5,000 Domains Seized Based On Sealed Court Filing; Confused Domain Owners Have No Idea Why
from the that-seems-problematic dept
In the past, we'd been fairly worried about governments seizing website domains with little or no notice, but it's perhaps equally, if not more, troubling when it's done by private individuals and companies. This was one of our concerns with the original version of SOPA, which included a "private right of action." But, even though SOPA never became law (and the private right of action was dropped fairly early on), it appears that some courts are still allowing this to happen. Just a couple of months ago, we wrote about a troubling ruling in an Oregon district court that let a Filipino entertainment company seize a bunch of domains, in a process that was done under seal. In the past, we've seen other brands, like Chanel do the same thing. Louis Vuitton has also tried seizing domains.The latest such example seems especially troubling because no one has any idea what's fully happening, but it appears to involve Chan Luu, a jewelry and clothing retailer. The Internet Commerce Association notes that approximately 5,000 domains appear to have been seized, handed over to a private "receiver" who is now trying to sell those domains -- for no clear reason. One of the victims, Michael Berkens, who lost some of his domains, has explained what little details he's been able to find out:
Overnight I received a notice that several domain names I owned were transferred by a sealed court from Verisign without notice and of course without the court order.The only information that Berkens received was the following email:
The domain names just were transferred by Verisign to another domain and are now listed for sale at another marketplace.
Another domainer sent me an identical notice he received overnight on domain names he owned.
The Domain names are now all owned by COURT APPOINTED RECEIVER – ROBERT OLEA and have been moved to Uniregisty as the registrar and are now listed for sale at domainnamesales.com
Others have tracked down that it has something to do with this case, but with the details under seal, it's all a bit of a mess. Here's Phil Corwin from the Internet Commerce Association:Please be advised that Verisign has changed the registrar of record for certain domain names pursuant to a ***SEALED*** court order.
The domain names identified below were affected by this action.
Alexander the Great, LLC
—————————————————————————–
RETRACTIT.COMIf you have any questions relating to these actions, please contact:
David J. Steele
Partner, Christie, Parker & Hale LLP
Adj. Professor of Law, Loyola School
18101 Von Karman Ave, Suite 1950
Irvine, CA 92612-0163
office: +1 (949) 476-0757
direct: +1 (949) 823-3232
fax: +1 (949) 476-8640
email: david.steele@cph.comThank you very much,
The Verisign Transfer Dispute Team””transfers@verisign-grs.com
The only other available facts that we are presently aware of are that a copy of the “Clerk’s Certification Of A Judgment To be Registered In Another District” issued by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in the case of Chan Luu Inc. v. Online Growth, LLC et al is available at the Justia website, and the order was registered in the Florida Middle District Court. The other defendants in the case are “Grant Shellhammer et al”. There was a considerable time lag in this proceeding, with the original judgment entered in California on May 23rd, the certification dated September 8th, and the domain transfers occurring around October 2nd. The damages granted to plaintiff are $200,000 plus interest, court costs and attorney fees; we note that there is a strong possibility that the domains transferred in this case may have an aggregate market value far in excess of that total judgment, and that is likewise disturbing. The California court document covers domains that are identical or confusingly similar to Plaintiff’s CHAN LUU mark – but we’re not sure if the domain cited by Mike in his article, RETRACTIT.COM, or any of the other transferred domains fit in that category. Chan Luu is a retailer of jewelry, accessories, and ready-to-wear clothing based in Los Angeles, and so far as can be discerned makes no commercial use of the term “retractit”, so it is unclear why that domain was covered by the court order.This is problematic on many, many levels -- and is exactly why we've been so concerned about any process that allows for domain seizures without any sense of due process. In this case, with all the details under seal and the domain owners having their websites simply ripped away from them with no explanation at all, it should raise serious questions about why courts are allowing this to occur. To take domain names away from people who aren't even parties to a lawsuit, based on a sealed document, and then to immediately put them up for resale seems sketchy beyond belief.
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Filed Under: domain seizures, domains, due process, michael berkens, secrecy, trademark, transparency, under seal
Companies: chan luu, verisign
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Business as always unless you hit somebody with plenty of money and influence (it won't happen unless by mistake, they target the small folk). Sketchy beyond belief is and euphemism. It's plain criminal. And it's sealed beyond appeal or due process.
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Who do you even sue?
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Re: Who do you even sue?
