Everything to do with the DNS system is so corrupt and shady. Half the domains dropping in the new GTLD process are "unavailable", "registered", etc. We tried to get an <i>exact</i> trademark for one of our companies in the new GTLD system during the Sunrise phase only to be told by Gandi that the new GTLD owner rejected it. We pushed it pretty hard and had a back and forth with Gandi's CEO who was pretty much on our side but the new GTLD owner (Demand Media) wouldn't budge. We have to sue them if we want it. That's what the privatized DNS system has come to.<p>You know who I feel bad for though? Those people who originally registered big corporate brands .COM in the 90s and had their domains ripped from them. That shit is ICANN endorsed nowadays.
Scenario:<p>A domain is free to register. You register it as per your registrars normal procedure. In some faraway country (say the USA) a bankruptcy court decided that this domain that you just registered was part of the original holdings of the company in bankruptcy.<p>Even though the company (or the receivers) let the registration lapse (presumably because they were not doing too well financially).<p>And so the court will order that domain that you just paid for to be assigned to some third party.<p>That's pretty perverted.<p>If there was an unbroken chain of ownership from the moment the original company registered it to the point where the domain was levied during the bankruptcy proceedings I can see the logic of it, but <i>once the company and/or the receivers let the domain lapse</i> they technically forfeited it and a judge should not cooperate with them to reverse agreements between two other consenting parties (you and the registrar) in order to re-assign that domain to the pile of assets in the bankruptcy, especially not 'ex parte' (so without hearing either you or the registrar as to how you came into possession of that domain).<p>Otherwise from now on there is no such thing as a 'lapsed domain' any more. And in fact, domains would not longer be 'property'. (I don't think they're property to begin with and this case is a nice example of why I think they aren't even though everybody treats them as such.)
Interesting reading the comments, seems DreamTeamFinancial.com went bankrupt and the domains were seized as part of the assets, even though some (many?) had been transferred elsewhere. I would guess you could get an injunction forbidding the domain seller who was liquidating the names from selling them until ownership was more closely established but it does seem like there is an education gap on domains that are "owned" by a company who then doesn't pay to renew them so they simply 'lose' ownership rather than selling them.
I'll be following this case. I don't understand why this would be filed under seal. I'd enjoy some legal experts comments on the matter.
This reminds me a lot of the no-ip.com case. Did anyone ever find out how that was resolved? Apparently Microsoft gave back the domains[1], but did they face any payments for damages or censure?<p>[1] <a href="http://www.noip.com/blog/2014/07/10/microsoft-takedown-details-updates/" rel="nofollow">http://www.noip.com/blog/2014/07/10/microsoft-takedown-detai...</a>
Another incident that tells us we need to move towards something more decentralized. Namecoin is an excellent concept and idea, it's a pity it is not used and supported more widely.
That's a very interesting website. It also features for example analysis of companies and what domains they did/should buy. It really shows how there is really an entire economy over domain names, not just in buying/selling but also other secondary fields like regulation.
While this is obviously a perversion of justice, I'm not shedding many tears over shady domain landgrabbers losing their 'property'. It's unfortunate (and clearly shouldn't have been filed under seal) but the histrionic comments on anigbrowl's link about how this is going to kill the domain squatting 'business' just make me think "good."
Better to submit the original article, per HN guidelines. There's a lot of useful info in the comments: <a href="http://www.thedomains.com/2014/10/02/as-many-as-5k-coms-taken-away-by-sealed-court-order-by-verisign-including-some-of-mine/" rel="nofollow">http://www.thedomains.com/2014/10/02/as-many-as-5k-coms-take...</a>