This guy STOLE My Domain

[wolfis.com]

Okay even if they are service agreements.
I cannot let this go without justice. This person took my domain illegally. I am 20 years old right now, my parents are not involved. I was the registrant of this domain. And I paid and registered it for 2 years from Apr 99 - Apr 01. Someone cannot just come and take my domain without any sort of authorization / permission. I never allowed anything of the sort.

If you are talking about then when I was 15, the only thing he could sue for was the spam emails. I doubt there is a case for spam as there were hardly any laws back then.

Just like you said, someone could be held liable for up to 20 years in New York for actions taken as a minor. What about the statute of limitations there? Why shouldn't that person be liable now?

wow... slow down , hold your horses here for a minute...
you say, you registered it for 2 years..until april 2001 ... well here is some news for you... unless you renewed it befor april of 2001 for additional years ,you LOST the domain and the registration right and blablabla...in short if you did not renew it - you are out of luck (legally speaking).
so before you do anything ,my advise is go to a domain lawyer (or domain-laier) and get all the facts straight.
...must be a hell of a name...well , good luck anyway...

[sweet9]

I lost the domain before april 2001 though. So, it was not possible to be renewed under my name at that time.

Anyways, thanks, I have already contacted a domain lawyer and we are figuring things out.

[dax]

sweet9 said: "When you transfer ownership, I'm almost positive creation date changes"

No, registry creation date stays even after the transfer.
For example:
Domain Name: *
Registrar: *
Whois server: *
Referral URL: *
Name Server: *
Name Server: *
Status: ACTIVE
Updated Date: 15-mar-2004 -> f.e. Date when transfer was completed
Creation Date: 23-jun-2003 -> Registry creation date.
Expiration Date: 23-jun-2005

If this creation date is not 15-apr-1999, then domain was dropped and current owner is legitimate owner (unless its the same one that took over your domain), meaning that you dont have rights on this domain any more.
You can only sue guy that took over your DN for compensation of your losses, but you
cannot retrieve your domain from current (if legitimate) owner.

[Steen]

No, registry creation date stays even after the transfer.

Not always true.

[Acro]

When changing ownership or transferring domains to another registrar, the creation date remains the same. HOWEVER, an interesting note is that GoDaddy around 1999 - 2000 would alter the data and the transfer date would become the creation date! I am speaking from personal experience.

At any rate, in the US you can sue anybody over anything, so if you want the domain that bad and have the time, resources and enough proof to back your claims you can do it. SEX.com was stolen and given back to its original owner AND the registrar - NetSol - was recently found guilty of unauthorized transfer and paid $15 million as a fine.

[dtobias]

ah, well then as per RFC 2606 he should be using example.com, which is reserved for use in things like documentation.

...or example.net, example.org, or the pseudo-TLDs .example or .invalid.

[Domagon]

Whois information is for assisting with technical issues. It is NOT authoritative information in and of itself.

I have domains where the creation date changed after a registrant transfer and yet for others it never changed.

Since the advent of the SRS, it seems the definition of "creation" date has changed to when a domain was first registered and is not effected by transfers - but one can't rely on that being the case in all instances.

What makes matters more confusing is that the registration period for the registrant may not match that of the registry (.com and .net in particular). One always has to check both the registrar's Whois (directly - not through a proxy since some don't echo back the correct info; some registrars will display different whois info based whether it's a local or proxied query) and then the registry itself.

And all of that stuff can be changed on a whim...I've seen domains go back in time and some disappear all together into never, never land. One really has to watch their domains and check third-party services like Dialog and Archive.org to get a better view of the past.

Ron

[Steen]

NetSol - was recently found guilty of unauthorized transfer and paid $15 million as a fine.

I didn't think they had paid yet and the amount was undisclosed.

[jberryhill]

"if you're not able to participate in a agreement, you have no contract"

Juniper,

Without re-hashing lecture #57 on minors and contracts, do you really think that Britney Spears was working for free when she was 17?

Macauley Culkin?

Michael Jackson?

Uh, no. They got paid. Under contracts they entered into with others.

How old were you when you got your first job? I don't know about you, but I was 16. There was no legal defect in the contract between me and the Jack Eckerd Drug Company at that time.