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Re: Re: Who do you even sue?
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Re: Re: Re: Who do you even sue?
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Re: Who do you even sue?
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OMG OMG!! I have domain names that also use the letters a through z !!
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Perhaps it's more appropriate to say Justice is blind, deaf and dumb.
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- Me: "Justice is blind... and deaf."
Evidently, so am I.
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Blind deaf and dumb justice.
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Re:
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Re: yes, blind justice
https://ia601402.us.archive.org/34/items/gov.uscourts.wieb.358648/
You can see a bankruptcy filed with claims that just don't hold up to other documents like the car registration in the dispute.
But we can all watch the Judge toss the thing or the debtor stop showing up.
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mpaa.org
riaa.com
and chrisdodd.com for kicks.
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Even if the domains were, in fact, infringing, it should not be possible to sell them without first giving the former owner the right to contest the seizure in court.
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Re: why sell?
My guess was that the proceeds of the sales are intended to go to the wronged party. It's all I could think of but it makes no sense. But since it's all secret..
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Re: Re: why sell?
This seems like an awfully disgusting downward spiral of profit.
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Maybe it is a way to seize the domains for some other unstated reason. Or to shut down certain websites for some reason unrelated to the argument being made in court.
Do not assume incompetence with malice will suffice.
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Re: Re: Re:
Quite true - the question is, why would the court cooperate with the plaintiff's desire to do this in secret?
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DCI Fyfe, City of London Police.
See, the City of London police were right all along!! They'll be here any minute now to seize the seized domains and everything will be fine again.
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$200,000.00 is a lot
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While the lack of due process is a problem...
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Re: While the lack of due process is a problem...
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Re: While the lack of due process is a problem...
This isn't about sympathy for crooks. This is about justice. Your very comment indicates why this is an issue: you're assuming that all of the domains that were stolen were run by scumbags, when we have exactly no evidence that this is the case.
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Re: Re: While the lack of due process is a problem...
I'm not supporting the lack of due process. I'm not supporting the secrecy. Both of those are horribly bad ideas principle and in practice. Everybody, even filth like domaineers, has the right to know what the hell is going on and to defend themselves in court/with counsel/etc.
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Re: Re: Re: While the lack of due process is a problem...
It wouldn't even matter if every one of them were a card-carrying member of the National Federation of Scumbags.
AC: Everybody, even filth like domaineers, has the right to know what the hell is going on and to defend themselves in court/with counsel/etc.
Right on.
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Re: While the lack of due process is a problem...
Somehow, I feel if they truly were the "Internet's worst scum" then a secret court/secret order/secret squirrel would be completely unnecessary.
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Re: While the lack of due process is a problem...
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Re: While the lack of due process is a problem...
As somebody else pointed out if they're infringing on the trademark then you won't want to sell them the domains. Maybe some of the others are scum but when you seize /50,000/ domains you have to expect there to be some mistakes and you can't harm innocents just because you've been harmed yourself. It sounds like they didn't even seize the domains to stop imminent harm, they did it to compensate someone else and they've made no effort to ensure they didn't cause harm to others.
So maybe it's not a 'lock up everyone because some are rapists', it's 'seize everyone's bank account since some of the money was stolen from Joe'.
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Re: Re: While the lack of due process is a problem...
Still a ridiculously large number to see with the expectation of no errors, esp. when the affected parties can't challenge the claim. You don't get 5,000 hits easily - they're probably making assumptions like matching names on domain contact info and not ensuring that "John Smith" is the same John Smith in question.
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They took property from people via the courts without ever serving any documents on the targets.
They order is sealed of someone using the publicly funded court system, probably because of some statements of questionable "merit" that they would just transfer them away. Oh I read the order, they got an unopposed default... quaint.
Huh I wonder if this is 5000 domains that happened to share the same host or something that a freaking moron would assume connected them to the actual target.
Loyola might want to look into who they hire and if they are qualified in this technical age.
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Re:
So the order was against Verisign, not the domain owners, and they didn't bother showing up because they don't care about their customers? Nice.
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Re: Re:
All of the other domains just seem to be collateral damage that weren't all connected to the bad man.
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I will own Techdirt.com soon.
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Wait a minute
Why would they seize them, then turn around and SELL them?
What would prevent the future owners from doing the same thing with said domains?
This sounds more like a court approved robbery, not some action designed to right a wrong.
