Sex.com Case Heralds The End Of The Internet
from the oh-no! dept
The Register does a good job looking at the specific issues brought up by the latest events in an increasingly long legal saga over the sex.com domain name. If you haven't been following along for the past however many years, the the guy who originally registered the domain sex.com had it stolen away from him by a series of deceptive faxes to Network Solutions. The courts have returned the domain to the guy, and awarded him money, but the domain thief skipped town with all of the many millions he made running sex.com for a few years. So, now, the guy is going after Network Solutions for not having properly checked the domain transfer. The Supreme Court has been asked to consider the question of whether or not domain names count as property, and both sides have submitted their story. Network Solutions, being a bit overdramatic, tries to suggest that a ruling saying that domains are property could destroy Network Solutions and bring the entire internet crashing down. Apparently, what the Slammer worm failed to do, the Supreme Court could do in a single decision. Clearly, they're inflating their own value a bit.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
