quick google for Robert Olea reveals he is a domain broker.
  - bhartzer 12y ago
    I know Bob personally, and he is a domain broker. I believe he is just the one holding these domains until the last sauce can be resolved.
anigbrowl 12y ago
Better to submit the original article, per HN guidelines. There's a lot of useful info in the comments: http://www.thedomains.com/2014/10/02/as-many-as-5k-coms-taken-away-by-sealed-court-order-by-verisign-including-some-of-mine/ http://www.thedomains.com/2014/10/02/as-many-as-5k-coms-take...
- sadfaceunread 12y ago
  Yes the comments of the original blog post have been really interesting to read. The domain name community looks to be all over the comment section of the original post.
- dang 12y ago
  Thank you. Url changed from http://www.internetcommerce.org/undue-process/ http://www.internetcommerce.org/undue-process/.
lorddoig 12y ago
That situation is just about as maddening as that site's scroll behaviour.
gergles 12y ago
While this is obviously a perversion of justice, I'm not shedding many tears over shady domain landgrabbers losing their 'property'. It's unfortunate (and clearly shouldn't have been filed under seal) but the histrionic comments on anigbrowl's link about how this is going to kill the domain squatting 'business' just make me think "good."
- cheald 12y ago
  Careful - you're dangerously close to allowing the end to justify the means there.
- ddod 12y ago
  Let's not conflate the implications of this with prejudices against the victims. If a startup had snagged one of these domains and had built a community or SEO with it, could you imagine that being taken away from them without any sort of due process?
  - wpietri 12y ago
    What's to say that would have happened? The sealed bit is weird, but bankruptcy judges are awfully sensitive to economic value. I'd be surprised if they would do something like that. Of course, if the domain were seized in that case, due process would still be available. The startup's lawyer would immediately file with the judge in question asking for control to be temporarily restored to the startup while the legal stuff plays out.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  "So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!" - "Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?" "Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!" - "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!" from 'A Man For All Seasons', by Robert Bolt
sidko 12y ago
Another incident that tells us we need to move towards something more decentralized. Namecoin is an excellent concept and idea, it's a pity it is not used and supported more widely.
- toTheDune 12y ago
  There is a namecoin dev introduction thread filled with their various projects and a few calls to action on /r/namecoin if you're interested. https://reddit.com/r/namecoin https://reddit.com/r/namecoin
  - ryan-c 12y ago
    I actually do some work on Namecoin, and need to post in that thread. The current namecoind is based on a horribly old version of bitcoin, and we could really use some donations to help get a rewrite against something more maintainable done.
- fleitz 12y ago
  Why does it tell us that? The only thing we know is that they were under sealed court order. Namecoin is not a magical solution to every problem with domain registration, and it barely scratches the surface of the decentralization issue as it's pretty cheap for anyone with the budget of a nation state to 'recentralize' the namecoin system, let alone a $5 wrench. When it comes to things being seized under sealed court order, the authorities usually don't have a problem finding a wrench.
- dsl 12y ago
  What if the 5,000 domains were seized and shut down to prevent a massive worm that had compromised millions of computers and would result in massive theft against millions of consumers? In the vast majority of cases law enforcement and court actions against domains are justifiable and benefit the internet.
  - hueving 12y ago
    >In the vast majority of cases law enforcement and court actions against domains are justifiable and benefit the internet. Based on what stats?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- tzs 12y ago
  I don't see why that would be done with a sealed order.
grizzles 12y ago
Everything to do with the DNS system is so corrupt and shady. Half the domains dropping in the new GTLD process are "unavailable", "registered", etc. We tried to get an exact trademark for one of our companies in the new GTLD system during the Sunrise phase only to be told by Gandi that the new GTLD owner rejected it. We pushed it pretty hard and had a back and forth with Gandi's CEO who was pretty much on our side but the new GTLD owner (Demand Media) wouldn't budge. We have to sue them if we want it. That's what the privatized DNS system has come to. You know who I feel bad for though? Those people who originally registered big corporate brands .COM in the 90s and had their domains ripped from them. That shit is ICANN endorsed nowadays.
- joelrunyon 12y ago
  To be fair - you were dealing with Demand Media :(
- icebraining 12y ago
