Slashdot Mirror
Filing a Domain Name Dispute?
0backlash0 writes "I work for a not-for-profit that's involved in community media especially radio, television, and increasingly, the internet. We exist by and for the community, which is to say that we're not a large organization. Someone has registered a domain name that we used to own: kdhxfm88.org The name appears to be registered in "bad faith". Because of our size, we can't exactly afford to hire a team of lawyers to take care of this for us. What can we do and how do we do it?"
can you afford a better lawyer than the person who took your domain?
If you let the domain expire, and someone else registered it, I say you're going to have a hard time *taking it back* from its now-rightful owner.
Please explain more.. If you used to own it then why did you let it expire if you were using it?
If you owned the domain name and then let your ownership drop, especially if it wasn't simply a failure to pay in time, you might have some real trouble getting it back. You need to be able to show that you meant to keep the domain name and that it was lost through some error.
Why did you let the name expire? couldn't raise 30 bucks? too bad, change your name, get a new domain.
If you gave it up, that was for a reason right? If the guy starts saying he represents the radio station, fair enough, suehis misrepresenting ass, but otherwise, who cares. You have the domain you want.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Hurry up and call the RIAA quick! They have lawyers!
huh?
Why is the name registered in "bad faith?" While Id like to support you, you fail to give any details. Just because they registered that domain name does not mean it is in "bad faith." And, if you are such a small organization, what reason would someone have for registering the domain name? Its obviously not money.
Companies immediately say anyone who registered anything to do with their name registered it in "bad faith." I think you need to get everything uneder control before you go spouting off allegations.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
Nothing like sufing slahsdot at work and having a URL that takes you to Euro Teen Sluts on the home page.. Thanks Guys!
speak softly , and carry a big stick ?
.
i 'm sorry to say , but it seems that at least one lawyer type is going to ned to be employed if you wanna fight this one .
but , if you no longer own this domain , whats the interest in keeping others off it for their own gains ? scads of lurkers buy up " abandoned domains for their own interests . i've seen it before
Why not sue the people who have your old telephone number, or your old address?
You owned the domain, you let it lapse, somebody else bought it. Sorry, game over. If AT&T let 1-800-CALL-ATT go, and Sprint picked it up, does AT&T get to sue Sprint over it? 'fraid not.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Your best bet is arbitration, since the domain pretty obviously has nothing to do with their real business.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
How could you lose it in the first place? Are you sure that you were using it? Get a new domain name if you can not fight it.
Hire a 6'5" 250lb bodybuilder named "Igor" to pay a courteous visit to the squatter. A hell of a lot cheaper that getting lawyers, and ethically probably on a more solid ground, when all is said and done.
I for one would have liked a warning that the current owners had set up a porn site on there. The post naturally makes one wonder what is currently on the site, and some people are going to check it out who would prefer not to end up at a porn site.
What the hell kinda domain name is that? hard to remember, hard to spell correctly and no sex appeal.
In all the vastness of the universe and all the possible domain names to choose from, you picked that one? Maybe it's time to let it go and find a new domain name, any lawyer looking at that one is just going to laugh and ask why you'd want it back.
God Damnit I dont. Whats your secret?
See my first post wasn't really a first post. Its the one that is titled "hahahahaha."
This whole story has got to be extremely clever spam from that porn-shop.. You let the domain lapse, its gone, and now the new owner has hordes of horny geeks checking it out. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but hey this is too much.
air and light and time and space
Back when I worked at Qualcomm, I was going to register eudora.org when it's renewal came and went unnoticed and unpaid. But I was told that I'd likely have to give it back at the drop of an even semi-legal hat (or not even: "Give it up or pack your office" would have worked just as well). I was going to use the domain for all the tech support junk, plugins, etc that didn't make it on eudora.com for whatever reason. It was going to be a community-type site, not for profit or anything. As far from "bad faith" as you can get. I was told that the intent of the site wouldn't matter and that they would almost certainly get it from me.
IANAL, but I think unless you can show that you had a claim or that your business will be hurt or whatever (think Coke registering pepsi.biz) then you probably won't be able to get it back. You could try the nice guy route, though. Ask them if they would sell it to you (throw in a 50% "finder's fee" for them) and offer to host whatever email accounts hey have for a year while they transition (careful of spamming, though). Probably won't work, but it never hurts to be nice anyway. Sadly, I think you're S.O.L.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
You already own kdhx.org, and if that's not enough, neither kdhxradio88.org nor kdhxradio.org nor kdhx88.org is currently registered. You don't really need kdhxfm88.org, so if you forget it, the squatter will have wasted his money.
(I see that he's put a porn pointer at the address . Is that what you're really upset about? That's a different question than the one you asked. If you're a nonprofit and you can't afford a lawyer, find out what `pro bono' means.)
-Tom Duff
IIRC there's something in the ICANN guidelines about .org registers now necessarily being a non-profit, etc, etc. Perhaps someone could shed more light on this. Appeal, by all means.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Hah, well that porn site will be slashdotted in a few seconds, so this whole discussion is really a moot point :)
If your domain name was a trademark, copyrighted, or otherwise protected as intellectual property (shudders), then you could fight this. The fact is, though, that the domain got dropped. Everyone around here hates it, but there are companies that look for opporunities like this and "snatch" up domains as soon as they become available again.