Some registrars require majority, because of the peculiar rules which pertain to minors and contracts. But if you think a minor cannot contract, then you are dead wrong; and there is nothing in the minimum ICANN reg. contract requirements that forces registrars not to do business with minors.

If you make a contract with a minor, that minor has every right to enforce that contract against you and to hold you to every obligation therein. It is *your* ability to enforce the contract against the minor that might be limited. But here we are talking about the minor's rights under the contract, not the other party that contracted with the minor.

Besides, any contract with a minor which continues to be performed after that minor reaches the age of majority is deemed "ratified" by the now-adult and fully enforcible by both parties.

[JuniperPark]

"if you're not able to participate in a agreement, you have no contract"

Juniper,

Without re-hashing lecture #57 on minors and contracts, do you really think that Britney Spears was working for free when she was 17?

Macauley Culkin?

Michael Jackson?

Uh, no. They got paid. Under contracts they entered into with others.

How old were you when you got your first job? I don't know about you, but I was 16. There was no legal defect in the contract between me and the Jack Eckerd Drug Company at that time.

Some registrars require majority, because of the peculiar rules which pertain to minors and contracts. But if you think a minor cannot contract, then you are dead wrong; and there is nothing in the minimum ICANN reg. contract requirements that forces registrars not to do business with minors.

If you make a contract with a minor, that minor has every right to enforce that contract against you and to hold you to every obligation therein. It is *your* ability to enforce the contract against the minor that might be limited. But here we are talking about the minor's rights under the contract, not the other party that contracted with the minor.

Besides, any contract with a minor which continues to be performed after that minor reaches the age of majority is deemed "ratified" by the now-adult and fully enforcible by both parties.

John --

While I certainly respect that you are more knowledgeable on the law, this ain't passing the 'sniff test!

While I can't state this as a fact, I STRONGLY suspect that none of the minors listed above we directly contracted (or paid) by *anyone*. I very strongly suspect the production companies contracted their appearances via a corporate entity, created for just such a purpose, and the minors' parents were shareholders and directors of those corporations.

But let's say you're right, the production company directly hired minor Macauley, spent a million bucks to set up a movie shoot, and Macauley decided he's not going to do it because he wants to go to Disneyland. Please explain how the production company is going to recovers their million bucks in damages from the minor?

On the employment situation, it has been quite a few years, but my recollection is that there are a number of specific laws that exist to ALLOW a contract with minors for the purpose of W2 type employement, with very specific conditions (hours, danger level of work, etc) and it had to be specifically approved by the parents. Therefore it's very different from just making a business contract, where one party is unaware that the other is a minor.

[jberryhill]

"Please explain how the production company is going to recovers their million bucks in damages from the minor?"

Sniff away...

The common law rules are the "default rules". These default rules can be, and often are, modified by statute. Statutes trump common law rules.

So, we look at the law of, surprisingly enough, California:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cacode...6750-6753.html
------------------------------------
"6751. (a) A contract, otherwise valid, of a type described in
Section 6750, entered into during minority, cannot be disaffirmed on
that ground either during the minority of the person entering into
the contract, or at any time thereafter, if the contract has been
approved by the superior court in any county in which the minor
resides or is employed or in which any party to the contract has its
principal office in this state for the transaction of business."
---------------------------------------

And what kind of contracts are we talking about.....

-------------------------------
6750. (a) This chapter applies to the following contracts entered
into between an unemancipated minor and any third party or parties on
or after January 1, 2000:
(1) A contract pursuant to which a minor is employed or agrees to
render artistic or creative services, either directly or through a
third party, including, but not limited to, a personal services
corporation (loan-out company), or through a casting agency.
"Artistic or creative services" includes, but is not limited to,
services as an actor, actress, dancer, musician, comedian, singer,
stunt-person, voice-over artist, or other performer or entertainer,
or as a songwriter, musical producer or arranger, writer, director,
producer, production executive, choreographer, composer, conductor,
or designer.
-------------------------

In fact, this piece of legislation was enacted specifically to AVOID the situation you describe in which parents or agents control the disposition of income derived by the minor's performance, and provide minors with the opportunity to contract directly. Additionally, the statute provides the court with authority to cut the parents out completely.

