Sex.com Case Finally 'Over'

Spad writes "The Register is reporting that Stephen Michael Cohen has, unsurprisingly, lost his appeal against the $65m in costs awarded to Gary Kremen for defrauding him out of the sex.com domain name almost 6 years ago. However, Cohen is currently a fugitive from justice in Mexico, with his assets in various offshore accounts, making it very difficult for Mr Kremen to claim his money. Kremen is now pursuing a $100m suit against VeriSign for signing over the domain in the first place, which he is expected to win." See our previous story for more background.

Comments

Verisign in big trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

If they do loose this one others will follow. I read recently they let Al Jazerra's domain go to a US citizen using a forged fax.

Re:Verisign in big trouble

[Organic_Info]

"can't be as bad as what it was being used for"

What providing a different point of view?

I watched a BBC documenty about Al Jazerra filmed during the Iraq conflict. While their slant may be towards their regions audience I found them to be quite imapartial. Sure they showed pictures of captured/dead coalition soldiers (God rest their souls) that western audiences found disagreeable - but at the end of the day they showed no censorship in favour of coalition or Iraq sides**.

I'd much prefer to see both sides of the story than be force fed the propagander of a single side - ours or theirs.

**Al Jazerra stopped reporting any Iraq news for a day as the the Iraq government wanted two of their reporters removing for showing coalition progress in to Baghdad - the Iraq government relented and asked Al Jazerra back.

Re:Verisign in big trouble

[Otter]

I watched a BBC documenty about Al Jazerra filmed during the Iraq conflict. While their slant may be towards their regions audience I found them to be quite imapartial.

Not that I'm qualified to express an opinion on this one way or the other but -- how on earth can you determine them to be "quite impartial" on the basis of a BBC documentary about them? Presumably anything from the BBC is utterly objective and impartial?

Incidentally, al-Jazeera's old head was on the payroll of Iraqi intelligence, for what that's worth...

End of the internet?

[Tickenest]

Man, this story just keeps getting funnier. At the end of the article, VeriSign claims in its court filings that if it loses this case and sets a precedent for others who have been defrauded out of their domains, it'll be "the end of the Internet". Anyone wanna set up a Paypal account to collect donations to stave off the end of the Internet?

Re:End of the internet?

[LorneReams]

Yeah, like god forbid they actually do their fucking jobs. Boo hoo, poor VeriSign. Maybe this will teach them to be more diligent in their dealing in the future. That can only HELP the internet, not end it.

Re:End of the internet?

[Dark Paladin]

[tongue_in_cheek]

I think Verisign is suddenly realizing that "Oh - you mean we, as the people who hold onto the domain names, actually have a responsibility to protect our clients against fraud? I mean - what's up with that? Do you go after a bank if somebody writes a whole lot of checks in your name and only offers them a social security card as ID but no picture identification?

"What? You do? Well, that's just UnAmerican - if businesses are held up to a standard of laws - what? They usually are? Well, shit on me! Who knew!

"Obviously, this means the end of the Internet, then. Who ever took responsibility for what happened on the Internet?"
[/tongue_in_cheek]

Domain names

[nepheles]

This goes to show just how messed-up the current domain-ownership system is. For property, there is a tightly-controlled system of deeds, and clearly defined ownership. It is almost impossible to acquire ownership of land without the consent of the owner. This is how it should be

Many domains, however, are more valuable than land. And there are far too many cases such as this with disputed ownership and other such claims. A rethink of the system is necessary. It does nobody any good for people such as this to be able to abuse the system.

Re:Domain names

[swillden]

For property, there is a tightly-controlled system of deeds, and clearly defined ownership. It is almost impossible to acquire ownership of land without the consent of the owner.

This is not true.

There are any number of ways that the ownership of land can end up in dispute; my father-in-law tried to buy a house a few years ago and ended up just losing the entire purchase amount, and not getting the house, because it turned out that the seller didn't have a clear title. During a refinance of my house last year (which I have "owned" for over 10 years now) it was suddenly discovered that a creditor of the former owner had a $30,000 lien on it! And, actually, residential real estate is the *least* likely to have problems. Commercial property is often stickier, and unimproved land can be really bad.

The reason you can buy a house or other real estate with some degree of confidence isn't because the state does such an amazingly good job with managing the deeds, it's because when you buy a house you pay $300 to a "title insurance company". The first time I bought a house, I thought "Man, what a way to print money... $300 bucks and all they have to do for it is go to the county courthouse and look up the title."

In fact, when you pay the title insurance company you're buying an insurance policy: they're committing to defend your title and ensure that you either (a) keep the land or (b) get your money back, even if (b) means they have to cough it up. Where my father-in-law went wrong was that he chose not to use a title company (his choice, since he was paying cash), and that's also why commercial and unimproved real estate also often go wrong.

How should this translate into the domain name space? That's hard to say. The title company has an advantage when deciding on the price of your premium -- they have a pretty good idea of how much the house is worth, and while that value may double in a decade it won't grow by a factor of a million. In the case of domain names, most of them are pretty much worthless, but some of them end up being really valuable, and they're all treated the same. Maybe that's what's needed: the domain name equivalent of a property value assessor, so that the equivalent of a title company can provide insurance with a reasonable premium.

If not property right, then what?

[cybaea]

The core of Verisign's defence seems to be that domain names are not property rights. From the BBC article on the same ruling:

Forcing Verisign to accept blame for transferring the domain name in the first place could prove equally difficult.

Verisign maintains that domain names are not legal property and as such it cannot be held accountable for giving it away.

If it loses, as legal experts expect, Verisign would face a huge legal bill and fines of up to £100m.

Two questions: what excatly am I buying when I buy a domain name from Verisign and why do "legal experts" think they'll loose that battle -- presumably they have an extensive user agreement that clears them of responsibility for all and any wrongdoings?

Confused.

Re:ffs its just a domain !

[foofboy]

The big deal is, to quote the article
"[sex.com] is worth $500,000 a month just in advertising space"

In other words...

[seanmeister]

... he lost his sex appeal.

ba-dum-bum. :-|

Re:Bounty?

[Nick of NSTime]

I've been in gunfights with Mexican police over a $4 bottle of tequila.

Better Title

[FutureShoks]

"Sex.com case finally reaches climax" would have been a much better title for this story.