On the plus side, if you don't do anything, the current owners will likely drop the domain in June 2003. If you can wait that long, you can be pretty sure no one's going to snatch it up again. If you absolutely want the domain back, there's a link on the current site (not the Euro Teen Sluts link) that will let you buy the domain back from them. Maybe it's worth just paying the price to get it back. I just don't know.
Probably the best thing you can do is change domain names completely. Don't ever speak of this older domain; and don't ever let any domain you want to keep expire. It would be pretty bad if mothers, kids, and grandparents went to the current site. Then again, maybe Euro Teens are what they're after...
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
why not just think of a better domain name to use? That one seems pretty sucky anyway. How about dropping the "88" or perhaps using a different TLD like kdhxfm88.tv?
Any particular a p0rn site would pick up your old domain? Seems like a silly thing to do to a non-profit to begin with.
I betcha this "0backlash0" character is actually the guy that currently has the domain registered and is running the porn site on it. He's invoking a slashdotting to get his banner ad hits up. :-)
well if your idea is to get exposer I think this would eb the best way to do it kdhxfm88.org is too long and klunky to remember as opposed to KDHX88.FM just because your a non profit doesn't mean you HAVE to have a .org TLD. you better hurry up and register it before I do and charge you double. I ran into the same thing, when I let the registration on my web page run out, last I checked it's now a porn site. grrr now my good names stained... ahh well
The first thing you should do is send them a cease and desist letter. Send it registered, and let them know of your copyright. Let it be clear that they could be liable for up to $100,000 in damages. Here is an example: http://www.ejacking.com/letters.cfm It helps to find out if they have any other names hijacked. This works for most US citizen's who have an ounce of intelligence. If this doesn't work you need to start the process at icann. http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp.htm
Check register.com. It looks like the Armenians have your precious .org. Good luck fighting that international battle! It seems to me you'd be better off getting the .com version, while it's still available.
Rather than promoting consideration towards your cause you're just making yourself (or your organization) look rather silly, eh?
We'll bug the shit out of them until they give it up. Just copy & paste this script & hack away...
while( 1 ) {
wget kdhxfm88.org
}
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Are you sure this isn't just a scheme to get yourself slashdotted?
OK--the domain's lost. It was suckey anway. Since you still have kdhx.org, I suggest you renew it for the maximum term--10 years. It doesn't cost that much 10 times $35 or so.
....has registered a domain name that we used to own...
Just to point this out, you didn't used to own it, you rented it (or leased it as it were) from ICANN.
Someone has registered a domain name that we used to own
If you no longer own it, then you no longer own it. Period. Whether or not it was registered by the other party in good or bad faith is irrelevant if it's no longer yours.
In other words: The original owners of the domain should have made the payments to keep it registered.
This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
hot damn!!! here i cum bitch!!!
The price just went up to US$550, it looks like someone is having a laugh !
I'm laughing too.
t.p
And don't mind the naysayers -- the UDRP doesn't say jack about whether or not you *used* to own the name, but it spells out in fairly clear terms the grounds upon which a challenge can be brought. In relevant part ("you" and "your" refer to the party you want to file against):
You don't necessarily need a lawyer, though it helps. Maybe you can get a local IP specialist to do it for your group pro bono. It will also be helpful for you to read some of the decisions already made, particularly any that seem to fit the facts of your situation.
Fried ice cream is a reality. - George Clinton
The vast majority of the responses I have seen are saying that it will be difficult if not impossible to get your domain back. This is simply not true. The party that has the more "legitimate" need will win. Legitimate means corporate or profitable. Surely the porn-peddling domain hoarder will not be able to win over someone who controls an organization with a name very similar to the domain. Not when you consider all of the past domain disputes and how they were decided.
*I* suspect that the poster of this message is the current owner of the domain himself; and that he made up a story that would be Slashdot-worthy in order to intentionally Slashdot(verb) his own p0rn site; and therefore drive up his traffic and hopefully gain some income.
/I/ would do, at least...
...sounds like something
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Simple ... wait.
Since you brought this up on slashdot, many people out of pure curiosity (i.e. what the heck is 'bad faith'?) will cut-n-paste kdhxfm88.org into their browsers (or type it in for text-based browsers) and wait for the page to load in anticipation. BUT, in disgust of the extremely lame pr0n site, people will go "back" only to find themselves shuffled among some pop-up banners.
This my friend, is how the individual(s) responsible of kdhxfm88.org will make money. Eventually (again, the concept of time), their number of visiters will decrease as this slashdot news brief passes away. And thus, they will get rid of kdhxfm88.org because of its ineffectiveness.
So in a nutshell, best bet would be to wait. Time is money, you know.
