iEstates.com

The onslaught of domain spammers emailing solicitations to acquire domain names that are dropping or pitching domains for sale seems to have increased dramatically over the last month.  Seeing that there is no rest for the wicked, I woke to find these devious elves had filled my Christmas morning in-box full of left-over fruit-cake domains (see image for examples).

The domain spamming appears to be increasing as new drop-catching services, email out domain names that may have some correlation to a domain name that the recipient of the email owns.  Companies like Intrust Domains have been soliciting people to “express interest” in a domain that Intrust then attempts to acquire.  I’m sure that anyone with a portfolio of even a handful of names has likely seen an email from one of these companies.  Clearly these spams have worked a reasonable rate of success or there wouldn’t be an increasing number of companies doing the same thing.

The sender of these emails tend to either be

Domain Opportunity which includes the address :
Backorder Division
200 E Colfax Ave # 100
Denver, CO 80203

Domain Inquiry
Marketing Development Team
111 N Canal St Suite 1890
Chicago, IL 60606

Domain Alert
The Domain Team
25 First Street, 2nd Floor
Cambridge MA 02141

Available Domain
The Domain Team
25 First Street, 2nd Floor
Cambridge MA 02141

I suspect that these are all the same group. Each email is formatted similarly and contains an opt-out at the bottom. Additionally all 3 senders above uses a link to an obscure domain name. For example http://cellsearches.com/4215015mepafu-KLY , which at the time of this writing and in all cases links to NameBind.com

Another increasing form of domain spamming comes in the form of “new” sales letters. In a similar fashion to the expiring domain spam, these “marketers” tend to email domains that they have in some way deemed related to a domain you may own, at least that’s the story I’ve been given.

As an example, in the last 5 days I’ve received over a dozen an emails about “High SEO” domains such as thehaj.org, lacieheart.com, golfstandbags.com, smallbusinessservices.net and zipbags.com from “Robert Parker” robertparker.tm@gmail.com or “ADAM SMITH” adamsmith.tm@gmail.com, Michael Thomas thomasmichael.tm@gmail.com and ”George Hunt” georgehunt.dn@gmail.com, who happen to have the same phone number : +91.939.277.4412

When I emailed and asked where they got my email address, they informed me “My email program found your email address from the whois data of similar domains.”   There’s no telling what “similar” domains means.

I’m all in favor of receiving an email about a domain opportunity that I might be interested in and I’ve been inclined to send out the occasional email about a domain I’m selling.  I’d like to think that these emails would be highly targeted to the recipient and may even be coming from tools like Estibot’s lead generation tool, but the recent ones I’ve been flooded with seem far too obscure and untargetted to be sourced via this tool.

This new breed of “domainer” seems to pay no mind to who they are emailing or why. The pitches are canned and automated at best, some containing the mistakes of non-native English speakers. Rather than sending out a targeted message, it seems domain spammers, like those spamming prescription medicine offerings, find it much easier to flood every possible in-box with their ridiculous pitches.  I suspect that much of the email harvesting that these spammers do comes from checking the new whois information of sold domains harvested via DNJournal.com or Namebio.com.

All signs indicate that there’ll be an increase in these emails in the coming year. Unfortunately, the results of this will likely also increase the number of domains bought under privacy as well as the number of domain sales that go unreported.

What do you think about this issue?

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (1)

---

Advertisement
DomainTools is giving away a free Reverse Whois Report for up to $99 to a winner in a giveaway they launched recently. In order to enter, visit their site to send an email to Santa before January 2nd, 2011.

Do Facebook and Twitter need a UDRP?

As reported by Tech:Blorge today, German pharmaceutical giant Merck is suing Facebook in a New York Court (reported by WSJ) to demand details as to why Facebook will not allow them to use the “facebook.com/merck” username for their Facebook page.

According to Tech:Blorge, “The German firm came first, while the US firm was created using American assets surrendered by the German firm during the first world war. To minimize confusion and to avoid trademark disputes, the German firm is known as EMD Chemicals in North America, while the US firm is known as Merck Sharp & Dohme outside of North America.”

