Someone stolen my domainThere are a number of reasons how someone has got your domain, we will list a few of these major reasons and how it occurred. If you think that this has happened recently within the last 30 days, you need to contact your original domain registrar and lodge a complaint and advise them which of the following may have occurred. As we have had a high level of requests regarding this area we have provided several links to relevant books on the subject available from Amazon.com Domain names management and legal protection - International Journal of Information Management] The domain registration game (marketing tactics used by domain registrars) - Hawaii Business Domain Tasting
Domain tasting is the practice of a domain name registrant using the five-day "grace period" at the beginning of the registration. Domains that are found to be a success are retained, as they are still receive enough traffic from search engines and existing hyperlinks that the possible ad revenue exceeds the cost of the registration. Some of these tasted domains are loaded with ads to test for viability and a cost-benefit analysis is undertaken during the grace period and maybe offloaded with a small profit and no cost and this maybe just a few dollars per domain across thousands of domains. Those that are eventually registered may also expect revenue from the eventual sale of the domain at a premium price.
The practice is controversial as practitioners typically register many hundreds of thousands of domain names under this practice, with these temporary registrations far exceeding the number of domain names actually licensed.
The practice is controversial and to understand the scale of how these temporary registrations far exceed the number actually kept, read the example. In 2006, from 35 million registrations, just over 2 million were not refunded. In February 2007, GoDaddy reported that of 55.1 million domain names registered, 51.5 million were refunded just before the 5 day grace period expired and only 7% of these domain names were actually fully registered.
Domain kiting
Domain kiting is the process of deleting a domain name during the five-day grace period and immediately re-registering it for another five-day period. This process is repeated any number of times with the end result of having the domain registered without ever actually paying for it.
Reverse Domain Hijacking
Reverse domain hijacking is the practice of inequitably unseating domain name registrants by accusing them of violating weak or non-existent trademarks related to the domain name.
A widely regarded case of reverse domain hijacking occurred back in 2000, when the Deutsche Welle group attempted to acquire the domain dw.com from software firm Diamond Ware. Motorola has was involved in such a strategies that ended up in court because the company has not registered a domain and realised its commercial value at a later stage and then tries to retrospective copyright e.g. motorazr.com
Cyber squatting
Cyber squatting, according to the US federal law known as the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The basis for the registration is to sell the domain at an inflated price, which is far greater than what they purchased the domain for. They can be controversial as they put up paid links to competitors websites your user was searching for. It is often incorrectly used for generic domain name holders such as pizza.com that was registered in 1994 and recently sold for $2.6 million.
Two technical strategies are used by cyber squatters, once is variants of trademarked names “typo squatting”. Another strategy is to use automated software tools to track when a domain will expire and automatically registering the lapsed domain names. Other identity theft strategies include renewal snatching, extension exaggeration and alert angling.
Domaining
Domaining is the business of acquiring and monetizing Internet domain names for their use primarily as an advertising medium rather than for resale. Name portfolios are often made up of marketable generic domain names or existing expired domains that have retained traffic. In essence, the domain names function as ad billboards. Using these sites to provide the "feed" of a word or phrase searched for or occasionally content is added to develop a functional mini-website. They usually avoid legal issues by not registering trademarked or contentious or illegal domain names and try to refrain from typo squatting.
Drop list contents
There is no defined date range for data contained with a drop list, as they can contain anywhere between 1 day's worth of expiring domain names, to more than 30 days worth depending on the registrar. They usually make a number of efforts to contact you, if your WHOIS information is update to date.
Some drop lists contain only domain names that follow the domain name deletion process
REGISTRAR HOLD
REDEMPTION PERIOD
PENDING DELETE
The data contained within a drop list can also vary, with some lists providing only basic information, such as the domain name and its expiry date but some drop lists provide more detailed statistics, including, Page Rank, Link popularity, Alexa rank and more.
Note: Check that the person who has registered the domain doesnt work for the your registrar as staff have access to this lists and can make profit from this inside information.
Domain name speculation
Domain name speculation refers to buying domains with the intent of selling them later for a higher price. This is often linked to news and current events, but these often have a limited period to be resold. The main target of domain name speculation is generic words for the dominant position they would have in any field due to their descriptive nature. Generic words such as poker, insurance, travel, and others are highly valuable in any Top Level Domain.
