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NEWS STORY
The Real Price of Sex.com
The battle over Sex.com is a rare glimpse into just how much money is changing hands in the underground Web economy. It is confirmation that pornography is the dominant force on the Web, even after a good five years of legitimate e-commerce growth.
Sex.com: Judge Orders $65 Million Payment
by Afternic.com on 4/4/01 at 09:55 AM EST
Click for full story: The Real Price of Sex.com
A U.S. district judge ordered the
defendant in the Sex.com suit--an adult entertainment executive--to pay
the legal owner of the Web site $65 million dollars, the largest liability
ruling ever in a dispute over an Internet domain name.


Who cares.!!!!!
mrdots 4/4/01 08:47 PM EST

Afternic seems very busy looking for new NicNews...it's better to work harder in solving your member's problems and needs....Make sure your DNescrow: The only safe way to buy and sell domains??? not just advertising for it. Otherwise most of your members will look somewhere else to sell & buy domains. We all domainaholics used to love this site.....this love is vanishing..............................

I agree
dotty 4/5/01 03:33 AM EST

Afternic should be explaining why most of the recent high profiles names auctioned here turned out to be stolen, and how they will prevent this from happening in the future.

Curious
mbanner 4/5/01 11:37 AM EST

I'm curious as to whether these experiences are first hand or scuttlebutt? I have had a few sales/purchases and cannot give anything but glowing reviews for Afternics quality services.

Stolen???
MBADBOY777 4/7/01 04:11 PM EST

Hi there, im new in this Biz, could you explain me how anyone can steal a Domain -Name from a Seller?

A Thief In The Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
addideas1 4/7/01 05:58 PM EST

Greetings MBADBOY777,

There is no simple explanation for the current "hijacking" of Domain Names. The most famous case involving a stolen Domain Name was the circumstances surrounding Sex.com whereby the original owner lost the Domain to someone that forged the necessary paperwork to Network Solutions authorizing the change of ownership. This case took close to five (5) years to get sorted out. Sometimes a "hacker" can go in and "fool" the Registry office into thinking that they are the person authorized to "Modify" the Domain Name. This can be accomplished if the admin e-mail address line on their Domain record could be tampered with. Example, lets say your admin e-mail address line reads something like this,

[email protected]

Lets say that someone decided to Modify your Domain Name Record and submitted the proper request to read like this,

[email protected]

In the second instance, I have substituted the O in billionaire with the number 0 and it may fool the system. The same thing with the letter l and the number 1, although this one is a little more obvious and not as common. You know the old saying, "Where there is a will, there is a way."

It is our responsibility as Domain Holders and Internet users to protect ourselves in the best way possible as this is only one of a number of plausible situations that may arise. Hope that helps you understand a little better. If you require additional information or would like to know a few tricks that will help you protect your investment a little better, just let me know as I am always happy to share.

BTW: Curious about the "Day Trading" thing as I play around on the markets a little myself. Not quite brave enough to Day Trade however.

Warmest Regards and Thanks for Posting.

Yours For Success,

Darren Ott
Chief Financial Officer
Add Ideas/Adgrafix
Phone/Fax: (403) 259-3318
Cellular: (403) 863-0515
http://www.AddIdeas.com
http://www.AddIdeas.Adgrafix.com
http://www.ApplicationServiceProvider.ca
E-Mail: mailto:[email protected]
Office Firetalk #1895262
ICQ - Laptop #87254930
ICQ - Office #44490935
****************************************************************
$15.00 DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION
Visit http://www.AddIdeas.Adgrafix.com

I HAVE A BITTER EXPERIENCE.......
ravi4321 4/16/01 07:52 PM EST

I AM ONE OF THOSE VERY ARDENT ADMIRERS OF "AFTERNIC".THANKS TO
AFTERNIC'S INDIFFERENCE I SPENT TWO VERY DISTURBED DAYS. I AM THE REGISTERED OWNER OF "ANSWERFORCANCER.COM" AND I WAS SHOCKED TO SEE SOMEONE ELSE SELLING THIS ON AFTERNICI.I HAD TO SPEND THE WHOLE OF SUNDAY(04/15/01) EMAILING MY REGISTRAR
"GODADDY.COM" TO CONFIRM THE OWNERSHIP. I GOT REPLIES FROM BOTH "GODADDY.COM" AS WELL AS "REGISTER.COM". BUT NOT A WORD FROM AFTERNIC. INFACT THREE OF MY EMAILS TO AFTERNIC
WERE RETURNED UNDELIVERABLE. UNTIL NOW(MONDAY 04/16/01 7.40PM
NY TIME) I HAVE NO REPLY FROM AFTERNIC. I CANNOT EVEN PLACE
THIS DOMAIN NAME FOR AUCTION ON AFTERNIC AS THE REGISTERED
RIGHTFUL OWNER 'CAUSE THE SYSTEM REJECTS IT.IS THIS NOT SHOCKING. IF THERE IS ANYTHING THAT AFTERNIC HAS TO SAY IT SHOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN TWO LONG DAYS. THEY DINT UNDERSTAND THE GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION AND I AM APPALED. THE ONLY WAY TO ASSERT MY OWNERSHIP OF THE NAME NOW IS TO PLACE THIS DOMAIN NAME ON OTHER SITES. EVEN REGISTER.COM'S 'WHOIS" DATA BASE
CONFIRMS ME AS THE REGISTERED OWNER. I INVITE YOUR COMMENTS.

