Legal Question in Technology Law in Texas

Cyberpiracy

If someone purchases a domain name especially a .us domain name and the company they purchased it from is no longer in business what can someone do. The parent company does not seem to respond other than tell you to go to some website that handles disputes and yet they want you to pay for that service.

Jim Smith purchased the domain www.jimmysmith.us and had it linked to website built and it quit working. He went to officialusdomains.com, that he bought the domain from and their website is gone. He emailed and no reply. He called and no answer. He contacted Neustar that is parent company of the .us domains and they told him that he would have to go to dispute website and pay for services to handle dispute.

If you go network soluations and run whois search, the domains does not exist and if you go to register.com and do same it shows he owns it. He wanted to transfer it and no one can transfer .us domains.

Is this not cyber fraud or theft of services??

Or is he expected to be just out of the money and domain?


Asked on 3/22/03, 7:03 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys
Bruce Burdick Burdick Law Firm

Re: Cyberpiracy

I suggest you go to a different registrar to handle the www.jimmmysmith.us domain. It appears your chosen registrar is not doing its job. You mentioned www.register.com which is a large registrar. I often use www.namesecure.com, a smaller registrar that perhaps gives better value. If you want one that combines hosting and domain registration, you might try www.freewebs.com which I like for .com hosting of small sites, although I don't know if they do .us domains. Once you switch registrars, you can transfer the domain using the new registrar.

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Answered on 3/22/03, 8:09 pm

Re: Cyberpiracy

First, get your domain transferred to a new domain

Bruce is right, go to a different registrar to handle the domain transfer of www.jimmmysmith.us.

I use www.dreamworxhosting.com for dealing with domains, a good hosting company is worth their weight in gold for making this look easy.

You may also look into asking for a refund for not receiving what you bargained for according to your agreement.

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Answered on 3/22/03, 9:51 pm


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