Agreed. Not to mention an organization which seems to have an implicit trademark on the letters "KDHX". At the very least the two names are confusingly similar, which I'm fairly certain is grounds for legal action. (Anyone know radio law? Are the call letters assigned to a station their property?)
computers never make misttoks -- Atari 800
This kind of thing has been happening with increasing frequency recently, and in many instances the subsequent holder of the domain name is a porner trying to catch those who go to the name thinking that it's still what it used to be.
When the name previously was used for childrens materials my guess is that a case could be made that the second person is intentionally targeting children - and the existing legal system has plenty of cauldrons of boiling oil for those kinds of folks.
There are several useful resources: There's Carl Opendahl's "Considerations for innocent domain name owners"http://www.patents.com/dno.htm
And then there's the collection of things by Ellen Rony at http://www.domainhandbook.com/media.html In particular see: Pornography Takes Over Financial Site for Children http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/26/technology/26NET .html
There is no ristriction on what .org domains are to be used for, but I think there used to be. Anyone feel like finding out?
That's exactly what I thought as soon as I found out it was a porn site. Give the guy credit, if that's what his intent was! Can you think of a better way to instantly generate massive amounts of traffic for zero cost? Traffic = $ as far as advertising is concerned.
This would also explain the vague original question.
Although maybe I'm getting too cynical for my own good...
even though you used to own it i think you are still out of luck. i too work at a non-profit radio station, but we are owned by a university. we have wkdu.org and a year or so ago i went to get .com and .net. unfortunately they had been registered (i pretty much just got beat out). i emailed the owner and asked what he wanted for them. he told me $20,000 or something. i explained that we are noncommercial and out annual budget is usually about $35,000. he then wanted to negotiate a price, but i stopped emailing him. granted "wkdu.???" is much less specific than "kdhxfm88.org" so they are probably hoping that 1) you have $$$$ and/or 2) your listeners will flock to a site that might be yours.
as for the legal options, what did they decide about people snagging copywritten names (like fritolay.com or something specific)?
i suggest emailing them to see what they want. i would personally not pay it when you can come up with some other valid URL. the fact that it's your old site means they should have picked up traffic from bookmarks and maybe search engines. if this is recent, then they are probably still getting hits from your old users.... so if they want a lot now, i assume it will go down later.
unbelievably insightful. You obviously don't belong on SlashDot.
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
From what I know, all .org sites must be for not-for-profit information. Since when is the current content of the site (pr0n) not-for-profit? Aren't page views (thanks to the slashdot effect) or click-throughs by definition for-profit?
If you REALLY want the domain back, you can probably get it shut down on those grounds.
A DNS entry is just a line in a database. If it is found that the domain is registered in bad faith [i.e I squat your companies name and don't really provide any content on the page] why can't the DNS server owners just refuse to host the squatter?
That way the squatter can own the name, but nobody will be able to look it up properly.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Ok, if you check out this comment you'll find out that the domain is owned by a company called Buy This Domain. And that they're listed as being in Armenia, but have an Idaho area code.
Now, I was browsing around google, and I came up with this WIPO doc, dated August 14, 2001.
It deals with a case sort of like the one mentioned here, where the complaintant (sp?) let the domain lapse for some reason, and another company bought it up. Ok, so I can hear you saying "What does this have to do with this case?" Simple, the defendent was Buy This Domain (then using a different street name, but otherwise the address is the same), seems after being given the notice that the domain was going to be disputed, they offered to give it back to the original owner. That's right, they gave it back.
So, although IANAL, I'd say just begin the proper actions against them, and see if they cave again.
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
rofl! the site you are reading right now is a '.org' and it is certainly _not_ a not-for-profit. This site sold out _long_ ago and now runs stories weekly designed specifically to sell VA Linux products/services and thinkgeek computer cases. They should move slashdot over to that new .biz space.
A.D. 2001
/dev/null. For great justice!!
ruse was successful...
[explosion]
Taco: What happen??
Michael: Someone set up us the social engineering!!
Taco: Follow link. We get pr0n...
Slashdot reader: It's you!!
0Bracket0: How are you, suckers. All your hit are belong to us!!
Taco: What you say??
0Bracket0: You have no chance to retract story. Make your time!!
Taco: Take off every submission.
Michael: You know what you doing
Taco: Move every submission to
Slashdot. For great prank!!
If the original owner does not have a registered trademark or service mark, the UDRP won't help them. Simple as that.
The original question didn't mention the existence or lack thereof of a relevent trademark or service mark.
The UDRP doesn't say whether the trademark has to be registered or not. (This is a flaw in the UDRP, IMHO). It seems quite likely that the arbitrator or a court would interpret trademark to mean registered trademark.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I work for a small insurance broker called Dollar Insurance Services Inc. We had this guy squatting on our domain for a while and we could not come to an agreement and he let the domain expire on Jan 6th 2001. I have been in constant touch with Network Solutions for last 7-8 months, the only answer I get from them is that the domain is currently blocked and cannot be registered until it is released back into public domain. I asked them that how long do they keep a domain blocked until it is released and their response was that there is no set time period so I should check every day to see its been released. Any ideas from the Slashdot community to get this released other than to just register the one of the .biz or .ws type alternative domains.
slashdot doesnt directly advertise in its stories. Having ads for a company, whether it is your sponsor, or a third party, is all up to the maintainer, but slashdot itself sells nothing except getting a commission from advertising space. They dont sell "Slashdot Advertisements" but over time have needed to have some income to support itself. I've read slashdot since just after Rob started it as his personal Linux News site, and havent really ever seen any direct advertisement for anything, including VA, other than the banner ad at the top. Last I knew, having a banner ad never said you were selling something, it just says you're willing to endorse whatever the ad says.