The German company says it cut a deal with Facebook last year allowing them exclusive rights to the address but has failed to follow through (BBC).

What do you think, do we need UDRP-like rules for social media URLs?

[via Tech:Blorge]

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (5)

---

Advertisement
Tap into the most comprehensive Whois database
on the planet: Discover the details of a domain’s current ownership,
learn a domain’s pedigree and find all the domains ever owned by a
specific company or individual by accessing historical information from DomainTools.com.

As reported by Home Media Magazine, NCR has filed a motion that the BlockbusterExpress.com domain name is not to be included in litigation with Dish Network, the new owner of the Blockbuster brand as part of the Chapter 11 proceedings.

On March 2, 2009, NCR and Blockbuster signed a license agreement regarding the domain right to the Blockbuster name for a nascent kiosk business venture. After Dish acquired Blockbuster stores and related brand rights from bankrupt Blockbuster Inc., it has sought to terminate the (“executory”) license agreement with NCR Corp.

[...]

“As of the petition date in these chapter 11 cases, the domain assignment was not an executory contract, and hence cannot be assumed or rejected under the bankruptcy code,” NCR wrote in the motion.

Apparently Facebook has not only continued their practice of filing disputes for domains names it saw infringing on its trademarks but now also has changed gears and filed a suit on July 22nd against more than 100 parties claiming Cybersquatting, Trademark infringement, False Designation of Origin, Trademark Dilution, Breach of Contract and Tortious Interference . The filing with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (PDF) lists 104 different domains with the majority of names containing the term “facebook” in some variation (i.e. facebooki.com) but also lists the domains (14) that the typo-domains are/were redirected to (i.e. 1939.com which according to a notice posted on the site was a redirect service at one point and SocialRewardCenter.com).

The listed defendants are:

• Cyber2Media, Inc.
• Daniel Negari
• Cleanser Products
• Counter Balance Enterprises Ltd.
• FB Promotions/Freebie Promos
• Mackrooner Ltd. Inc.
• Newgate Services Ltd.
• Pioneer Enterprises Ltd.
• Rabbit Gogo Media LLC
• SMTM Enterprises Ltd.
• YourTick
• Zilt
• Jacob Daniels
• Jerry Hui
• Ryan Johnson
• Eric Jordan
• Karrie-Lee Karreman
• June Kimchi
• Tim Meyers
• Ankit Pandey
• S. Pace
• Elise Petri
• Mark Risi
• John Souza
• Michael Suggs
• and John/Jane Does 1-119

This topic was also covered by Elliot Silver and Bill Hartzer. Hat tip to Domain Trader.

Back in November of 2009, Daniel Goncalves was indicted on charges that he had stolen the domain name p2p.com from domain name investor Marc Ostrofsky and Albe and Leslie Angel.  The details of the case and investigation were docmented in a story on DNN published in August 2009.

Although there have been other notable cases of domain names being stolen, most notable being Sex.com, this news marks the first time an individual has been arrested, prosecuted and sentenced for a domain name theft.

According to the whois the domain p2p.com is now back in the Albe’s hands.  The domain name had been stolen and sold to a third party, NBA star Mark Madsen.  Madsen purchased the domain name in September of 2006 from Goncalves on Ebay for $150,000.

Goncalves plead guilty to the charges and was sentenced today in Superior Court Judge Stuart Piem in Union County, New Jersey.

In talking to the Albes in 2009 it was clear a lot of effort went in to tracking down this criminal and making the case stick. The diligent effort by the victims over the course of 5 years is notable enough, and I know that they agree that it took a team effort. Domain professionals Richard Lau, Ellen Rony and Josh Pelissero, as well as cyber-crime law enforcement effort by Detective Sergeant John Gorman and prosecutor Kenneth Sharpe led this case to the successful resolution.

Full press release available here.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (8)

---

Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

3M has filed a broad lawsuit naming a larger number of registrars, webhosts and dns hosts for cybersquatting and infringing on the company’s brands. The lawsuit is also filed against some individual domain names that include the letters “3M” and “mmm”. A large number of the sites named in the lawsuit appear to be gambling sites, some of them using a logo that looks quite similar to the 3M logo. Some example domains names in the suit are mmmbet.net, 3mbet.net, 3m-sportbetting.com and 3MBet-Thai.com.

