LucasFilm brought us Darth Vader in 1977. Now, Darth Vader (as in the domain name DarthVader.com) is now owned by its rightful owner, LucasFilm. Tucows Domain Portfolio Vice President Bill Sweetman commandeered the domain name when it was not renewed by its current owner–and promptly arranged for the domain name to be given to LucasFilm. [Read more…]

Reverse Domain Name Hijacking is “a disgusting practice…”, according to Rick Schwartz (aka the Domain King), and co-founder of T.R.A.F.F.I.C.. “I always think about the mom and pop with one domain and their entire lives wrapped up in it. Along comes a bully and they are out of business. Robbing these folks of their dreams and livelihoods. It’s sickening when you look at it like that. That’s what really lights my fuse. I can handle a loss, they can’t. That’s why laws need to be written. Not to protect domainers, but to protect the masses.” Mr. Schwartz is not alone. According to my research, many in the domain name industry, as well as those outside the industry, feel the same way about Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. [Read more…]

A representative of the SEO firm mentioned in this post sent a threat to me via email–so I removed this post.

It looks like Sedo.com and Sedo.co.uk, the search engine for domain names, has been hacked, and apparently is hosting malware on their web site. These messages started appearing to visitors of both Sedo.com and Sedo.co.uk within the past 24 hours, and I have verified that users are still getting these messages. [Read more…]

Godaddy, the domain name registrar, has apparently been caught registering domain names after someone has looked up the availability of a domain name. This guy claims that he looked up a domain name to see if that domain name was available. The domain name was available, but apparently he did not register the domain name that day. He came back a few days later to find that the domain name had been registered by, low and behold: Godaddy themselves. [Read more…]