.
Even though I'm posting anonymously (on different computer than normal) and I know nobody will read this, I wonder, am I the only one who's noticed theres a lot of expired domain names out there that get taken by porn sites? I was searching for a site yesterday and noticed the original owner no longer owns the domain names and they're now a porn site. Guess it seems like there's a few sites that do this as a tactic to get more people (and $$$).
This article appeared recently in a local newspaper; same organisation as by all accounts. >The owner of a pornography web address is trying >to force the Government to buy the address for >almost $15,000
An interesting note: Any radio station at that frequency would have to be non-profit. The FCC has reserved frequencies below 92 MHZ (88-92) for non-profits only.
88.1 is the first FM broadcast band frequency (even though I have seen radios go as low as 87.5), and 107.9 is the last frequency (I haven't seen a radio that tunes above that).
Here in Las Vegas, we have radio stations at both extreme ends of the dial, and they both rule.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Are you the Tom Duff that used to work at Bell Labs? In the Unix Room?
-Dan Bentley (son of Jon Bentley)
(@ dbentley (dot stanford edu))
This is one of the better advertising stunts
I've seen in a while.
Who posted this message, and why do they want to increase the traffic to this site?
A one banana problem.
So like many others, I just had to see this site. Yeah, porn. So what. The funny part is they have a link on the front page for selling the domain">. What a riot. The guys asks the /. community, we hammer their server then the clowns decide the domain has *even* more value. Hm... I wonder if it was the porn guys who emailed about this instead of the radio station. What an irony.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
An article in the NY Times a couple of weeks ago tells the same story. (The article is archived--you have to pay for it now). The article was about Ernst and Youngs financial website *for children*. If the child went to Moneyopolis.org rather than Moneyopolis.com, they would get the same porn site (Euroteen Sluts). So, maybe you should contact Ernst and Young's legal department. They may have already done the legal research you need and answer your questions.
...Now you know!
I think it's worse than that. He's probably putting up something that is specifically meant to be offensive and annoying, to further encourage KDHX (and other domains he registers) to pay him off. I doubt KDHX really cares about the domain -- they let it expire after all. But it's not that they don't get to use the domain, it's that the domain is offensive and slanders their organization. I think they would easily win any case against this guy -- not just to get back the domain name, but a libel/slander suit against him. If they were actually to try to do this, they would want to contact other people who have also suffered this extortion, to pool resources.
The server appears to just be on DSL (a traceroute stalls on netblock-66.51.198.150.dslextreme.com, which is probably some firewall just in front of his computer). Which makes it seem even less like a real porn site.
DSLExtreme is a DSL provider in California, apparently. From them you may be able to track down who registered the domain, who is presumably also hosting it. From there you can send a cease-and-desist letter directly to the actual owner, using his actual name, and not falsified information in the WHOIS database. Or if you really felt like it you could sue him (and more power to you).
Also, you can probably get DSLExtreme (whoever they are -- they seem like a normal sort of provider) to shut down his access. I somehow doubt the site fits in their terms of service. If nothing else that'll stop him for a while, and it'll annoy him.
You say kdhxfm88.org being offered for sale, appears to be registered in "bad faith".
Not nice perhaps, they are obviously people without scruples - but there is plenty of those in Big Business.
If domain was used to complain about something you said, say regarding public affairs - would you consider that "bad faith" also?
Do you believe then, that free speech should not be allowed on the Internet?
You have kdhx.org, though their actions objectionable - they are not even stopping you from using your prefered name.
Let them waste their money.
By going to WIPO, you would help those trying to claim control of the Internet.
Paul Mockapetris, creator of Domain Name System, was asked, what do you wish you had invented?
His reply, "A directory system for the Internet that wouldn't be controlled by the politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats."
I have been in contact with various Government bodies (US/UK) and attorneys, about the solution to trademark problems on the Internet.
Most trademarks share same or similar words with many others.
The authorities have been giving some trademarks dominance over others - this is against unfair competition law.
They do this purposefully, as they know how to resolve the promblem.
The United States Department of Commerce and the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization have both been hiding the solution.
Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see how to prevent 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and stop anybody 'passing off'.
.
Same thing happened to Ernst & Young, the accounting firm which hosts the kids money site moneyopolis.com. They lost .org through a bureacratic snafu, and a pornographer picked it up. This was written up in the NY Times of 10/26/2001; search on "Moneyopolis".