Sometimes, domain name speculation involves finding domain names early in a market , registering them and waiting until the market grows to sell them. Domains such as pizza.com have sold for millions of US dollars. Domain name speculators also register domain names based on seemingly generic phrases like holidayhomes hoping that these domain names could be sold later to businesses. Typically, domain name speculators will try to stay away from domain names containing trademarks as this could be considered cybersquatting unless the term is considered generic enough such as cola.
Domain sniping
Domain sniping is the practice of an individual registering a domain name whose registration has lapsed in the immediate moments after expiry often using automated software. This has been reduced since ICANN's addition of the Redemption Grace Period , which allows previous registrants 30 days to reclaim back their domain name. By law there are no perpetual rights to domain names after payment of registration fees lapses, aside from trademark rights granted by common law or statute.
Domain parking
Domain parking is an advertising practice used primarily by domain name registrars and internet advertising publishers to monetize type-in traffic visiting an under-developed domain name. These links will be targeted to the predicted interests of the visitor and may change dynamically based on the results that visitors click on overtime. Usually the domain owner is paid based on how many links have been visited and on how beneficial those visits have been.
The main use of domain parking is to be a placeholder for an existing web site where the company might choose to use this method to redirect traffic to another website it owns.
Domain name warehousing
Domain name warehousing is the common practice of registrars obtaining control of domain names with the intent to hold or “warehouse” names for their use and/or profit. Also see domain tasting, a related business practice employed by registrants.
Typically this practice occurs after a domain name has expired and the previous owner (registrant) has not exercised his/her right to renew that name within the allotted time frame (approximately 45 days following expiration). Domain's expiration date and time are easily calculated based on the expiration date in the whois and the redemption process.
Type-in traffic
Type-in traffic is a term describing visitors landing at a web site by entering a word or phrase (with no spaces or a hyphen in place of a space) in the web browser's address bar (and adding .com or any other gTLD or ccTLD extension) instead of or a search-box search. Type-in traffic is a form of direct navigation to your site.
Example: If you are interested in widgets, then instead of performing a search-engine search for the term 'weather' you might type 'weather.com' in your address bar to see if such a web site exists.
From another perspective, if you are in the business of supplying weather data, then owning the domain name 'weather.com' and having an active website at that address would be a desirable thing, as you gain the type-in traffic this name receives. This simple principal example holds true for virtually all products & services.
Type-in traffic does not differentiate between trademark traffic & generic traffic for domain names.
Example, registering coca-cola.com for commercial gain would be considered cybersquatting, but registering softdrinks.com or cola.com would likely be a defensible acquisition of a generic domain name.
Typosquatting
Typosquatting, also called URL hijacking, is a form of cybersquatting which relies on mistakes such as typographical errors made by users when inputting a website address into a web browser. Should a user accidentally enter an incorrect website address, they may be led to the website owned by a cybersquatter.
Generally, the site of typosquatting will be a frequently visited website and will usually be one of four kinds, all similar to the victim site address.
* A common misspelling, or foreign language spelling, of the intended site: color.com
* A misspelling based on typing errors: coluor.com or collour.com
* A differently phrased domain name: colours.com
* A different top-level domain: colour.org
Typosquatter's may also trick visitors into thinking that they are in fact in the real site using of copied or similar logos, website layouts or content, sometimes competitors will undertake this.
Wikipedia is a victim of typosquatting: en.wiipedia.org, en.wikpedia.org, www.eikipedia.org, www.wilipedia.org, en.wikipedi.org, en.wikipediia.org, www.wikipedi.com and www.wikipaedia.org are all websites containing pop-up ads, spyware/adware downloads.
Google's anti-typosquatting is incomplete www.goggle.com redirects to a dubious site rather than to Google and www.googl.com is another a search engine.
Domain name front running
Domain name front running is the practice where domain name registrar uses insider WHOIS information to register domains for the purpose of re-selling them or earning revenue via ads placed on the domains landing page. By registering the domains, the registrar locks out other potential registrars from selling the domain to the customer. The registrar takes advantage of the 5-day "domain tasting" trial period, where the domain can be locked without payment and releases the domain after 4 days.
Registrar Network Solutions uses data collected from their web-based WHOIS search to register every domain that users check for availability. The practice forces users to register the searched-for domains from Network Solutions and anyone using their site can register that domain or risk waiting 4 days and register with another company.
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