Mua! Muah! Muahaha! Muahahahahaha!

[P88]

i recently read this off another website, and it got me thinking...

Recently, a man registered the hotmail.co.uk domain name when it expired, before microsoft could re-register it.

He agreed to hand the domain back to the evil corporation, free of charge. (idiot)

However, that got me thinking; what if someone were to do the same thing to hotmail.com?

Now according to http://registrar.verisign-grs.com/cgi-b ... ype=domain
hotmail.com does not expire until 2010. But at midnight on the 27th of March, I intend to be sitting on whois.com, ready to make the purchase.

Now, having purchased hotmail.com, I intend to completely recreate the site's interface, down to the last detail.

The difference being, the login fields will be replaced with a password harvester that saves the username and password of whoever tries to log in.

With a few hundred full time staff, millions of people will lose their email accounts within a few days.

Now, Microsoft (assuming it still exists in 2010) simply could not bear to see that happen. So to get their precious domain back, they can pay me something to the effect of....

One billion dollars

Mmmmm... Extortion...

[Howlingmad]

I think the law would have somethink to say about you scalping ppls details.

But hey for a billion dollars.... Go For It.

You can always buy the prison if you like it

[pjknibbs]

a) Is Microsoft really going to be stupid enough to forget to re-register hotmail.com? It's not like these things have to be done once the registration has expired, either--usually your registrar will inform you of the upcoming expiry some months before the actual event.

b) There's a term they use to describe an action like this. It's called fraud, and unless you happen to be rich already you will NOT get away with it...

[RustiSwordz]

Its a bit like two English blokes patented the name 21st Century Fox 10 years in advance looking to make some dosh.

When 20th Century Fox went to buy it (to stop people from ripping off 20th century fox) they found these two geezers has already done it!

Lets put it this way, 20th C'Fox dipped into their cheque books and said 'how much'

These two blokes are now comfortable for life.

[Eagle]

 
Did they actually buy it though?....I thought they just changed their name to 'Fox Entertainment' and the blokes didn't get a cent?
 

[P88]

well i would just keep the domain name until they pay me like 100 million pounds... who cares about login names and passwords anyway!

[AJ Rimmer Bsc.Ssc.]

anything over 100.000 is worth killing for..

pay you 1 billion

pay a guy 100.000,who owns one of these
http://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/pw/pw_sr.htm

[P88]

ahh you want a Barret .50

[AJ Rimmer Bsc.Ssc.]

the damn Barret tells everyone for 15 miles where you are and what gun your firing,then they ping the area with x rays and mortar you in the arse.

the "lilly" will pop a round in through the ear and providing the grain is right it will stay there....
little bit of phospherous coating and wound instantly corterised.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
..

i`ll get me coat

[scritty]

It used to be called "carpet bagging" and is now somethimes called "sharking".

Changes in the law in 1998 mean that this is not likely to be allowed (it is not stealing though..if Msoft let the name lapse then the right to take it IS public) However anti competative laws specific to internet trading and detailing domains etc were changed in the late 90'2 (after people did reap huge rewards by registering bank.com insurance.com etc etc)

However, internet changes all the time, and these laws are open to the interpretation and presidence, so let's wait and see.


Cheers

Clarker

[pixel]

anything over 100.000 is worth killing for..

pay you 1 billion

pay a guy 100.000,who owns one of these
http://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/pw/pw_sr.htm

I've used one of them!!

(only on a firing range though, not for real!)

[Grox]

NO! dont buy hotmail.com. i got my email address registered there...

[esd]

It used to be called "carpet bagging" and is now somethimes called "sharking".

Changes in the law in 1998 mean that this is not likely to be allowed (it is not stealing though..if Msoft let the name lapse then the right to take it IS public) However anti competative laws specific to internet trading and detailing domains etc were changed in the late 90'2 (after people did reap huge rewards by registering bank.com insurance.com etc etc)

However, internet changes all the time, and these laws are open to the interpretation and presidence, so let's wait and see.


Cheers

Clarker

But the laws are only applicable in the countries they were made. If I were to register the domain from, for example, Nepal, I doubt those particular laws would stop me charging whatever I wanted.

[GnatB]

Unfortunately, I believe "generic" .com means a US registry, and the U.S. 'net law gives a company right to it's internet name, so it doesn't really matter where the people live that registered the .com. (In reality, it *may* really only matter where the master DNS servers reside, and pretty sure they're in the U.S., which woud mean in terms of domain registration, US law is all that matters, regardless if it's a .uk, .com, or .whatever)

i.e. if some shmoe in Napal's had registered McDonalds.com, (for example) before McDonalds had gotten around to it, McDonalds would have been able to take it anyways.

And yeah, you can renew your internet domain before it expires.

