Informing the World About the Domain Hijacking
The hijacking of my site was briefly on the Drudge Report yesterday:
It quickly came down — I think because I told them that the link threatened to melt down my site. (Later in the day my site admin made improvements that might have kept up the site through that link. Good timing is my specialty.)
In any event, the Instapundit link (thanks, Glenn!) and other attention has gotten a couple of journalists interested in the story — including both national television and magazine journalists. At least one of those was speaking to a spokesman for Sedo yesterday. “Big companies steal from little guy” makes a good story.
If nothing has happened by Monday, there may well be a lot more publicity for 1&1 Internet, Sedo.com, and DomCollect.
Oh, this could end up being unfortunate for them…
Good.
Scott Jacobs (a1c284) — 10/25/2008 @ 1:55 pmThat’s heartening news. It is good fodder for tech journalists as well — everyone with a Web site is endangered by this sleazy practice.
Bradley J. Fikes (0ea407) — 10/25/2008 @ 1:55 pmYou Go Pat!
Another Drew (a9cfc2) — 10/25/2008 @ 1:58 pmWonder what the vote will be when this gets to the Ninth Circus?
HaHa!
The Law of Unintended Consequences- all the attention to Patterico’s Pontifications may well put more spotlight on the LA Dog Trainer because of Mr. Frey’s yeoman work eviserating The Times dishonesty, hypocrisy and incompetency.
No clue what the fever swamp left has to say about any of it though.
madmax333 (0c6cfc) — 10/25/2008 @ 2:00 pmComment by madmax333 — 10/25/2008 @ 2:00 pm
They should be checking their domaine contracts to ensure that they don’t get sold-out to some collection of RW nuts – now, wouldn’t that be just desserts?
Another Drew (a9cfc2) — 10/25/2008 @ 2:03 pmIt quickly came down — I think because I told them that the link threatened to melt down my site.
Good Lord. I don’t believe you did that.
I bet you don’t play the lottery either because winning $180 million would raise your tax bracket.
Only half kidding. Like my mother would say, “Take the whole and don’t send back the half either”.
nk (5dcbab) — 10/25/2008 @ 2:24 pmIn any case, you’re still in Drudge’s archives.
nk (5dcbab) — 10/25/2008 @ 2:29 pmMore accurately, nk, it didn’t just threaten to. It was certain to.
It’s too bad, because with the new improvements, I think we could have withstood it. I e-mailed them after the improvements had been made but I think they’re awaiting the results of what the journalists will do.
Patterico (1e8b82) — 10/25/2008 @ 2:43 pmLet’s hope this is an example of ‘tragedy turned into triumph.’ I can view a future where the domain thieves are chastised, shamed and more honest in the future (dreaming?), Patterico becomes more well-known and popular than ever (highly likely), and the LAT’s slide into irrelevance is hastened (best of all).
ManlyDad (75cbfe) — 10/25/2008 @ 3:02 pmWhat people might not know is that 1&1, Sedo, and DomCollect are ALL OWNED BY “United Internet AG”
So the VERY SAME COMPANY that promised to take care of Mr. Frey’s registration is the one that stole it out from under him.
If you are registered with 1&1, find a new company! Do not do business with those frauds!
The key to this fraud is that 1&1 and DomCollect conspired to steal web domains from 1&1’s customers!
As soon as a 1&1 customer’s web domain expires, DomCollect snaps it up. DomCollect takes advantage of the relationship between 1&1 and its customers.
If you knew that 1&1 was conspiring with DomCollect to steal your web address out from under you, you NEVER would have signed up with 1&1!!!!
That’s fraud and fraudulent concealment. There’s a host of other violations, including RICO (predicates: extortion and wire fraud). Patterico, I’m emailing you my draft complaint, version 2.0. As soon as you get a lawyer, he will find this draft complaint very interesting. It goes into detail about 1&1’s conspiracy against its own customers.
Whether or not you paid your re-registration fees on time is chicken feed. That’s an unimportant detail. The REAL issue here is that 1&1 conspired with DomCollect to steal domain names from its own customers!
Unfounded Speculation (4ecd4c) — 10/25/2008 @ 3:35 pmhttp://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/new-report-warn.html
Pharming Operatives could hijack the domain names of legitimate election-related websites serving communities expected to vote for the opposition. Visitors would be redirected to fake sites with false information, and maybe even pick up some spyware along the way.
daytrader (ea6549) — 10/25/2008 @ 4:17 pmhttp://jeffcroft.com/blog/2006/feb/27/11-internet-is-the-devil/
Details of another unhappy camper with 1&1
daytrader (ea6549) — 10/25/2008 @ 4:25 pmLook I may be a troll around here, but it is only because I love my country and I enjoy giving the people I see as hurting it (conservatives) a hard time.
That said, I truly hate to see this happen to anyone. You’ve obviously worked hard on this site for a long time and it’s a damn shame this has happened to you. A damn shame. I hope you get your domain back quickly. And I hope 1&1 suffers a loss of business (at a minimum).
For future reference, I’ve found that google does an excellent job of hosting domains and sending reminders well in advance of upcoming events (like domain expiration). They’re not one of the most-used registrars, but you can register domains through their “google business” services. When one of mine expired early this year, they sent no less than 5 emails letting me know it was time to renew.
i like america (d2f951) — 10/25/2008 @ 6:28 pmOh, I do so love hearing them detail the ways conservatives hurt America…
Please, list them for me…
Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec) — 10/25/2008 @ 6:44 pmHuh. I accidentally clicked on my old patterico.com in the history bar, and it’s not at Sedo parking anymore but Windows Search..wonder what that means.