Their situation was a bit more dire, since a published book directs kids to the hijacked site! I've always felt funny about seeing cyberspace addresses in printed material, and I suppose that incident highlights part of the problem. Books last a long time, while URLs have yet to demonstrate staying power. You can date any publiciation with Cue Cat to within a couple of years. How long for URLs? Ten years? Twenty?
the domain is the least of your worries in radio. as a fellow non-profit radio volunteer, i would have to put numerous legal threats that we get every year well above your domain woes.
keep your insurance up, keep your listeners happy, forget about the rest.
defamation insurance, a godsend to broadcasters everywhere.
Right, technically thinkgeek.com sells the slashdot stuff. Cool loophole :)
My other car is first.
I decided to let the name expire and then re-register it with a better registrar. I thought it wouldn't be a problem, because it was an obscure name.
Well, this same scumbag who took your old domain now has my old personal site, and is using it for porn ads. Apparently he is using a bot to repeatedly check for newly expiring domains, hoping to capitalize on the traffic from people's old bookmarks/search engine listings. I'm calling this "expire-squatting".
I filed a complaint with the FTC because of this and because he was using hostile "mousetrapping" javascript code to force open new windows whenever you close one. The FTC had previously shut down another one of these jerks, so I thought it might help.
Well, the FTC sent me back an email saying that they don't investigate individual complaints, but will act if they see a pattern of fraudulent behavior emerge.
So, go report this at the FTC website, and maybe you can push this over the threshold for FTC action.
You hit the nail on the head. In UDRP proceedings, if the respondent has a track record of buying domain names that have nothing to do with their (il)legitimate enterprise, then trying to sell them for a profit, especially back to the rightful owner, it's considered prima facie evidence of bad faith.
Fried ice cream is a reality. - George Clinton
Fried ice cream is a reality. - George Clinton
The Case: This was the easiest decision to make. Thinkgeek has by far the the cooler and easiest case around to get. I went with the precut window, and put in the window, as well as ordered the blue neon light to put inside of the machine. This case frickin' rocks. Thumbscrews for everything, the drive bays, motherboard array and everything else slides out intelligently - this is the first case I've ever had where I'm *happy* to be working on the internals of the machine. However, I did replace the fans.
Care to cite a UDRP decision that supports this statement? Don't go to too much trouble, tho, cuz you won't find any.
Fried ice cream is a reality. - George Clinton
I am the webmaster for a state government agency in Washington and I had to repair a link to the Cowlitz County Clerk's office, because they were hit by the same Armenian guy. What a small world.
I strongly recommend you use Google to find any sites on the net referring to that domain. Most likely, many of them are outdated URLS, and that is what this pr0n site is depending on for traffic. Get those links cut, and cut the traffic, and they'll be less likely to hang onto the address.
Seriously, everybody knows what happens to a page once it's /.'d. Stop encouraging this p0rn site. If their like most others, they make money from each hit and their counters just up another notch.
The same guy also reregistered the old Cambodia Airlines website (http://www.royal-air-cambodge.net/) and turned it into a porn site (no need to check it and give him more traffic). Whoever it is is consistently snapping up many expired domains. I wrote a bit about on my website here-> http://www.angkor.com/AngkorMain.shtml#latest
Is there a standard amount of time that an expired domain is blocked, or is that up to the individual registrar? If the blocked time is variable/random, it would seem like the registrars are inviting unintentional DOS attacks as an ever increasing number of people continuously attempt to check on expiring domains. In a similar vein, has anyone used snapnames to try and capture an expiring domain (maybe that's what the p0rn sites are doing)?
http://www.builtwithamiga.org/ was also reregistered as a porn site - and it turns out to point to exactly the same site as http://kdhxfm88.org/ . Certainly nothing about a certain computer system there..
and it seems like a better domain anyway. The other one was too confusing and long. Just look how many /.er got confused, and they think they are so smart. :^0
they have live audio online.
(referring to a zero rated post, concerning "advertorials" in
I remember reading that, it didn't really register at the time. Your criticism is "on the money."
Journalistic ethics traditionally requires a "firewall" between editorial and advertisers, it's easy enough to see where some folks wouldn't get it.
Proof, once again, why engineering students need a liberal arts background.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
Actually, it looks to me like a very evil version of a Registrar, who is taking money for putting adds onto non registered pages.
It's a new policy I read about somewhere back that about a year ago any registrar can claim domain names that were unclaimed, and make it go to their site. But it can still be registered by another registrar.
Did anyone bother to do an nslookup to find out if that is the case, and this domain is actually just polluted with adds from a registrar?
If it is, it's one of the more ingenious.
Sumbit a phony story to slashdot, making up some bogus story about a stolen domain name, set up a porn ad on the domain, and wait for the hits to roll in.
Pretty smart. I bet these folks made a bunch of money from the posting of this article.
Well, I don't think the guy at kdhx.org will have to worry about kdhxfm88.org anymore since it has gone completely down. I guess too many people slashdotted it and probably wanted to view all of the content on the site :-).
....why did you let it go?
Spend the $550 to get it back. And don't forget to register it next time.
I'm currently involved in a domain name dispute, as a guy who has been accused unfairly.
