On Domain Ownership and Registrar Responsibility

MasterK asks "I am wondering if anyone out there has found themselves to a situation similar to mine? Last month I went to a Web site I frequent and it was gone. Upon looking into it for a whole day I discovered that the domain was available from Network Solutions. I figured they had gone out of business or something so I bought it. That was Monday. On Friday I finally get a call from someone at the company that USED to own the domain accusing me of stealing it, not "a mistake was made can we have our domain back". Just accusations right off the bat. Well, the last thing I wanted was a legal battle, I'm not a domain squatter, but I didn't do anything wrong and I am out $70 plus setting up DNS and so forth. Oh and for the record I could not find any record of them trademarking the name (so I am). Just wondering if anyone has any advice, legal or otherwise." (Read on...)

As far as I can see this guy at least deserves a refund of the $70 he spent in good faith registering his domain. Network Solutions made the mistake (as usual) why don't they take steps to fix it without screwing people over? Is there anything a dissatisfied Network Solution's customer can do to force them? Again, I think it's high time folks looked into alternative registrars since it seems Network Solutions is rapidly losing what limited respect it had among the Internet Community.

Comments?

Keep It

[djweis]

If they are going to be accusative, keep it.

What respect?

[Hackboy]

Again, I think it's high time folks looked into alternative registrars since it seems Network Solutions is rapidly losing what limited respect it had among the Internet Community.

They've always been a bunch of bozos. Their service is actually greatly improved over what it was five years ago. Remember when they started "automating" their handling of domain registration/change forms? What a mess!

A friend used to say, "I'd rather be lucky than good" when talking about this business. Ain't that the truth?

You should

[dragonfly_blue]

You should go ahead and point the domain to something funny and totally disgusting (I'm sure you can think of something.) Maybe after it's "tainted" they won't want it back quite as bad.

OK, so revenge is sweet (and juvenile). Seriously, though, was it Network Solutions who called you, or one of the staff of the web site? If its the web site owner, I'd ask them why they would let the domain fee go unpaid, and thus expire, if they really wanted to keep it.

I'd also tell them that, in the real world, with grown-ups and stuff, that if they don't pay their mortgage, for instance, that the bank then looks for other people who may be interested in owning a home. They even have a special word for it, called foreclosure. Neat, huh?

You didn't do anything wrong, the domain owners were just negligent in renewing their domain. You might be something of an opportunist, perhaps, but what you did was legal, as far as I know.

Anyways, good luck. Hopefully people will learn about maintaining their domains at some point.

Bury them in lawyers

[unitron]

If the original site owners screwed up, sue 'em for emotional distress and all that good stuff for being so nasty to you.
If NSI screwed up, you and the original site owners should both sue them for everything your lawyers can dream up.
Then you should sue the original site owners for being so nasty to you.
After all, what if their site had been bought by someone actively looking to hurt them instead of a kind soul such as yourself?

Hey...

[randombit]

if they want to be jerks about it, fsck 'em. The fact seems to be that they did not pay the the fee. Therefore the domain was fair game for whoever wanted it. I think that if they had called you up, asked nicely, and offered to pay you back the $70, the polite thing to would be to give it back to them (but they didn't).

If it's not trademarked, you are, AFAIK, well within your rights to register the domain, as long as you can show that you aren't squatting. Probably putting up some sort of webpage (just a quick thing describing what you're planning on doing with the site) would be a good defense against squatting claims.

Grace Period???

[Bryan Andersen]

Something needs to be done about expired domain name handling. Something like a grace period needs to be instituted. It would start after the domain is stopped being served by the root name servers. Durring the grace period only the owner could reregister it. This isn't the first time I've heard of a domain expiring and being grabbed by another before the original owner could reregister it. As for how long the grace period should be? I'm leaning twards 1 month + 1 month per year it was held up to a maximum of 6 months or 1 year.

Re:Grace Period???

[lomion]

they do give you a grace period, they don't shutdown the domain immediately, usually you get at least 2 weeks after the multiple invoices they will send you both via email adn snailmail. Forgetting to re-reg a poor excuse for letting your domain slip away.

Trademarks

[BoLean]

Though they haven't registerd the Trademark they still own the Trademark. Registering a Trademark only means that you have more Federally protected rights. That said, you have to only consider if you registered the mark in good faith. Since you were aware that the domain had a recent owner you shoud have been prepared for that phonecall.