RAVI4321

answerforcancer.com
DawnRaider 4/17/01 05:34 AM EST

I would not get too worried too quickly. There are no bids on
answerforcancer.com, and the starting price ($25,000), not to mention the asking price ($500,000) is so extreme, there are unlikely to be any bids.

Furthermore, even if there were bids, and even if the asking price was reached, or the seller accepted an offer below $500,000, it would be very difficult for the domain to be transferred, especially since you are watching it.

http://www.afternic.com/~ANSWERFORCANCER.COM

answerforcancer.com

Minimum Offer:$25,000

Status: make offer

Last Offer:none

Description

Great name for a pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or research company. Given the genome research that has occurred over the last few years, there will be a major breakthrough in the area of cancer research in the near future. This domain name could provide

Seller:jpestano

Category: Health : Diseases

Asking Price:$500,000

Offers:0

If you look at the record for jpestano, it shows the member came and went on one day. Became a member, listed the domain on auction, appraised it once, and departed, never to return:

jpestano Member Since Sep 06, 2000

Last Visited Sep 06, 2000 11:14 PM EST

Member Status

jpestano has only one domain, answerforcancer.com, on auction.

The name including the word 'pest' and the quick entrance and departure suggest the person is playing a game.

Now the whois database shows the registrant of answerforcancer.com is a ravindra, but the domain listing was created less than a week ago.

Registrar: Go Daddy Software (http://registrar.godaddy.com)

Domain Name: answerforcancer.com

Created on: 11-Apr-01
Expires on: 11-Apr-02

Is this the first time you registered the domain? Or did you transfer it to a new registrar?

I myself just wrote to Afternic to ask them to remove a domain which another member has on auction, even though I am the registrant according to the whois database (I asked them to check it).

In this situation, it appears not as if there were any bad intentions, but, rather, the domain expired. When a domain expiry takes place, and it is released, usually the registrant is not aware of the exact time and day.

So you are going to see this happen a lot at Afternic, where expired domains are registered by another person, and they want them on auction, ready to sell.

On the other side of the coin, I have started to delist domains which were on auction at Afternic, which I let expire, several of which I discovered yesterday have been registered by other people, including one in Hawaii, one in Spain, and one in Hong Kong.

Now another situation that also arises, is where resellers list domains for auction which nobody has registered. They must think they can save money, and wait until there is a bid, and at that time, register the domain, then sell it within days or a week or two.

I have seen this happen, and I bothered to check the whois database, realized the domains were still free, and I took them for myself.

This happened twice to me and I understand the same thing happens to others. It is a violation of Afternic Membership because it stipulates each seller must confirm (checkbox) they registered the domain that is going on auction.

Then the people who broke the rules have the gall to whine and say it was "sleazy" of the person to register a domain which they put in their portfolio without registering it. LoL. Too funny.

I have also appraised domains that were up for appraisal, but not on auction, and checked the whois database, to find they were not registered, and dropped hints, and then they were registered.

Doing that is not a violation of Afternic policy, it is only risky. Presumably the idea is to see if a domain idea is as good as they thought in the minds of other members before registration.

Dawn Raider

"It's dawn; it's time to raid!"

This happened to me as well.
domaingenius 4/21/01 05:40 PM EST

I have gotten emails saying someone was posting my name for sale. After a couple of phone calls and emails I was able to straighten everything out but it was a little confusing how this could happen.

$65 million?
audrius 4/11/01 09:38 AM EST

How can someone a domain hijacker pay such a large amount
of money as a fine? Isn't that the same bull as when someone
who commits crime has to serve 10 life sentences? A criminal who might get lucky to get a job for $15,000 a year and if he is 20 years old, the most he will make in his lifetime will be $1 million less living expenses.... Isn't that sueing thing (as well as super high doctors and lawyers salaries) going out of control? Unrealistic, same if I asked you to visit "my" web page at http://www.usdoj.gov

You commit the crime, you do the time!
mbanner 4/11/01 10:31 AM EST

It's easy to see how the fine could be so large (I think it should be more). The domain, sex.com attracts as many as 25 million people per day! Yahoo.com attracts only 1/8th of the audience and look at their revenues. The man who stole the name bragged how 10 million people were paying his company $25/mo to be members of his sleezy site. You do the math! His offshore company felt it had enough money to make an unsolicited bid for the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas! The guy's a thief. He was caught red handed. Lastly, this is an important case because it sets a precedence in domain name disputes, by saying that domain names are an asset (that had never been established by law) and they have value. The market knew this, but the courts didn't, until now. Three cheers for justice!

I agree!!!
ib4s 4/12/01 01:29 AM EST

Ass,Grass or domains nobody rides for free... they should not only fine the bastard they should sentence for jail time for the theft.





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