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however to seize a domain without holding a court session, without informing the site runners and giving no reason(s) is nothing less than we deserve because of the short-sighted way we are being manipulated into a corner, where the internet is going to be run by the industries stated above and full of spyware, not for criminals to pull off dirty deeds against us, but for governments to do so!
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Nothing to do with domain names?
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Re: Nothing to do with domain names?
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Re: Nothing to do with domain names?
Even if correct, these people didn't even receive notice of the existence of a lawsuit before the domains were seized. That's not justice, or due process.
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They can't do that.
You bet you need to run, not walk to the nearest relevant court. Yes, this involves litigation. But justice is freedom and FREEDOM ISN'T FREE. Think of it as being drafted, but instead of your life, freedom is only asking for your money. A bunch of folks interned in Normandy, Bunker Hill and Gettysburg would love to trade places with you.
Courts don't go around looking for injustice. They CAN'T do anything until some hero brings a case to them. When that happens, they move swiftly and with astonishing force to bring an end to injustices like Righthaven, Prenda and whatnot. The exact same thing WILL happen here, all we need is a hero to run the legal process through. Like I say, freedom isn't free, but in those cases, the courts awarded legal fees.
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Re: They can't do that.
Excuse me for a minute while I laugh at that statement. Swiftly? It takes years.
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Re: They can't do that.
In this case, the injustice was perpetrated (or at best abetted) by the court.
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Re: They can't do that.
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Re: They can't do that.
Bullshit. https://ia601402.us.archive.org/34/items/gov.uscourts.wieb.358648/
There is a gent demanding back property that is not his like the car or "the spices" - with "the spices" having a court order of this:
The defendants shall return forthwith to Sandwich Kings all spices, spice containers and spice dispensers removed from the premises on or after September 6, 2013 (Milwaukee 2013cv2944)
If you look at the past bankruptcy of this gent in PACER you'll see he tried to claim the property in dispute in Milwaukee 2013CV2944 as his - including the location the State Court already awarded to the other party.
Take a guess what has been done so far VS him WRT those items? Go ahead.
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This is like towing someone's car out of a parking lot because the previous owner is having his assets seized. The car (or domain) was paid for. The guy you're going after now has more cash - go after that. If he somehow hid the money from the sale, that's on him, not on the guy who bought it in good faith.
The only justification I can think of for taking the domain from a third party is if the domain was stolen property (if A steals from B and sells to C, C must give the property back to B), and even then, there's no good reason to do it THIS way (no notice and under seal). Additionally, having your domain seized, assuming it's actually being used and not just parked, constitutes irreparable harm. Especially since it's without notice and you can't just tell your visitors that you need to find a new address. You've likely lost most of them forever, even if the court later found it was in error and gave it back.
My first thought on why it was done this way was that the judge was concerned that if notice was given, some of the domains might have been transferred, perhaps to an out-of-country registrar, thereby defeating the court order. But after stopping to think for two seconds, VeriSign is responsible for operating the entire .com domain. And in fact, they transferred the domain from one registrar to another to comply with the court order. So that sort of thing seems impossible.
In any case, we need to break this trend of judges giving sealed orders. It's repugnant. We can't even intelligently comment on this because we don't know what's going on.
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Court approved robbery
A) You'd lost a case you had never heard of or were aware you were involved in.
B) You were blocked from even knowing any of the details of the case because it was sealed for some reason.
C) Your stuff would be sold to help pay off the fines you were found to owe.
And if you wanted to contest the robbery, you'd have to take it up with the judge, somehow, but better hurry, because your former property was going on the selling block as of now.
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Re: Court approved robbery
I suspect that, now with only 233 domains showing up as owned by the domain seller, the property is gone now and this will only be solved by suing the parties involved (and you won't likely get your property back.) I haven't found any of the other 5000 domains, so I can't verify they've already been sold or not, but I suspect they may have been sold to other scammers.
Luckily my one .com wasn't part of this land-grab. But I had to make sure, since nobody has actually published a list of the 5000 domains grabbed. It would be interesting to see a list, but so far looking at the 233 up for sale on the domain sellers site, there is an awful lot of what looks like vanity and unrelated domains on there.
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Re: Court approved robbery
EVERYONE agrees the seizure was wrong and had no basis, BUT THE PEOPLE can't get any relief, much less be made whole...
it is just so much naked 'might makes right'...
these people were 100% 'in the legal right', but it doesn't matter because the (in)justice system is slanted to the haves...
