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AOL Stealing Domain Names?

Posted by michael on from the some-animals-are-more-equal dept.

zack writes "Observers.net has an interesting story about someone who registered the domain aolbeta.com after finding out it was available to purchase on August 20. The next day, it was somehow magically transfered to AOL's own registrar, and under their name. Since AOL is an ICANN accredited registrar, apparently they can have any domain they want. Do you really own your domain name?"

3 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Problems of shared registry by wesmills · · Score: 5
    We really need to put this on the front page, and not just for people who have found the YRO section.

    On-topic: One of the biggest fears I've had of a shared registration system is the ability to do exactly what AOL has apparently done .. Since there's apparently no user-level authentication built into the registry (why should there be? you don't own your name, according to the Big Boys), as evidenced by having to prove your identity to the registrar, then what's to prevent slipping someone who has the technical equivalent of "root" access a bit of cash to harass your competitors by swapping their names around?

    Unfortunately, there's probably not a way to fix this in the current system, as adding authentication for the individual domain name holder would most likely require a re-write of the existing shared registry system, and I think we can guess the chances of NSI&Cartel letting that go through.

    ---

  2. Re:I'm missing something by JCCyC · · Score: 3

    No. Army Of Lawyers Busy Engineering The Alibi.

  3. More stupid corporate hijinks. by nezroy · · Score: 3

    The really stupid part of this whole thing is that, given the current precedents as far as domain names go, AOL would have had no problem legally gaining rights to that domain name. AOL is one of those world recognizable trademarks, and they probably wouldn't have had to be in court for more than a week to get it legally transferred to their ownership. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people are still very sympathetic to a company's right to protect its trademark, and AOL's public image would not have been impacted much by this kind of trial (other than to piss off even more the people who already hate AOL anyway).
    NOW, however, they have gone and stolen the domain, bypassing the courts, and setting themselves up for a MAJOR PR disaster. If this manages to go to trial, I'm sure it will be a notorious battle that will seriously tarnish AOL's image. It's one thing to initiate a court proceeding to fight for your trademark -- it's quite another to be taken to court for what amounts to theft and a serious abuse of power. We probably couldn't have tied the noose any better for AOL than they've done for themselves! Now we just have to get this article up front on Slashdot where people can start reading it :)