[via George Kirikos]

See the full list of the entities and companies the suit was filed against after the jump.

Directi Internet Solutions PVT. LTD., Doe Number 1, Doe Number 10, Doe Number 11, Doe Number 2, Doe Number 3, Doe Number 4, Doe Number 5, Doe Number 6, Doe Number 7, Doe Number 8, Doe Number 9, Domains By Proxy, Inc., Godaddy.com, Inc., Name.com, Pang International Limited, Prolexic Technologies, Inc., Softlayer Technologies, Inc., Tiggee LLC, Web Commerce Communications Limited, 3mbet-th.com, 3mbet-th.net, 3mbet-thai.com, 3mbet-thai.net, 3mbet.net, 3mbetth.com, 3mbetth.net, 3mbetthai.net, 3mbetthal.com, 3mbkk.com, 3minter.com, 3minter.net, 3msoccer.com, 3msoccer.net, 3mthai.com, 3mthai888.com, 3mthailand-official.com, Asia Netcom Asia Pacific Ltd., Bluehost Inc., CAT Telecom Public Company Ltd., 168mmm.net, 3M Company, 3m-asia.com, 3m-casino.com, 3m-th.com, 3m-thai.com, 3m-thai.net, 3m-thailand.com, 3mbet-online.com, mmm998.net, mmmbet.net, mmmth.com, mmmth.net, mmmthai.net, mmmwin.net, thai3m.com, thai3m.net, thailand3m.net, thaimmm.net, mmm-th.com, mmm-th.net, mmm-thai.com, mmm-thai.net, mmm123.net, mmm2u.net, mmm333.net, mmm456.net, mmm789.net, mmm888.net

 

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (7)

---

Advertisement
Tap into the most comprehensive Whois database
on the planet: Discover the details of a domain’s current ownership,
learn a domain’s pedigree and find all the domains ever owned by a
specific company or individual by accessing historical information from DomainTools.com.

According to some details published today, the former ICANN Ombudsman Frank Fowlie has withdrawn his legal proceeding against the outspoken domain investor George Kirikos. Kirikos’ lawyers, Andrew Bernstein and Yael Bienenstock at Torys, had informed Fowlie that they would be filing to dismiss the matter and that there would be no mediation.

Frank Fowlie had filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (HRTO)  claiming defamation and/or privacy with regards to Kirikos’ tweets about Fowlie. The tweets included links to Fowlie’s dispute against Her Majesty the Queen, and links to public coverage of losing a dispute against Air Canada after he was denied further transportation following an angry confrontation with a flight attendant amongst others. Fowlie lost the case against Air Canada in the first, second, and third ruling by the Canadian Transport Agency (CTA).

As uncovered by Kirikos during his investigation for the case, Fowlie had also filed a complaint against the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC). That complaint has been withdrawn, and the public documents related to that matter can be viewed on Kirikos’ website, where they have been “archived for educational and informational purposes“.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (2)

---

Advertisement
Tap into the most comprehensive Whois database
on the planet: Discover the details of a domain’s current ownership,
learn a domain’s pedigree and find all the domains ever owned by a
specific company or individual by accessing historical information from DomainTools.com.

Righthaven LLC, a company that enforces licensing of content created by their clients, has in the past taken possession of domain names owned by alleged infringers. Recently a judge dismissed one of their claims on a defendant’s domain name.

Now it appears that GoDaddy, the domain registrar for the domain Righthaven.com, has taken down their domain for an invalid whois. According to ICANN rules domain owners are required to maintain valid whois information. Anyone can report an invalid whois record via the WDPRS system, which then passes on the complaint to the sponsoring registrar of the domain. The registrar would then attempt to contact the domain owner and ask them to verify/update their contact information. Should they not do so, the domain can be suspended or even deleted.

