Article: Who "owns" unregistered domain name space?

[andriegel]

I thought this might be of interest:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20030915-2824.html?23514

Recently, Register.com lost a class action lawsuit where Michael Zurakov was upset that Register.com pointed a newly registered domain to a "coming soon" web page. While the lawsuit seems frivolous, one can see where it may upset some domain owners. Why should the registrar get some free publicity from a domain owned by someone else? I guess you can argue no one was actually harmed by Register.com's actions, but those involved in the class action suit did own the rights to the domain names. What about unregistered domain name space? Can it be owned, and can those who oversee top level domains do as they please with it?

Seeking a new source of income, VeriSign is planning on redirecting (also at NYT) commonly mistyped, unregistered web site queries to their own "Site Finder" service. The web page will offer a search service and VeriSign will receive revenue from sponsored links provided by their search engine. NeuStar, the company who oversees the .biz and .us TLDs completed a trial on a similar concept in May.
The FTC has previously filed a suit against a man who registered domains which were misspellings of popular sites and redirected them to porn sites, but VeriSign believes their plan is OK since they are providing a "legitimate, useful service." But if they're only targeting misspells on popular sites, they could be wide open for trademark infringement suit down the road. However, they might be able to get around this by redirecting all incorrect queries. There may be nothing which prevents any of the TLD registrars from adopting these schemes, but should they be allowed to do so and should ICANN work to close this loophole?
.
.

 

[crazy]

technically, he does have a point, we own the domain, they just register it for us.

 

[Midano]

OK...
What's next? Sending all emails addressed to non-existent addresses (typos etc.) to someone?
Then what? Mailing all "undeliverable" snail-mail letters and packages to USPS headquarters, so they can keep them?

That's ridiculous.

 

[Zeeble]

That is disugsting! If I made everybody download adware to direct them to my sites when they hit an invalid site then there would be all hell to pay, but because they are big, they can do it.

 

[jstep]

Verisign might as well just do it to all unregged domains

 

[nRnF]

That Michael Zurakov was upset is clear, and won't be the default for the future.

More afraid, I am of the idea VeriSign or other redirecting unregged domains to a "legitimate, useful service." seeking out for big bucks.

 

[armstrong]

That is an old article from 9/15/2003.

Verisign did go ahead and unilaterally implement sitefinder without technical consultation, causing erroneous behavior for web services that relied on NetSol returning the expected "no such domain" result for unregistered domains. They were forced by public demand and ICANN order to disable the service. However, they are now fighting this in court. My money is on them failing to get approval.

 

[GJ]

Fair point!

 

[Radiohead]

All registrars have been doing that for years. That's like complaining that cable or satellite tv has commercials. You pay for the service, why should you be forced to watch commercials.


I personally think it's too late to make that argument. And Register.com does give the option when registering a domain to choose not to use their splash page. He likely picked the default setting, overlooking it, or purposely overlooking it just so he could sue.

Regarding the mispelled domains to porn sites, obviously that is a lot different than to a site that isn't going to scare someones grandma fat fingering a domain name. Nothing worst than typing in a domain like whitehouse.com and getting a porn site. Or typing in a domain and getting a splash page that downloads 10 coolwebsearch programs on your computer giving you endless popups to use their affiliated services to get rid of.

In my opinion, I'd rather them have it. If they have the capacity to do it, why not. You and I aren't going to do it. I'm not in the business of doing that. And others who are, I personally wouldn't trust.

Just my opinion.