Contrary to what some of the folks here seem to be saying, you do have a legitimate beef. Especially since these guys are clearly intending to sell the domain - hence, the nondescript porn and the "click here to buy this domain" link.
Ask around any lawyer friends you know, and see if they know anyone who does trademark / domain name dispute cases. Then contact that person and ask if they know anyone who would be willing to take such a case on a pro bono basis, or for a "de minimus" fee.
As a final note: brush up on ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy. The policy makes it pretty clear that a domain can be considered registered in bad faith if:
The "click here to buy" link is clear evidence of (i), and the selection of name is a pretty clear evidence of (iv), unless these people are seriously going to make an argument that they just liked the name.
Oh - IANAL, but I know far more about the law now than I ever wanted to.
The big problem here, which a few other people touched on, is that it costs from $1250-$4000 to petition for a domain name dispute. (The different providers set their own fees.)
This is ridiculously expensive for not-for-profits and individuals, but chump change for big companies. What would make much more sense is a pay scale depending on who you are and who you're going up against...obviously, we don't wnat to make it trivial for every yahoo to claim they have a stake in coke.com for something like $19.95, but it's hardly logical that a broke organization should need to cough up $1250 to fight a porn operation.
This is near and dear to my heart right now, because there's an anti-muslim hate site at projectgutenberg.com (I'm the CEO of Project Gutenberg (the real site), and we really don't have the dough to go through the domain dispute process.
If this domain is so important to you, why didn't you notice that it had been deactivated 40 days before anyone was given a chance to "steal" it from you?
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Go here for the WHOIS lookup. Have fun trying to get anything more than a domain name out of this guy in Armenia.
Be honest. Who here read the first few comments, found out it was pr0n, and then decided to check out the url?
As has been pointed out elsewhere, the domain includes the radio station CALL LETTERS and FREQUENCY. How much more of a legal claim to the name do you need????
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Find out what 'asshole' means, you condescending prick. You have a small penis. Is that what you're really upset about?
You're fucked. That's the long and short of it. If you'd read some of the archives of Slashdot before posting, you'd know that it becomes impossible to win a domain name dispute unless you have tons of cash and a roomfull of lawyers. The people at the top have become corrupt and there aint jack shit you can do about it.
My advice: Wait for it to re-expire.
My wife (not a lawyer ... yet) is working on a project to help people with interpretation of the law as it concerns domain name. Try this on for size:
restatement
It's only a draft but it should be more available by the end of the year. Basically it's the UDRP, which is the legal document that many domain name registrars use to settle disputes, turning to the WIPO as an arbitrator.
Definitely read the entire UDRP, especially the sections on bad faith.
Cheers!
Here's your answer. You're in a pickle. I am/was in a situation where known domain name pirate Jung Hochul (with prior arbitration judgements against him... he lost in the clubmed case) registered the domain waxman.com in a very sketchy way with help from someone inside NetSol. (Representing trademark holders waxmancandles.com I negotiated with former owners (company that bought Waxman camera and ceased using the Waxman name). During NetSol's "holding period" after a name expires the domain somehow slipped beyond their control. hmm.) Anyway, Mr. Hochul (no it's not his real name) wanted seven thousand USD cash for it last time we had contact.
So I went the route of a proper dispute, and came upon WIPO Arbitration.
The gist of it is, if you don't want to deal with Lawyers and lawsuits, and you want to get your domain back the "right way" you have to go into arbitration.
Here's the scheudle of fees from WIPO: http://arbiter.wipo.int/arbitration/fees/ If you want your domain back, you'll have to deal with the cost of arbitration. All the arbitration companies that NetSol works with want the same cash outlay. (It's fixed.)
I didn't have the cash to deal with it the right way, and I decided other ways, so that was that.
I hope you have better luck.
The website for the TCL Consortium http://www.tclconsortium.org/ (Scripting language) has been hit by the same people. I beleive that site was pretty well established until recently. They must make a habit of scooping up expired .org. More evidence in your favour. Clearly not in good faith.
Because they've done it thousands of other times. If you approach them with a lawsuit they'll probably hand it over to avoid the hassle. remember, they don't really want your domain that bad.
I manage the links for an educational portal, and with around 100,000 links in the database you're going to see a lot of domains get dropped. It seems like every week or so that I get an email from an angry parent or teacher who is outraged that we link to porn sites, when it turns out that we were linking to a perfectly legitimate site that went under and the domain was bought up by porn-mongers.
The strategy is this: buy up a thousand sites that went back on the market for around $12 each, redirect them to your porn sites so you are getting bookmark and search-engine traffic from the old site, and if one out of a hundred ex-webmasters who was willing to give up his domain but is not willing to see it turned into porn actually buys it back for 100x the price of registering then you are breaking even. If someone threatens a lawsuit, give it up and call it a loss.
I really hope more people start challenging crap like this.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Let the porn site wither away. Google lists 297 pages with links to the old domain. Go through these and get as many as possible updated to the new one. It'd take a few man-days, but any legal recourse will take months and cost much more of your time, let alone money.
go to www.linuxgames.com
then go to linuxgames.org
I think this is a clear example of a domain name
registered in "bad faith".!!this has annoyed me for a long time and I think something should be done about it.