Incidentally, anyone else remember when you had to register at a single place for your domain name? Internic.net, I believe. Been a while, so I may be misremembering.

[pjknibbs]

Unfortunately, I believe "generic" .com means a US registry, and the U.S. 'net law gives a company right to it's internet name, so it doesn't really matter where the people live that registered the .com. (In reality, it *may* really only matter where the master DNS servers reside, and pretty sure they're in the U.S., which woud mean in terms of domain registration, US law is all that matters, regardless if it's a .uk, .com, or .whatever)

Arguably it isn't even the law which matters--it's what ICANN and Verisign says matters, since they control the .COM domain and all the root-level DNS servers for the entire Internet. I believe that the common dispute policy for these companies would be to hand over the domain to the company which owns the trademark in a case of obvious cyber-squatting, although there have been a few dodgy decisions made here (for instance, I believe someone actually called McDonald registered McDonald.co.uk for a personal website and had the domain taken away from him regardless).

[Argonaught.]

Here's some info on trademarks and the Net:

http://floridalawfirm.com/iplaw/ip-intro.html


The Sagan from Apple Computers:

Hopefully you won't be unpleasantly surprised to find that someone else already has the rights to your name in a similar product or service. If they do, you could be infringing their trademark and they could sue you and force you to stop using their name.

There are several lawsuits now underway concerning trademark infringements on the Internet or against computer companies. In one recent case (link to case) Playboy sued a BBS in Jacksonville for both copyright infringement and for violation of their trademarked bunny ears.
It resulted in a huge judgment against the defendant for illegal use of the Playboy bunny logo. In another case, singer Bob Dylan has purportedly sued Apple Computer for naming a computer language "Dylan." It was supposedly an abbreviation for "Dynamic Language." Astronomer Carl Sagan also complained to Apple when they starting using "Sagan" as the internal code name of a computer that became the Macintosh 7100. Apple stopped using his name, but instead started calling it the "BHA." Sagan supposedly sued Apple anyway for trademark infringement, defamation and invasion of privacy, claiming that it was well known that Apple used "BHA" as an acronym for "butt-head astronomer." The Judge reportedly threw out Sagan's case.

[Argonaught.]

Here's some info on trademarks and the Net:

http://floridalawfirm.com/iplaw/ip-intro.html


The Sagan from Apple Computers:

Hopefully you won't be unpleasantly surprised to find that someone else already has the rights to your name in a similar product or service. If they do, you could be infringing their trademark and they could sue you and force you to stop using their name.

There are several lawsuits now underway concerning trademark infringements on the Internet or against computer companies. In one recent case (link to case) Playboy sued a BBS in Jacksonville for both copyright infringement and for violation of their trademarked bunny ears.
It resulted in a huge judgment against the defendant for illegal use of the Playboy bunny logo. In another case, singer Bob Dylan has purportedly sued Apple Computer for naming a computer language "Dylan." It was supposedly an abbreviation for "Dynamic Language." Astronomer Carl Sagan also complained to Apple when they starting using "Sagan" as the internal code name of a computer that became the Macintosh 7100. Apple stopped using his name, but instead started calling it the "BHA." Sagan supposedly sued Apple anyway for trademark infringement, defamation and invasion of privacy, claiming that it was well known that Apple used "BHA" as an acronym for "butt-head astronomer." The Judge reportedly threw out Sagan's case.

[Argonaught.]

Here's some info on trademarks and the Net:

http://floridalawfirm.com/iplaw/ip-intro.html


The Sagan from Apple Computers:

Hopefully you won't be unpleasantly surprised to find that someone else already has the rights to your name in a similar product or service. If they do, you could be infringing their trademark and they could sue you and force you to stop using their name.

There are several lawsuits now underway concerning trademark infringements on the Internet or against computer companies. In one recent case (link to case) Playboy sued a BBS in Jacksonville for both copyright infringement and for violation of their trademarked bunny ears.
It resulted in a huge judgment against the defendant for illegal use of the Playboy bunny logo. In another case, singer Bob Dylan has purportedly sued Apple Computer for naming a computer language "Dylan." It was supposedly an abbreviation for "Dynamic Language." Astronomer Carl Sagan also complained to Apple when they starting using "Sagan" as the internal code name of a computer that became the Macintosh 7100. Apple stopped using his name, but instead started calling it the "BHA." Sagan supposedly sued Apple anyway for trademark infringement, defamation and invasion of privacy, claiming that it was well known that Apple used "BHA" as an acronym for "butt-head astronomer." The Judge reportedly threw out Sagan's case.

[The_Abyss]

 
Did they actually buy it though?....I thought they just changed their name to 'Fox Entertainment' and the blokes didn't get a cent?
 

Yep.