Email on expired domains.

[Lasher]

Domainnamewire posted a link to the following story in which a county web site address was expired and picked up by a domainer causing them to have to quickly switch from RenoGov.com to RenoGov.org.

http://www.hutchnews.com/news/local/stories/address101706.shtml

It raises an interesting question. If you buy an expired domain and then create a wildcard email for it to collect sales leads or just be nosy - definitely questionable ethically, but illegal and actionable?

 

[labrocca]

I think intent on your actions is where legality comes into play.

I can't think of a law actually saying you can't get email not intended for you. However let's say you bought the drop with INTENT to collect emails..then used the information from those emails in illegal ACTIONS...such as logging into Amazon, Ebay or Paypal with another persons account information. That would be illegal.

 

[Archangel]

I think intent on your actions is where legality comes into play.

I can't think of a law actually saying you can't get email not intended for you. However let's say you bought the drop with INTENT to collect emails..then used the information from those emails in illegal ACTIONS...such as logging into Amazon, Ebay or Paypal with another persons account information. That would be illegal.

IMO it'd be the original owner's fault. They should keep better care of their contact info in this theorectical situation. I see no reason collecting their email would be a bad thing. It'd be kinda impractical and rude, sure, but it'd be the original owner's fault if (s)he didn't keep things updated. Had they done so, the domain would never have dropped to begin with.

 

[Dave_Z]

GoDaddy.com "only charged us like $42 for five years. It was a good price," Mathews said.

If that domain name ever got shut down for alleged spam complaints, it might
cost them more than $42 for five years.

I doubt majority of people would even care about that, or what happened in
that article.

 

[Ronald Regging]

It's not uncommon to setup catch-all email accounts for domains that you are hosting.

As for the ethics of it... Well its not like the guy stole the domain or used some kind of method to reroute emails from another domain or something like that. He purchased a domain that had been abandoned and reaped the rewards. No body has any qualms about getting a dropped name that has traffic and using the traffic to make money, essentially it's the same thing.

You may be able to argue that the users sending the email had some expectation of privacy, so therefore it's wrong... but I think it's generally accepted that if you're sending email, you have no right to expectation of privacy. Every ISP states clearly that you don't... The sender's ISP/Host could read the email, the reciever's ISP/Host could read the email and the US Government could read the email...