It doesn’t get any better than this – if you’re looking for an example of adding insult to pain, that is.
A domain owner whose domains were reported stolen from GoDaddy and transferred to the Chinese domain registrar, Ename, received the following shocking response from Ename support:
Thank you for contacting eName service.
The domains: RYLN.COM, BMRD.COM, RDBY.COM, LLCY.COM have transacted to other registrants after transferring to eName. Now we have contacted the current registrants and temporarily lock the domains. The auction has been stopped.
We are still contacting the transaction related customers. But the domains have been transacted and the sellers’ money have been spent. If we were to transfer the domains back to you, will you refund the expenses of the related customers?
Let’s analyze this for a second.
So the four stolen domains were auctioned off on Ename, a Chinese company that combines the services of a domain registrar with that of an auction marketplace.
Ename locked the domains in the accounts of the buyers, but wants the complainant – their legitimate owner – to pay the money spent by the buyers on those stolen domains, if he wants to get them back.
Let’s emphasize this a tiny bit: Ename wants the victim of the theft, to pay money, in order to get his stolen domain names back.
In a recent Tweet, intellectual property attorney, John Berryhill, stated:
“Has anyone attempted a total count of short domain names stolen and then fenced through Ename?”
In our opinion, ICANN should intervene as soon as possible, to resolve this potential conflict of interest, and apparent registrar deficiency.