  Is there any law or ICANN rule saying you're owed the domain with the same characters as your trademark in every possible GTLD? I don't understand what the outrage is about. It's not even like you have an exclusive claim on that particular string (multiple companies can have the same mark, eg across industries, countries, etc).
  - nly 12y ago
    His point is he had a strong claim to the name, as strong or stronger than anyone elses, and he was willing to pay the Sunrise premium to get it... and still couldn't.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Yes. So what?
      - etherealG 12y ago
        I particularly like this argument. It's so full of meaning.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Interesting reading the comments, seems DreamTeamFinancial.com went bankrupt and the domains were seized as part of the assets, even though some (many?) had been transferred elsewhere. I would guess you could get an injunction forbidding the domain seller who was liquidating the names from selling them until ownership was more closely established but it does seem like there is an education gap on domains that are "owned" by a company who then doesn't pay to renew them so they simply 'lose' ownership rather than selling them.
jacquesm 12y ago
Scenario: A domain is free to register. You register it as per your registrars normal procedure. In some faraway country (say the USA) a bankruptcy court decided that this domain that you just registered was part of the original holdings of the company in bankruptcy. Even though the company (or the receivers) let the registration lapse (presumably because they were not doing too well financially). And so the court will order that domain that you just paid for to be assigned to some third party. That's pretty perverted. If there was an unbroken chain of ownership from the moment the original company registered it to the point where the domain was levied during the bankruptcy proceedings I can see the logic of it, but once the company and/or the receivers let the domain lapse they technically forfeited it and a judge should not cooperate with them to reverse agreements between two other consenting parties (you and the registrar) in order to re-assign that domain to the pile of assets in the bankruptcy, especially not 'ex parte' (so without hearing either you or the registrar as to how you came into possession of that domain). Otherwise from now on there is no such thing as a 'lapsed domain' any more. And in fact, domains would not longer be 'property'. (I don't think they're property to begin with and this case is a nice example of why I think they aren't even though everybody treats them as such.)
- AlyssaRowan 12y ago
  That seems a bit odd, as it's at most leased, not owned by them; the lease expired, so it is null and void and is therefore not an asset. I'd thought UDRP was fairly clear about this... And the order isn't against the new owner - so it sounds invalid to me? Not a lawyer, but Verisign should at least have questioned these. I have no idea if they'd have a claim, or what kind of claim, or who to.
- rayiner 12y ago
  U.S. bankruptcy law gives courts great latitude to reverse transactions involving the property of a bankrupt entity, because a lot of abuse of the bankruptcy system is possible otherwise. The problem here is actually with VeriSign. Any time you transfer an asset to an entity but retain the right to get it back under certain conditions, you have to think through what will happen if that other party enters into bankruptcy and those assets get sucked into the proceeding. It's wrong for them to assume they can resell the domain name the second it lapses.
tobhahn 12y ago
I wonder, is David J. Steele the John Steele of Prenda Law or is this just a weird coincidence?
- spacemanmatt 12y ago
  Just a coincidence.
cssandjs 12y ago
Well that can't be good - my "name" on the web can be snatched out from under my feet?
- jacquesm 12y ago
  There are now several 'known' ways in which this can happen, all of them seem to involve a US court at some point in time so if you're running a legitimate business on a .com and you acquired the domain as first registrant from a registrar. If you acquired that domain through the 'aftermarket', especially if it had lapsed we now know that if that entity should ever go bankrupt there is a potential problem. And even in that case I assume you could object against this in some way (though the story does not detail any of that so far, we'll have to wait to see how it all plays out). I'll be following this quite closely, to say that I'm surprised here is an understatement. There is even potential for a chain of bankruptcies causing repeated clawback of the same domain!
  - turbojerry 12y ago
    Would it be possible to transfer the name initially to a front company, resell it on to the intended company with a clause that says it cannot be clawed back and then bankrupt the first so creating a legal firewall?
methodology 12y ago
That's a very interesting website. It also features for example analysis of companies and what domains they did/should buy. It really shows how there is really an entire economy over domain names, not just in buying/selling but also other secondary fields like regulation.

