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Verizon’s Holiday Present – A $33 Million Judgment Against a Cybersquatter

Posted January 12th, 2009

Over the holidays, a federal court in Northern California entered a default judgment of $33.15 million in favor of Verizon Communications in what may be the largest cybersquatting judgment in history.

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Posted in Cybersquatting, True Domain Crime by Ernest Grumbles 

 
 

FTC 404’s Canadian Domain Scammers

Posted August 12th, 2008

A U.S. District Court Judge has shut down a Canadian operation aimed at bilking American small businesses and nonprofits out of millions of dollars. Their method? Sending bogus “invoices” for an annual “Website Address Listing” renewal, as well as “Search Engine Optimization” services.

 

The bills were made to appear as if they were a simple renewal and the recipients had always done business with the senders. Of course, many of those who paid up believed they would lose their Website addresses unless the bill was paid. According to the FTC, Toronto-based Data Business Solutions, doing business as Internet Listing Service, has been sending fake invoices since 2004, listing the existing domain name of the consumer’s Website or a slight variation of the domain name. (more…)

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Posted in True Domain Crime by Ernest Grumbles 

 
 

DOWNFALL OF THE ROGUE REGISTRARS: LESSONS FROM THE DELL CASE

Posted June 18th, 2008

 

Say you and your business colleagues make money off registering domain names, in some instances by registering random names and parking them with advertising.  Then you decide to register some names that happen to be very similar to some existing company names (say, delllcomputer.com).  Even better – you decide to set up your own domain name registrars to take the enterprise to the next level.  Fast forward – you have multiple registrar entities, offering domains to the public and hosting your own collection of domains.  In fact, you and your associates now own millions of domain names under a variety of false names and using various third-party trademarks.  And they’re generating serious advertising dollars.  Further, many of the domain names you never actually pay for – but rather “taste” – register for 5 days on a contingent basis and then drop (permissible under current ICANN policies).

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Posted in Uncategorized by Ernest Grumbles