Maybe the FBI should be looking into this.
We’ve seen a lot of stupid activity in domain investing circles, but this one has to beat every single one of them.
An anonymous domain hijacker wannabe, is seeking legal advice on whether he’d be in trouble if he were to proceed with a common domain hijacking activity:
“If an internet domain “example.com” has its registration information set to an email at “example2.com” and I purchase “example2.com” and then transfer “example.com” to my control, would I be breaking the law? Criminal or civil, I mean.”
Wow.
This is a classic method that cybercriminals utilize to steal domain names, by registering the controlling email addresses of expired domains. The “orphaned” domain is thus vulnerable to thieves.
But to seek advice from a lawyer over this? Simply amazing.
One of the board’s lawyers sought further details, naturally, asking:
“Hello, Do you own example.com? Or are you seeking to take over example.com by purchasing example2.com as well?”
There was no further communication on the subject, in public.
We’d be curious to know which domain this domain hijacker wannabe was attempting to steal in order to facilitate domain crime.
I have actually been curious about this for a while – not with malicious purpose. Lets say I purchase a domain, perhaps at the drop, and the domain is used to register several other domains. Do I have any claim on those? If not, who does? I have actually setup a catchall email and started getting inquiries on other related domains. Am i obligated to respond?
Robert – Whoever is the registrant of the domains, owns them. Attempting to get them before they expire amounts to theft.
I’m not even sure why someone would need to ask that. It’s like saying if someone leaves the keys to a car out then you can take the car from them.
Naïve, yeah. But better to ask if X is a crime … and find out IT IS … than to go right ahead and commit it.