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AOL domain hi-jacking: Part Deux
The accusations of domain-hijacking on the part of AOL, over aolsearch.com continue to fly. In corrospondence with Cybele, she's alerted me to the fact (can anyone confirm?) that her new site is being blocked from anyone within AOL, even going so far as to talk with AOL's tech staff, who didn't know what's going on.
Did a little research and it appears something is certainly amiss with AOLSEARCH.COM
Here's the details that we know:
1. AOLSEARCH.COM appears to have been transferred to AOL
2. NSI was able to send the original Registrant a bill their address must be valid...unless they later moved?
3. AOLSEARCH (AOL SEARCH) is *NOT* registered as a service mark anywhere I'm aware of. NSI's dispute policy only kicks in for domains that match EXACTLY to a registered mark. This is not the case here. Furthermore NSI's policy clearly states that while NSI may cancel a domain registration in the case of a dispute (in this case by court order only), NSI will *NOT* transfer the domain to the other party. The other party, namely AOL, *must* do a NEW registration to obtain the disputed domain.
With the above information I draw the possible conclusions:
1. AOL submitted a bogus RCNA to NSI (or AOL just called and convinced someone) to do the transfer - most likely conclusion
2. AOL initiated NSI's dispute policy - but not sure how AOL could have since the domain does NOT match any mark exactly that I'm aware of
3. AOLSEARCH.COM was voluntarily transferred to AOL for whatever reason
Bottom line is something is certainly amiss and without more details it's difficult to know for sure what happened. However, in my view from the
information I've seen so far it appears that AOL *and* NSI are both at fault and the AOLSEARCH.COM registration should be restored to the original Registrant immediately.
Without a RCNA, NSI is wrong to transfer the domain to AOL unless there's other
details I'm not aware of such as a court order.
Some have mentioned that the supposedly faulty mailing address of the Registrant was grounds for the transfer to AOL. This is pure nonsense!! Mail, etc is irrelevant. Ignore that because the real issue is did NSI receive a valid RCNA from the original registrant?? If not, the domain must be restored since NSI's policy is clear in this regard.
If NSI doesn't correct the registration, then the next logical legal step for the original Registrant would be to get a *subpoena* for the RCNA agreement...if NSI can't produce one, then it's clear that the original Registrant still owns the domain, NOT AOL. Simple!
[originally posted on Usenet and CCed to NSI and the original Registrant - to date neither have responded]