Macauley Culkin, whom I mentioned in particular, along with child performers Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, Christina Ricci, and Michelle Williams, all took the additional step of obtaining legal emancipation from their parents while they were still minors, for the express purpose of making sure they and they alone were the beneficiaries of their contracts, and that their parents would not be provided with trusteeship over the 15% set-aside you will notice in that statute.

But this is all beside the original point, which was a minor's rights under a domain name registration contract with a registrar who does not expressly forbid minor registration (some do, some don't). Voiding a contract is an option that a minor has at common law. It is certainly not a mechanism that provides a third party, or the contracting party, with the right to void that contract.

In the US, the right to contract, as many other rights, applies to all "persons". Minors are people.

[namedropper]

I'm disturbed by the concept that Sweet9 seems to want to have it both ways in regards to his age.

"Back then only being 15 years old, I found a mass bulk emailing program, and emailed probably 15,000 people."

Then you deserved a huge fine. I don't care if you were only 15, everyone knew that spam was evil and bad and a misuse of the Internet. Taking ownership of your domain name sounds totally justified to me, because, honeslty, what else could they do to get compensated for the trouble you caused? You probably got off cheap. You lost a what, $70 registration at the time? Oh boohoo.

"I was on a cable modem, and about 5 hours after I started, I got a call. (the call was at 11:30pm at night)."

So, what, if you are abusing their system they have to respect your bedtime?

"Me being so scared, only 15, I don't tell my parents or anyone."

Oh, wait.... Are you trying to say that you were only 15? I think you may have said that a few times already. Why are we supposed to care? Take some freaking responsibility for your own actions.

"They even posted my whole story on the website. "

And this is supposed to make us feel sorry for you? Good. They were trying to shore up the bad publicity your thoughtless acts caused them.

"I have not contacted Company Z yet. Anyone have any suggestions?"

Don't contact them unless you wish to apologize to them and give them more money to pay off the trouble you caused them. Stop whining. Take responsibility for your actions.

Although I'm sure that's not the sort of suggestion you want to hear. It sounds like you haven't matured at all in the 5 years.

[Acro]

namedropper, spamming was not criminalized till a few months ago. It was ethically objectionable, yes, but criminal it was not. Still isn't a federal offense to send spam except in the state of Virginia.

On the other hand, stealing domains is a felony.

[namedropper]

timechange, funny, I don't remember saying it was criminal. It was still highly unethical and the sort of thing that costs businesses lots of money.

Stealing a domain is criminal, if that's what actually happened. If they take a name that they have some control over and hold onto it until the spammer makes restitution for their actions, and then the spammer never does anything about it so they just keep it, it wouldn't be stealing, it would be an honest transfer of ownership.

[Acro]

"Then you deserved a huge fine."

A fine for a non-crime? Your entire argument is based on the assumption that he deserved what he got.

[namedropper]

If you are in a business relationship and you purposefully do something that you are not authorized to do and end up costing the company money due to no fault of their own, you better believe they can charge you for it. Or are you one of hose people who thinks paying a phone bill is voluntary?

And, yes my argument is based upon the assumption that he deserved what he got. Duh. Don't even bother with the "spamming is fine because it wasn't illegal" nonsense. It's stupid and not even relevant to the discussion.

[Acro]

Get real. He deserved what he got because his DNS provider hijacked the domain because he spammed - and this argument is not stupid?

I'd like to see that hold water in a court. Depending on how much the domain is worth nowdays, it'd be a piece of cake for a laywer to slap up a case that'd take the DNS hijacker to the cleaners.

[sweet9]

Wow, everyone's input has helped. I'm not sure what I am going to do at this time, and am consulting an attorney to seek out my options.

Thank you for everyone's comments and input.

[clemzonguy]

Names4ever stole and renewed the .net/.org version of a website I had with them after I transferred the .com to another registrar and failed to renew the others. I was expecting the others to drop and pick them back up but to my surprise they were renewed. They have been renewed now for 2-3 yrs in a row. I could still login to the account last i checked a year or two ago. They probably don't know about it so let them keep paying for all the problems they gave me transferring out in the first place.

[Steen]

Names4ever stole and renewed the .net/.org version of a website I had with them after I transferred the .com to another registrar

They are a pain, they call me all the time.