It’s a routine repeated more often than a ballet pirouette, these days: Unscrupulous cybercriminals from China, using phishing techniques, steal domains – primarily from GoDaddy – and transfer them to Ename, a Chinese domain marketplace and registrar.
Once there, the process of reclaiming these domains is a painful reprisal of a practice that GoDaddy has put in place, spending time and money that could be allocated to other tasks.
In the majority of these domain theft cases, Ename refuses to acknowledge the evidence GoDaddy provides and advises the lawful owners to file a police report.
Eventually, Verisign reviews the situation and orders the gaining registrar to hand over the domain; at times, by executive decision.
In December 2014, we were contacted by domain investor Rahul Jain, whose domain name Kamao.com was stolen from his GoDaddy account and was moved to Ename in China.
Upon introducing Rahul to the right connections, we also advised him to go public with the theft. This approach – being vocal about one’s domain assets that were stolen – seems to be working these days.
More than 90 days passed, and Rahul let us know that the domain is back at GoDaddy, currently in the hands of the Disputes Team.
While the adventure is not over yet, it’s almost certain that Rahul’s $x,xxx domain investment is on its way back to his possession.
There is no doubt that domain security at GoDaddy, and other registrars, requires further improvement.
The process of reclaiming stolen domains is established, and registrars known to make life difficult to domain theft victims should receive some reprimanding from ICANN as well.
The process of claiming really needs to be improved. Good to hear that DomainGang helped Rahul!
Thanks again! Much appreciated! I highly recommend 2 factor authentication on all accounts where possible (email, registrar, paypal etc)