Rather than pay $1500 to start wipo legal proceedings you may lose, why not just buy the domain back? $550 is cheap...
Why, because you've lost all business sense and hate yourself for failing to reregister the name, and the guy who got there before you and put porn all over it so that the 'big cheese' as well as the listening (or slashdot reading) public figured out what's going on. sorry, that sucks.
If you hire a good lawyer for the wipo process, _and you should_, the first thing they'll tell you is that you'll save a lot of money, just buying it back. Hopefully, they won't charge you $100 for the 15min consultation.
Now, by posting this to slashdot in what i can only guess is righteous selfdestructive ire you have very likely lost this chance or made it more expensive.
Good luck.
You or someone, with the blessing of the KDHX/Double Helix Board, should contact a law firm that does trademark work. When you call ask to speak to whoever coordinates the firm Pro Bono program. Most law firms of any size have a formal or informal pro bono program. A local St. Louis firm is more likely to be willing to help than a national firm.
Explain who you are, that you represent a penniless non-profit public interest organization and explain what has happened. If that firm can't help you, ask them to refer you to another firm that might be able to help.
Most states have guidelines for the amount of pro bono (from the Latin, pro bono publico, for the good of the public) work that a lawyer should do each year. Trademark attorneys are no exception to this. This work is done at no cost to help the indigent, charities, and public interest organizations.
If by some bad luck you should happen to contact a firm that isn't interested in helping you, keep looking, you'll find one before long.
This is not a legal opinion, no representation is expressed or implied.
Another Example of these "Euro Teen Sluts" cyber squatters, the have registered a name confusingly similar to http://www.jades.org/ which they just dropped the "s". So instead of getting an Elite (In the Bell and Braben sense) you get http://www.jade.org/ a f**king porn site, complete with embarrasing ON CLOSE popups.
.com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
.com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
These people should be beaten repeatedly with blunt objects until they see the error of their ways.
Looking through the whois records for the three sites (kdhxfm88.org tclconsortium.org jade.org) I get this:
Whois Server Version 1.3
Domain names in the
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
Domain Name: KDHXFM88.ORG
Registrar: ADDRESS CREATION
Whois Server: whois.addresscreation.com
Referral URL: http://www.addresscreation.com
Name Server: NS1.EEEX.NET
Name Server: NS2.EEEX.NET
Updated Date: 05-nov-2001
>>> Last update of whois database: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 17:01:06 EST >>>Whois Database last updated on: Thu Nov 8 03:32:02 2001>>>Whois Database last updated on: Thu Nov 8 03:32:02 2001>> Last update of whois database: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 17:01:06 EST DOMAIN FOR SALE - ENTER HERE -
5 Pechatnikova 33
Yerevan, 335010
AM
Domain Name: TCLCONSORTIUM.ORG
Administrative Contact:
Web Master admin@segod.com
http://x.segod.com
5 Pechatnikova St., #33
Yerevan, 375010
AM
Phone- 208.978.3555
Fax- 208.978.3555
Technical Contact:
Web Master admin@segod.com
http://x.segod.com
5 Pechatnikova St., #33
Yerevan, 375010
AM
Phone- 208.978.3555
Fax- 208.978.3555
Record updated on 2001-04-09 03:35:56.
Record created on 2001-04-09.
Record expires on 2002-04-09.
Database last updated on 2001-11-08 17:45:53 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.EEEX.NET 66.51.203.30
NS2.EEEX.NET 66.51.203.31
Whois Server Version 1.3
Domain names in the
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
Domain Name: JADE.ORG
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com
Name Server: DOMAIN-FOR-SALE.MANCY.COM
Name Server: EMAIL-OFFERS.MANCY.COM
Updated Date: 05-nov-2001
>>> Last update of whois database: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 17:01:06 EST
...this is a bigger problem. Check out linuxce.org - I haven't hpyperlinked it as its a porn site. One that seems identical to the one mentioned in thesecurrent posts...
So I don't think this is a one off.
Does anyone remember in the mid-90's when Procter and Gamble bought up every domain vaguely related to any product it sells? This was widely seen as an (early) abuse of the domain name registration process, especially when they grabbed "underarms.com" and (yech) "diarrhea.com". See, for example, these old posts in news.admin.net-abuse.misc.
or did you just want to entertain us with a little porn? You're insignificant radio station is getting a heap of free PR, probably increasing your listeners substantially--stop whining.
PegQuin--I've got a sneakin' suspicion
I reckon it's a conspiracy.
:)
I put it to you that the company who owns this site probably doesn't even exist. They just made up a story for people to cry over about a poor non-profit organisation. The site, and slashdot submission were both created by the porn company, who recognise that being slashdotted by millions of under sexed male geeks who work in companies with male/female ratios of about 10:1 couldn't possibly be a better market to sell their porn services! They are now lauging hard as their cunning plan is working out perfecty for them. Their server can probably barely cope with being slashdotted at the moment...