199 points by ESBoston 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

This reminds me a lot of the no-ip.com case. Did anyone ever find out how that was resolved? Apparently Microsoft gave back the domains[1], but did they face any payments for damages or censure? [1] http://www.noip.com/blog/2014/07/10/microsoft-takedown-details-updates/ http://www.noip.com/blog/2014/07/10/microsoft-takedown-detai...

sadfaceunread 12y ago
Out of court settlement. Microsoft and No-ip both issued press releases/updates to their original blog posts about it. No details about the settlement were released but No-IP certainly got paid.
- dsl 12y ago
  Details are obviously not public, but noip did not receive any money as a result. Regardless of popular opinion on the matter, Microsoft managed to get a lot of harmful malware shut down.
  - the_ancient 12y ago
    and the ends justify the means right? Who care how many innocent people are victimized in the process, as long as Microsoft can get some good PR it is all A-OK I bet Microsoft could shutdown all kinds of malware if we all just allow them to continually monitor all of our computers at all times....

sadfaceunread 12y ago

I'll be following this case. I don't understand why this would be filed under seal. I'd enjoy some legal experts comments on the matter.

fleitz 12y ago
It's really difficult for anyone to speculate on a sealed court order. Probably a deal gone bad and the person convinced a judge that if it went through normal channels the persons owning the domains would liquidate them. That or the transfer was deemed illegal in the first place. A quick google for Robert Olea reveals he is a domain broker.
- bhartzer 12y ago
  I know Bob personally, and he is a domain broker. I believe he is just the one holding these domains until the last sauce can be resolved.

anigbrowl 12y ago

Better to submit the original article, per HN guidelines. There's a lot of useful info in the comments: http://www.thedomains.com/2014/10/02/as-many-as-5k-coms-taken-away-by-sealed-court-order-by-verisign-including-some-of-mine/ http://www.thedomains.com/2014/10/02/as-many-as-5k-coms-take...

sadfaceunread 12y ago
Yes the comments of the original blog post have been really interesting to read. The domain name community looks to be all over the comment section of the original post.
dang 12y ago
Thank you. Url changed from http://www.internetcommerce.org/undue-process/ http://www.internetcommerce.org/undue-process/.

lorddoig 12y ago

That situation is just about as maddening as that site's scroll behaviour.

gergles 12y ago

While this is obviously a perversion of justice, I'm not shedding many tears over shady domain landgrabbers losing their 'property'. It's unfortunate (and clearly shouldn't have been filed under seal) but the histrionic comments on anigbrowl's link about how this is going to kill the domain squatting 'business' just make me think "good."

cheald 12y ago
Careful - you're dangerously close to allowing the end to justify the means there.
ddod 12y ago
Let's not conflate the implications of this with prejudices against the victims. If a startup had snagged one of these domains and had built a community or SEO with it, could you imagine that being taken away from them without any sort of due process?
- wpietri 12y ago
  What's to say that would have happened? The sealed bit is weird, but bankruptcy judges are awfully sensitive to economic value. I'd be surprised if they would do something like that. Of course, if the domain were seized in that case, due process would still be available. The startup's lawyer would immediately file with the judge in question asking for control to be temporarily restored to the startup while the legal stuff plays out.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
"So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!" - "Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?" "Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!" - "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!" from 'A Man For All Seasons', by Robert Bolt

sidko 12y ago

Another incident that tells us we need to move towards something more decentralized. Namecoin is an excellent concept and idea, it's a pity it is not used and supported more widely.

toTheDune 12y ago
There is a namecoin dev introduction thread filled with their various projects and a few calls to action on /r/namecoin if you're interested. https://reddit.com/r/namecoin https://reddit.com/r/namecoin
- ryan-c 12y ago
  I actually do some work on Namecoin, and need to post in that thread. The current namecoind is based on a horribly old version of bitcoin, and we could really use some donations to help get a rewrite against something more maintainable done.
fleitz 12y ago
Why does it tell us that? The only thing we know is that they were under sealed court order. Namecoin is not a magical solution to every problem with domain registration, and it barely scratches the surface of the decentralization issue as it's pretty cheap for anyone with the budget of a nation state to 'recentralize' the namecoin system, let alone a $5 wrench. When it comes to things being seized under sealed court order, the authorities usually don't have a problem finding a wrench.
dsl 12y ago
What if the 5,000 domains were seized and shut down to prevent a massive worm that had compromised millions of computers and would result in massive theft against millions of consumers? In the vast majority of cases law enforcement and court actions against domains are justifiable and benefit the internet.
- hueving 12y ago
  >In the vast majority of cases law enforcement and court actions against domains are justifiable and benefit the internet. Based on what stats?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tzs 12y ago
I don't see why that would be done with a sealed order.

grizzles 12y ago

Everything to do with the DNS system is so corrupt and shady. Half the domains dropping in the new GTLD process are "unavailable", "registered", etc. We tried to get an exact trademark for one of our companies in the new GTLD system during the Sunrise phase only to be told by Gandi that the new GTLD owner rejected it. We pushed it pretty hard and had a back and forth with Gandi's CEO who was pretty much on our side but the new GTLD owner (Demand Media) wouldn't budge. We have to sue them if we want it. That's what the privatized DNS system has come to. You know who I feel bad for though? Those people who originally registered big corporate brands .COM in the 90s and had their domains ripped from them. That shit is ICANN endorsed nowadays.