[via @rhvictims]

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (4)

---

Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

The US government seized the domains for Poker Stars, Absolute Poker, and Full Tilt Poker and charged the site principals with bank fraud, illegal gambling offenses and laundering billions in illegal gambling proceeds.

 

 

See the full press release after the jump

MANHATTAN U.S. ATTORNEY CHARGES PRINCIPALS OF THREE LARGEST INTERNET POKER COMPANIES WITH BANK FRAUD, ILLEGAL GAMBLING OFFENSES AND LAUNDERING BILLIONS IN ILLEGAL GAMBLING PROCEEDS

Multi-Billion Dollar Civil Money Laundering And Forfeiture Action Also Filed

Internet Domain Names Used By The Poker Companies Seized

PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and JANICE FEDARCYK, the Assistant-Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced the unsealing of an Indictment today charging eleven defendants, including the founders of the three largest Internet poker companies doing business in the United States – PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker (the “Poker Companies”)- with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses. The United States also filed a civil money laundering and in rem forfeiture
complaint (the “Civil Complaint”) against the Poker Companies, their assets, and the assets of several payment processors for the Poker Companies. In addition, restraining orders were issued against more than 75 bank accounts utilized by the Poker Companies and their payment processors, and five Internet domain names used by the Poker Companies to host their illegal poker games were seized.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA said: “As charged, these defendants concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively
bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits. Moreover, as we allege, in their zeal to circumvent the gambling laws, the defendants also engaged in
massive money laundering and bank fraud. Foreign firms that choose to operate in the United States are not free to flout the laws they don’t like simply because they can’t bear to be parted
from their profits.”

