Register.com Loses Class action Lawsuit

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Register.com Loses Class action Lawsuit

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 9, 2003 @11:21PM from the and-nelson-laughs dept.

Anonymous Blowhard writes "I found out today I am a member of a class that just beat register.com in New York Supreme Court!! The suit was filed by Michael Zurakov because register.com pointed his newly registered domain(s) to 'coming soon' web pages. Mr. Zurakov receives $12,500 for the harm caused by register.com while members of the class can look forward to a settlement of $5 off their next domain renewals. Register.com will also pay 'reasonable Class Counsel attorneys' fees and costs in an amount not to exceed $642,500.00, subject to Court approval.' If you want to exclude yourself from the class, giving up any settlement and not being bound by its terms, you have to opt-out."

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I won this class action lawsuit... by Jonny+Royale · 2003-09-09 23:24 · Score: 5, Funny

...and all I got was a $5 off coupon.

$650,000 in court fees, huh? Guess we know who the lawyers were fighting for.
phew, finally.... by andih8u · 2003-09-09 23:28 · Score: 5, Funny

Now I can sue apache for that horrible advertising page that informs me I've successfully installed the apache server and welcomes me to my new home in cyberspace.

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Lawyer Spam! by NoSuchGuy · 2003-09-09 23:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

You have to opt out to exclude yourself from a class action suit? - What a world!

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This was a stupid lawsuit. by CrazyJoel · 2003-09-09 23:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

Just stupid. I've got several sites registered on register.com. I don't see what is so offensive about having a Coming Soon page until it switches to your DNS. That's like 2 days?

What an idiot!

Now, he's costing them $600,000. Which ain't pocket change. I hope they can handle it. They've done pretty good. Customer service is okay. A little slow, but they answer their phones.

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1. Re:This was a stupid lawsuit. by delcielo · 2003-09-09 23:53 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Agreed. I opted out and sent an e-mail to the plaintiff's lawyers protesting.
  
  This is the sort of litigious bull**** that we could do without. If the guy didn't know better than to submit his domain without name servers, or didn't know that these things don't get organized immediately, then he should sue whoever told him how to set up a website. Or better yet, he should just chock it up to learning the new forms of business in the internet age.
  
  And class action my butt. It implies that he was doing this for all those people who were wronged by the defendant. If there were serious damages done, we'd have heard more about it from the enraged masses, and the settlement would have been something real or substantial. This was just a way to "lawyer up."
  
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2. Re:This was a stupid lawsuit. by Black+Perl · 2003-09-10 00:15 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  That was terrible! Ads on the page, pop-under ads, and pop-away ads (which pop up when you leave the site). I'm feeling a little less sympathy for Register.com now.
  
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  bp
3. Re:This was a stupid lawsuit. by dnoyeb · 2003-09-10 00:30 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  First of all, the blatant advertising on YOUR domain is wrong, then the sorry ass nature of it with the tons of popups and such is distasteful.
  
  Second, for that "coming soon" page to show up, they MUST have propagated an IP address into the DNS servers. This suggests they could have just as easily propagated YOUR IP address instead of theirs. Which gives them incentive to delay your processing.
  
  Thrid, if they received ANY revenue off the advertising on your domain, aren't you entitled?
4. Re:This was a stupid lawsuit. by __aavonx8281 · 2003-09-10 00:41 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Its not stupid at all. Basically the guy paid for a domain name. Register.com put up a 'coming soon' page with their own advertising on it and didn't pay the guy for it. Register.com had no right to the domain name, before or after the sale. They can put up a nice page so you don't get a 404, but they shouldn't have been able to advertise on the page, even if its only for 24 hours, without the owner's consent. That was their own fault and they deserve to get sued for trying to get free advertising. How hard would it have been to put in some fine print on their site when you buy a domain letting you know you're going to have an advertisement page on your domain while you wait for DNS?
5. Re:This was a stupid lawsuit. by JeffSh · 2003-09-10 00:49 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  "Thrid, if they received ANY revenue off the advertising on your domain, aren't you entitled?
  "
  
  Maybe you already received this amount in the form of discounted registration prices.
  
  i myself use godaddy, though. http://www.godaddy.com
Sigh by gclef · 2003-09-09 23:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

He didn't win. It was a settlement. Register decided to settle, rather than fight this stupid lawsuit. Note: the lawyer made more money than anyone else in this stupid little charade.

Is it obvious that I'm not exactly impressed with this? Register initially pointed his domain to a "coming soon" page when he registered his domain, and they should have put that they would do this in their contract, fair enough. Is that worthy of a lawsuit? Hell no. Is that worthy of hundreds of thousands of dollars in "damages"? Hell no.
Re:Harm? by sirius_bbr · 2003-09-09 23:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

What exactly is the harm in a coming soon website?

I think the harm is that register.com can use these coming-soon-websites to get advertising revenue by putting adds on 'property' (the domain) they don't own.