OK, so I'm joking - but I bet they're loving the publicity right now...
Nick...
Actually, they don't make their money selling porn. They make it selling porn banner ads. All those pop-ups just increase the number of ad impressions and directly generate revenue.
-Eldurbarn
NicGOD Domain Services
19, Bondarenko square
Obninsk, Kaluga 249020
RU
Domain Name: NICGOD.COM
Administrative Contact:
Charles Bukowski admin@elazy.net
DOMAIN FOR SALE - ENTER HERE -
7 Vardanants St., # 32
Yerevan, YR 375010
AM
Phone- (626) 722-1440 ext7719
Fax- (626) 722-1440 ext7719
Technical Contact:
The Administrator el394@elazy.net
eee X Hosting
1052 West Alameda Avenue # 211
Burbank, CA 91506
US
Phone- 213.401.2100x5769
Fax- 213.401.2100x5769
Record updated on 2001-03-18 22:20:49.
Record created on 2001-03-18.
Record expires on 2002-03-18.
Database last updated on 2001-11-09 05:45:55 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS000.NS0.COM 216.92.61.61
NS160.PAIR.COM 209.68.2.5
A while ago I tried to register a (.CA) domain with Register.com. They showed it as available, so I paid my money (March 6/2001) and waited for confirmation in the next few days as instructed. Each day I checked the domain's availability on Register.com (by using their search facility); each day it was listed as "Available". As early as March 6, I filed an inquiry with Support. More than a week later the domain was still showing as available. Perhaps a week and a half later I did a search on a Canadian registrar, which showed the domain as "UNAV". I thought perhaps that was my registration that had become pending. Register.com still showed the domain as available. I inquired with Register.com's customer service who set about investigating.
.CA domains registered completely electronically, or is there a human somewhere in the loop ? What are the procedures for registering a domain dispute ? (I found some body at one point that seemed as if it would govern .CA disputes, and sent them an email, but never received a reply and put the issue to bed until I saw this article).
Then a few days later I found (at the Candian registrar) that it was now registered to another party in British Columbia. But the registration info looked phony...there was a bogus phone # and a bogus zip code. The descriptor fields looked bogus, as if they were trying to make a wan attempt at justifying their existence : they claimed it would be for "imaging purposes" (months later, there is no imaging purpose visible whatsoever).
At this point the WHOIS record had a Date-Approved field of March 20/2001 - 2 weeks after my initial registration . Though the latter refunded my money, I started feeling cheated.
I began wondering whether it was possible that some party in Canada had "hijacked" my registration attempt in transit, determined that a valuable domain was available, and set up a bogus registration complete with contact information and dummied-up purpose in order to claim it.
Is what I am imaging even at all possible ?
Are
This scum also got a hold of my domain, MP3Fiend.com. This was a highly successful Windows MP3 meta-engine a couple years ago, and it was the cornerstone of my business, Eternal Software.
Because of an e-mail problem with Network Solutions, this domain expired before I could reregister it. This guy jumped on it immediatly, and wants $4,500 to get it back! I am looking into this situation with great detail, and I'm sorry to hear other people here have the same problem with this guy.
Your domain got grabbed by the same jerk who knabbed mine when a billing problem led to it expiring. They operate out of Yerevan, Armenia. No idea how hard it would be to go after them. My organization name isn't a registered trademark, so I figure I have no dispute resolution options. Not that I'd pay to resolve this anyway since I make no money from my domain. I did have to spend a fair amount of time getting the word out so links to my site were updated and that still isn't done.
This is good advice. IANAL, but I went the arbitration route for a similar situation. My employer, a public television organization, had a disgruntled employee squatting on the .com matching our .org. (before his nonsense, we registered only ONE domain, but now we have to "protect" something like thirty six of the dratted things!)
Rather than stating a beef or otherwise making USE of the domain, the fool just put up a bad piece of porn (not even GOOD porn!) and an offer to sell the domain for $5,000 (we had twice offered to buy for something reasonable).
At that point, we started getting "what about the children!" calls blaming us for his nonsense. I had to agree that children deserved access to better porn than this guy was providing, or, failing that, access to everyone's favorite purple dinosaur through our legitimate site.
Our Atty sent a cease-and-desist letter, and got no response. I filed the arbitration and won. Wondered briefly about the ethics of taking a domain back from an individual, but it really wasn't as if he was trying to SAY anything, he just wanted to blackmail us into paying through the nose for the domain by trashing our reputation to the uninformed. Had he a clue, he could have won the arbitration by using the domain as a sounding-board for criticism of the organization, or other legitimate use. He just didn't bother to do that. He also didn't bother to challenge the dispute.
For reference, ours was not a registered trademark, if you read the UDRP creatively, there are other ways...
~~~~~~~~
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." -Emerson
d00d--your post got modded down as flamebait:
There's only one possible explanation. The author/trickster is also a moderator!This is a test.
----------------
Oh yeah, fuck you too.
Move Announcer does exactly this for you, automatically. If you have your old web server log files, they'll contact the owners of sites with bad links to your site.