I lost my name domain this year when I let it lapse accidentally, and a domain-sucker montster swiped it out from underneath me by backordering it and it now resides in the Czech Republic. Absolutely no value except sentimental.
cassandra (d4400f) — 10/25/2008 @ 7:56 pmi lick obama and his soulmates such as tokyo rose2008 actually believe that Obama will effect a new American Renaissance and the affections and respect of the rest of the world. Yes, let’s slash the Defense budget and have spaceman Kuchinich head a Dept. of Peace while we sing Kumbaya. Can anyone give an explanation how a confiscatory taxes and ever increasing deficit spending, with “free” health care and a bigger nanny state will actually improve America?
madmax333 (0c6cfc) — 10/25/2008 @ 8:08 pmA troika of FDR, LBJ and Carter policy prescriptions and alphabet soup of new layers of bureaucratic drones will correct any defects? Bill Ayers’ marxist ideas for education will improve test scores? I see that 25% of libs think well of the “Guilty as sin, free as a bird” domestic terrorist, who didn’t oppose the war, but actually wanted the other side to win.
For the younger set out there, forget starting a business. Get a job as a lackey for the gummint. Nice benefits and lots of featherbedding. Even if you yourself are ambitious your colleagues will often be lazy assclowns.
Nobama- poverty from the gorund up
what’s with the gibberish screen on the replies to the tough questions for Biden thread?
Malkin has it right, peter and assorted trolls are wrong. Anything less than total sycophancy by the Obamamedia is just wrong.
madmax333 (0c6cfc) — 10/25/2008 @ 8:22 pmBefore this thread veers off into the political debate that seems imminent, I just want to say one thing:
Patterico, I hope you get your domain back soon. But even if you were to get it back tomorrow, I also hope you woulnd’t stop there. It sounds like you could put together a good case for fraud against 1&1/Sedo/their various sock-puppet companies. I hope you do put that case together and present it to a court that can appropriately punish them for defrauding their customers. Please, for the sake of the other customers of theirs who’ve been scammed and don’t have your legal know-how, don’t let this rest until justice is done.
Robin Munn (16181d) — 10/25/2008 @ 10:01 pmRobin Munn,
I don’t have my domain back, so I’m looking into that possibility.
If I get it back, well, I’m not sure I have the time or energy. We’ll have to see.
Patterico (cc3b34) — 10/25/2008 @ 11:52 pmPatterico –
That’s exactly what they count on. Watch them restore your domain now that the light of publicity has shined (shone?) on your specific case, and continue to rip off hundreds of other customers who don’t have as powerful a publicity platform as you do. (Alliteration not deliberate; it just happened.)
As not just a lawyer but a prosecuting attorney, you’re uniquely qualified to bring justice to these miscreants. If they have any brains, they’ll try to dodge that by restoring your domain, removing your incentive to pursue them further, and counting on that being enough to satisfy you so they don’t end up having to answer for their actions. I hope you won’t let them get away with that.
I do understand the feeling of not having time or energy to pursue something, though. Ultimately, it’s your decision.
Robin Munn (16181d) — 10/26/2008 @ 12:13 amYou make a good point.
Well, let’s have the other people who were ripped off contact me. That’s a start.
Patterico (cc3b34) — 10/26/2008 @ 12:17 amBut I’ll have to see how things shake out.
You are right that I will have more incentive to pursue this if they don’t give it back.
Patterico (cc3b34) — 10/26/2008 @ 12:18 amWell, let’s have the other people who were ripped off contact me. That’s a start.
Good idea — if I may offer a suggestion, you might want to stick that in an update to this post, and/or this one and this one. Especially the first one of those three, since it was linked by Instapundit (and that’s how I found out about the hijacking in the first place). That would allow people following links to older posts to still find out about your request for information. I’m probably offering advice you’d already thought of, of course. But in my experience doing tech support, it’s often the supposedly “obvious” that gets overlooked — so just to make sure you’ve thought of it too, I’m mentioning it despite how obvious the suggestion seems. 🙂
I also remember noticing comment #48 in that post, which alleges that 1&1 has done this to multiple people and links to message-board thread about one such specific allegation, posted almost exactly one year ago. The people there may know of others scammed by this company, and so might the commenter who posted that. (I assume your system keeps track of the email addresses of posters, even if you don’t publish said email addresses).
I hope this helps you gather some useful data should you decide to pursue legal action.
Robin Munn (16181d) — 10/26/2008 @ 12:48 amScott Jacobs: Please, list them for me…
On another thread, another time. It’s pointless to threadjack this legitimate topic for sport.
i like america (d2f951) — 10/26/2008 @ 4:36 pm“i like america”
Iiiiiiirony, oh iiiiirony…….
Foxfier (6efa8a) — 10/26/2008 @ 10:57 pmThis is the unfettered capitalism of which you dream.
Your domain name was usurped. Boo F’ing hoo. By your own standards it was your own fault.
People have been screwed over and over again by the current administration. Do you care? Of course not. You keep spewing your ridiculous propoganda. So f’you.
haven (0a8924) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:01 pmhaven, actually domain registration is a government creation entirely. Not capitalist at all. Coherence has not been a characteristic of trolls lately.
SPQR (26be8b) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:06 pmIt’s amazing how people insist on making everything political. If a bad thing happens to a conservative, it must be the conservative’s fault.
Patterico (cc3b34) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:09 pmOh, and haven? It’s spelled “propaganda.”
And fuck you too.
Patterico (cc3b34) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:10 pmGood one Patterico – you really got haven there – on spelling no less! Take away haven’s gold star for the day! You’re going to make him cry now.
Oh and haven, lighten up a bit, will ya? These right-wingers aren’t evil on purpose, they’re only misguided, that’s all.
Psyberian (37b2ae) — 10/27/2008 @ 8:37 pm