AOL steals domain name

[chipbgt]

http://www.observers.net/aolbeta.html

 

[AMDJunkie]

"This place reeks of evil..."

 

[jmcoreymv]

I just feel like B!tch slappin AOL

 

[kantonburg]

Is something like that legit? The article I mean.

 

[perry]

An attorney will do him no good. sex.com was transferred, pretty illegally, a few years back. The original owner sued the guy that stole it and lost. The judge ruled that domains are not property. They kid really doesn't have a leg to stand on with that court ruling.

"On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge James Ware dismissed a theft claim -- technically called a "conversion" claim -- against the convicted felon accused of hijacking sex.com, ruling that Web domains aren't property, and therefore can't be stolen."

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38398,00.html

It does suck, but there isn't too much that can be done.

 

[Russ]

There has to be more to the AOLbeta.com story than we're seeing in the article. In all the other cases where these big companies have stolen domain names, either the ICANN dispute procedures or a court were used. Network Solution's policies clearly outline the transfer process and that MUST include both parties.

For it to happen in one day, as the article states, without any form of arbitration or contact with the previous owner, it would have to have been collusion between NS and AOL.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Russ]

perry,

That is a single case and isn't nearly enough to establish what class of "property" a domain belongs to. The issue is still very much in flux.

Russ, NCNE

 

[403Forbidden]

Regardless of whether a domain name is property or not, you can still sue if your domain name gets transfered in violation of the terms and agreements of the registration contract.

 

[Pretender]

I agree with Russ here, something sounds wrong or left out. Regardless, I still think AOL is evil.

 

[konichiwa]

I'm not sure, doesn't that establish some sort of precident?

 

[GL]

The American courts have established that domain names are more akin to phone numbers than any physical property. They are pretty much a service. Actually, I think it was in a thread that Russ started a while back where I read about this...something about how Russ was complaining about bad registrars or something.

I don't really have any compassion either way in this situation. AOL is being stupid...just because somebody registers a domain name with the substring "aol" in it doesn't necessarily mean that their trademark is being infringed upon. On the flipside, what the heck was aolbeta.com supposed to be...I'm certain this guy was trying to use AOL's trademarked name to his benefit. No can do under the law. So all *aol*.com domain names shouldn't be the possession of AOL, but in this case I think AOL was justified in requesting the domain name.

Let AOL throw a fit over a domain name...there is so much more to a web site than a name.

-GL

 

[PCAddict]

This is long overdue in this thread:

AOL is suck!

 

[Pretender]

AOL can stand for anything...sure since America Online was the first extremely popular company to use this acronym, it's associated with them most of the time, but who knows, maybe the guy who registered aolbeta.com was going to write book, maybe "Art of Lapdancing", or something. Hell, if you abbreviate AnandTech to AT, then technically they should be able to steal att.com, and any website with "at" in it's name using your logic.

 

[Chooie]

If you have ever used Iescrow to transfer funds for purchases, you will note that "domain name" is a valid entry for the item sold. This particular case is ridiculous - if AOL wanted the domain that badly, they could have easily offered a couple hundred thousand to Nickolas for it, but they resorted to underhanded and shady means.

 

[CompuWife]

You know, I paid good money for my domain name and hope to one day have at least one advertiser on it.
I consider it my property. You pay for something, it then belongs to you. There is such a thing as theft of service.
Not to mention the amount of work one puts into a website...time and effort does count for something.
And a name IS important, just as important as the content of the site.
At least I think so.

 

[403Forbidden]

The theory of what constitutes "property" is changing every day.

Originaly, "property" was a way for the government to categorize,
account for, and tax, the personal assets of the people.
Back then, the main valuable asset was land.

But today, our culture is changing what it considers valuable.
I wouldn't be suprised if one day, a college education is
considered "property".