joelrunyon 12y ago
To be fair - you were dealing with Demand Media :(
icebraining 12y ago
Is there any law or ICANN rule saying you're owed the domain with the same characters as your trademark in every possible GTLD? I don't understand what the outrage is about. It's not even like you have an exclusive claim on that particular string (multiple companies can have the same mark, eg across industries, countries, etc).
- nly 12y ago
  His point is he had a strong claim to the name, as strong or stronger than anyone elses, and he was willing to pay the Sunrise premium to get it... and still couldn't.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Yes. So what?
    - etherealG 12y ago
      I particularly like this argument. It's so full of meaning.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

Interesting reading the comments, seems DreamTeamFinancial.com went bankrupt and the domains were seized as part of the assets, even though some (many?) had been transferred elsewhere. I would guess you could get an injunction forbidding the domain seller who was liquidating the names from selling them until ownership was more closely established but it does seem like there is an education gap on domains that are "owned" by a company who then doesn't pay to renew them so they simply 'lose' ownership rather than selling them.

jacquesm 12y ago

Scenario: A domain is free to register. You register it as per your registrars normal procedure. In some faraway country (say the USA) a bankruptcy court decided that this domain that you just registered was part of the original holdings of the company in bankruptcy. Even though the company (or the receivers) let the registration lapse (presumably because they were not doing too well financially). And so the court will order that domain that you just paid for to be assigned to some third party. That's pretty perverted. If there was an unbroken chain of ownership from the moment the original company registered it to the point where the domain was levied during the bankruptcy proceedings I can see the logic of it, but once the company and/or the receivers let the domain lapse they technically forfeited it and a judge should not cooperate with them to reverse agreements between two other consenting parties (you and the registrar) in order to re-assign that domain to the pile of assets in the bankruptcy, especially not 'ex parte' (so without hearing either you or the registrar as to how you came into possession of that domain). Otherwise from now on there is no such thing as a 'lapsed domain' any more. And in fact, domains would not longer be 'property'. (I don't think they're property to begin with and this case is a nice example of why I think they aren't even though everybody treats them as such.)

AlyssaRowan 12y ago
That seems a bit odd, as it's at most leased, not owned by them; the lease expired, so it is null and void and is therefore not an asset. I'd thought UDRP was fairly clear about this... And the order isn't against the new owner - so it sounds invalid to me? Not a lawyer, but Verisign should at least have questioned these. I have no idea if they'd have a claim, or what kind of claim, or who to.
rayiner 12y ago
U.S. bankruptcy law gives courts great latitude to reverse transactions involving the property of a bankrupt entity, because a lot of abuse of the bankruptcy system is possible otherwise. The problem here is actually with VeriSign. Any time you transfer an asset to an entity but retain the right to get it back under certain conditions, you have to think through what will happen if that other party enters into bankruptcy and those assets get sucked into the proceeding. It's wrong for them to assume they can resell the domain name the second it lapses.

tobhahn 12y ago

I wonder, is David J. Steele the John Steele of Prenda Law or is this just a weird coincidence?

spacemanmatt 12y ago
Just a coincidence.

cssandjs 12y ago

Well that can't be good - my "name" on the web can be snatched out from under my feet?

jacquesm 12y ago
There are now several 'known' ways in which this can happen, all of them seem to involve a US court at some point in time so if you're running a legitimate business on a .com and you acquired the domain as first registrant from a registrar. If you acquired that domain through the 'aftermarket', especially if it had lapsed we now know that if that entity should ever go bankrupt there is a potential problem. And even in that case I assume you could object against this in some way (though the story does not detail any of that so far, we'll have to wait to see how it all plays out). I'll be following this quite closely, to say that I'm surprised here is an understatement. There is even potential for a chain of bankruptcies causing repeated clawback of the same domain!
- turbojerry 12y ago
  Would it be possible to transfer the name initially to a front company, resell it on to the intended company with a clause that says it cannot be clawed back and then bankrupt the first so creating a legal firewall?

methodology 12y ago

That's a very interesting website. It also features for example analysis of companies and what domains they did/should buy. It really shows how there is really an entire economy over domain names, not just in buying/selling but also other secondary fields like regulation.