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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?"

1 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.

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