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"NY Supreme Court" can be misleading by restive · 2003-09-09 23:36 · Score: 4, Informative

NY is different than most states because the title of their trial court is the "Supreme Court", which is what most people think is the title for the highest court in the state.
Won the law suit? by eadz · 2003-09-09 23:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

You get $5
Lawyer gets : $642,500 ... so who really won?
$5 and waive all rights, or keep the rights? by bo0ork · 2003-09-09 23:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

Seems to me it would be a no-brainer to opt out of a $5 class settlement. Why waive all future claims against a measly $5??

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Re:damages? by nacturation · 2003-09-09 23:44 · Score: 4, Interesting

$12.5K for that? How was he harmed? He had tools to point it elsewhere.

Technically, the $12.5K is for his services in representing the class. Otherwise, he likely would only get $5 as well. Still, what a completely frivolous lawsuit. It doesn't say in the article, but did he at least try to negotiate up-front first before wasting over half a million dollars in legal expenses?

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Sue the Lawyers! by Azghoul · 2003-09-09 23:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

I mean, come on now. I read a post a while back here from some guy defending lawyers... and it made some sense. But then you get this kind of nonsense, which is quite obviously a frivolous lawsuit -- and noone really gets anything but the damn lawyers involved...

And the lawyers wonder why we want the vast majority of them boiled in oil?

Oooohhhh Ahhhhhh my domain name pointed to a shitty "coming soon" page for two days!! The humanity!! I want to go bitch slap that guy.
In other news... by nacturation · 2003-09-09 23:46 · Score: 4, Funny

...and all I got was a $5 off coupon.

Register.com today announced their fees are increasing by $5 for new domain registrations and renewals.

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Object to the Attorney's Fees by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-09 23:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

This case was just a shakedown. To prevent it from happening again, members of the class can object to the attorney's fees awarded in the settlement.

See Sec. VII (C) of the linked document for reference.

RDC actually sends me coupons for more than $5 to entice me to keep using their service. This is pretty much the same thing. So they're effectively paying me nothing, paying the plaintiff $12.5K and paying the lawyers $650K.

I Object!
Re:i really don't mean to be anti-us by ratpack91 · 2003-09-09 23:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

I know exactly what you mean but your example doesn't hold very well because I remember a few years ago loads of people were suing Manchester council for ... tripping over the pavement and 'breaking' their ankles. The trouble with America is that (bastard) lawyers come along and tell people they could make loadsa money if they sue company x for something that happened to them even if they hadn't thought about it seriously before.
The Cost by Techen · 2003-09-09 23:48 · Score: 5, Informative

I used to work for Register.com. They sell domains to people that have less computer knowledge then your average AOL user. Once people have a clue about domains they tend to shift to other Registrars. Register.com domains are costly because of the support given. Guys that don't even realize what a domain is or how it is used tend to be the client base for RCOM. As for the issue with the coming soon page I think the fella was doing a money grab.
Re:Are we missing something here? by spydir31 · 2003-09-10 00:15 · Score: 4, Informative

You might as well link the law.com article
Re:Object to the Attorney's Fees - Mod Up by koancomputers · 2003-09-10 00:16 · Score: 4, Informative

That's what I'll be doing - here's the linked section:

C. IF YOU WANT TO OBJECT TO THE SETTLEMENT, BUT STILL BE A PART OF THE SETTLEMENT CLASS.
If you do not request exclusion from the Settlement Class, you may object to any aspect of the proposed Settlement, including the fairness of the settlement, the attorneys' fees and costs or the adequacy of Plaintiff or Class Counsel or Notice, by filing and serving a written objection. Your written objection must state the case name and number ((Zurakov v. Register.com, Case No. 01-600703), the grounds for your objection and your full name and address, and your objection must be filed with the Clerk of the Court, 60 Centre Street, New York, NY, 10007 with a copy to Counsel. SUCH OBJECTIONS MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN OCTOBER 14, 2003. If you mail an objection to the Settlement, then you bear the risk of any problems with the mails. Such objections will be considered at the Settlement Hearing (see section VIII below), at which you may appear if you wish.
Re:Coming Soon page is common for new domains? by dnoyeb · 2003-09-10 00:25 · Score: 4, Informative

Register.com is not an ISP, but a registration service. This means they did not simply have pages loaded by default on his new server, which lots of ISPs do. They redirected the domain name to a different IP address than he intended. That domain name should have come up as "404-No Such Domain."
Law.com article about it: by EnglishTim · 2003-09-10 00:29 · Score: 4, Informative

There's a small article at law.com about it:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=105102823902 6

Apparently he was unable to change it to direct it to his website for several months after registering it.

I suspect that register.com may have shot themselves in the foot by claiming that the contract did not explicitly give Mr Zurakov
exclusive control over the site. The judge did not agree, saying that if if it wasn't explicit in the contract 'to register' a site should give you more than just a listing in whois.

Register.com should have just admitted that something went wrong with their DNS assignment system and settled out of court. They probably could have gotten away with $5000 or so.