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge JANICE K. FEDARCYK said: “These defendants, knowing full well that their business
with U.S. customers and U.S. banks was illegal, tried to stack
the deck. They lied to banks about the true nature of their
business. Then, some of the defendants found banks willing to
flout the law for a fee. The defendants bet the house that they
could continue their scheme, and they lost.”
According to the Indictment and the Civil Complaint
unsealed today:
On October 13, 2006, the United States enacted the
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (“UIGEA”), making it a
federal crime for gambling businesses to “knowingly accept” most
forms of payment “in connection with the participation of another
person in unlawful Internet gambling.” Despite the passage of
UIGEA, the Poker Companies, located offshore, continued operating
in the United States. In a press release dated October 16, 2006,
Absolute Poker announced that the company would continue its U.S.
operations because “the U.S. Congress has no control over” the
company’s payment transactions.
Because U.S. banks and credit card issuers were largely
unwilling to process their payments, the Poker Companies
allegedly used fraudulent methods to circumvent federal law and
trick these institutions into processing payments on their
behalf. For example, defendants ISAI SCHEINBERG and PAUL TATE of
PokerStars, RAYMOND BITAR and NELSON BURTNICK of Full Tilt Poker,
and SCOTT TOM and BRENT BECKLEY of Absolute Poker, arranged for
the money received from U.S. gamblers to be disguised as payments
to hundreds of non-existent online merchants purporting to sell
merchandise such as jewelry and golf balls. Of the billions of
dollars in payment transactions that the Poker Companies tricked
U.S. banks into processing, approximately one-third or more of
the funds went directly to the Poker Companies as revenue through
the “rake” charged to players on almost every poker hand played
online.
As alleged in the Indictment, to accomplish their
fraud, the Poker Companies worked with an array of highly
compensated “payment processors” – including defendants RYAN
LANG, IRA RUBIN, BRADLEY FRANZEN, and CHAD ELIE – who obtained
-2accounts
at U. S. banks for the Poker Companies. The payment
processors lied to banks about the nature of the financial
transactions they were processing, and covered up those lies, by,
among other things, creating phony corporations and websites to
disguise payments to the Poker Companies. For example, a
PokerStars document from May 2009 acknowledged that they received
money from U.S. gamblers through company names that “strongly
imply the transaction has nothing to do with PokerStars,” and
that PokerStars used whatever company names “the processor can
get approved by the bank.”
By late 2009, after U.S. banks and financial
institutions detected and shut down multiple fraudulent bank
accounts used by the Poker Companies, SCHEINBERG and BITAR
developed a new processing strategy that would not involve lying
to banks. PokerStars, FullTilt Poker, and their payment
processors persuaded the principals of a few small, local banks
facing financial difficulties to engage in such processing in
return for multi-million dollar investments in the banks. For
example, in September 2009, ELIE and others approached defendant
JOHN CAMPOS, the Vice Chairman of the Board and part-owner of
SunFirst Bank, a small, private bank based in Saint George, Utah,
about processing Internet poker transactions. While expressing
“trepidations,” CAMPOS allegedly agreed to process gambling
transactions in return for a $10 million investment in SunFirst
by ELIE and an associate, which would give them a more than 30%
ownership stake in the bank. CAMPOS also requested and received
a $20,000 “bonus” for his assistance. In an e-mail, one of
ELIE’s associates boasted that they had “purchased” SunFirst and
that they “were looking to purchase” “a grand total of 3 or 4
banks” to process payments.
The Indictment and Civil Complaint seek at least $3
billion in civil money laundering penalties and forfeiture from
the Poker Companies and the defendants. The District Court
issued an order restraining approximately 76 bank accounts in 14
countries containing the proceeds of the charged offenses.
Pursuant to a warrant for arrest in rem issued by the U.S.
District Court, the United States also seized five Internet
domain names used by the Poker Companies to operate their illegal
online businesses in the United States.
* * *
Defendants CAMPOS and ELIE were arrested this morning
in Saint George, Utah and Las Vegas, Nevada, respectively. ELIE
will appear later today before a U. S. Magistrate Court Judge in
Las Vegas, Nevada. CAMPOS will appear before a U.S. Magistrate
-3Court
Judge in Saint George, Utah on April 18, 2011. Defendant
FRANZEN is expected to appear for his arraignment on April 19,
2011 in the Southern District of New York. Defendants BITAR,
SCHEINBERG, BURTNICK, TATE, TOM, BECKLEY, RUBIN and LANG are not
presently in the United States and have not yet been arrested.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
is working with foreign law enforcement agencies and Interpol to
secure the arrest of these defendants and the seizure of criminal
proceeds located abroad. BITAR, TOM, RUBIN, BECKLEY, CAMPOS,
ELIE, and FRANZEN are U. S. citizens. A chart identifying each
defendant, the charges, and the maximum penalties, is attached to
this release.
U.S.
Attorney PREET BHARARA praised the FBI for its
outstanding leadership in the investigation, which he noted is
ongoing. Mr. BHARARA also thanked Immigration and Customs
Enforcement’s New York and New Jersey offices, and the Washington
State Gambling Commission, for their assistance in the
investigation.
The matters announced today are being handled by the
Office’s Complex Frauds and Asset Forfeiture Units. Assistant
U.S.
Attorneys ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN and NICOLE FRIEDLANDER are in
charge of the criminal case, and Assistant U. S. Attorneys SHARON
COHEN LEVIN, MICHAEL LOCKARD and JASON COWLEY are in charge of
the civil money laundering and forfeiture actions.
The charges contained in the Indictment and Civil
Complaint are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed
innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Press Release: Manhatten US Attorney Charges Principals of Three Largest Internet Poker Companies (PDF)

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (7)

---

Advertisement
DomainConvergence 2011, May 12-13, Montreal, Canada

As reported before, the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has taken to seizing domain names when it sees potential copyright infringement or other unlawful items. On February 15th, as part of their “Operation Protect Our Children”, they seized another ten domain names. According to Torrentfreak, this included the domain mooo.com, which is used to operate some 84,000 sub domain sites through the Free DNS service. Apparently the ICE had discovered a child pornography site hosted on one of the sub domains. DotWeekly also reported this earlier.

It appears the domain mooo.com had its previous nameservers restored at the time of writing this, but for two days they displayed a message saying that the domain was seized due to child pornography.

[via ZDnet]

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (3)

---

Advertisement

We buy Domains!
We are interested in Acquiring your premium domains!
Click here to submit your domains now.