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Online Growth, LLC
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one domain speculator scumbag. . .
IMHO of course.
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Re: one domain speculator scumbag. . .
Even if every single one of the domains seized belonged to scum(unlikely), the fact that they only found out about it after the case was over, and their domains had been taken from them and put up for sale is a gross violation of their right to be able to face, and defend themselves in court, before having a judgement made against them.
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Re: Re: one domain speculator scumbag. . .
Citation?
There's no details in the above article, just a bunch of "due process" FUD.
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Re: Re: Re: one domain speculator scumbag. . .
'Overnight I received a notice that several domain names I owned were transferred by a sealed court from Verisign without notice and of course without the court order.
The domain names just were transferred by Verisign to another domain and are now listed for sale at another marketplace.
Another domainer sent me an identical notice he received overnight on domain names he owned.
The Domain names are now all owned by COURT APPOINTED RECEIVER – ROBERT OLEA and have been moved to Uniregisty as the registrar and are now listed for sale at domainnamesales.com'
...
'The only information that Berkens received was the following email:
Please be advised that Verisign has changed the registrar of record for certain domain names pursuant to a ***SEALED*** court order.
The domain names identified below were affected by this action.
Alexander the Great, LLC'
Also, 'Due process' FUD? Please, objecting to having a ruling made in court in a case you had no clue was going on, and only finding out about it when your site was seized is 'FUD' now? That's not even close to 'FUD', that's a very real, very legitimate concern and objection.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: one domain speculator scumbag. . .
Say again? I'm sorry, what *website* was *seized*? Hmm?
These guys were domain name squatters. Did Masnick happen to post the details of the arrangement these guys had to squat on those names? No? He just spouted his due process FUD? Oh ok. Snore.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: one domain speculator scumbag. . .
Also, for someone claiming that Mike isn't posting any details(since apparently clicking on the links in the article is too difficult for you), it's funny how you automatically assume they were all domain squatters, as though that magically removes their right to defend themselves in court before action is taken against them.
Nope, much easier to assume they were all scum, not deserving of equal rights under the law, and then pile on the insults. /s
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Re: Re: Re: one domain speculator scumbag. . .
Yep. Claim that you invented email, and he'll go to the ends of the earth to prove you wrong. Claim that 5,000 domain names were seized without due process, and that's repeated as gospel truth with neither knowledge of the facts nor the law. Journalism! Go Mike!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: one domain speculator scumbag. . .
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I am just wondering here,,,
It seems to me like this was some sort of payment instead of money, but holy cow these guys are bastards, just shutting the sites down without any regard for the people who's living might be dependent upon that site.
This does not include scammers and such... screw those guys.
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But to sell the domains?
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Re: But to sell the domains?
Here take these 5000 domains that belong to other people who may be conducting business with them, and sell them as part of your settlement...
It all makes perfect sense if you squint really hard and try to think like you work for a TLA...
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Bingo!
Question is were some of these domains honeypots or somehow not entirely 'consumer-grade'. Why else the secrecy?
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The relief described in that 2011 Chanel article linked in OP is actually pretty common and still happens today. The law firms write up their proposed relief and the judge just signs off on it.
Why don't you hear about it more? One possible reason is that the lawyers get an ex parte order approved that permits service of documents via email to the address listed as the WHOIS contact... so if your WHOIS mailbox gets a lot of spam (or you're using a privacy service), it's very easy to miss the notice and if you don't respond, say hello to default judgment.
I'm curious now, so I'll be keeping an eye on the inbox where I work to see if any of the domains registered through my company get nabbed and if Verisign gives us any more info.
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Why exactly do people put up with a blatantly criminal government that rules like they are royalty and their citizens are slaves
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Why we tolerate feudal dictatorship
Easy. The seizures and the murders are easy to ignore. Many day-to-day workers don't have time to look up from their desks or service stations to parent their own kids, let alone watch their liberties crumble.
We only tend to notice our rights are gone after we need them.
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Third World Country
It's official - the USA has finally crossed the line to become a third world country. A banana republic, without the bananas.
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Re: Third World Country
And i'd not expect that sort of thing from those places, they're generally not functional enough for it to come up. It's Exactly the sort of thing i'd expect from the USA though. Or China. Maybe Russia. I'd expect most of the EU would manage to actually notify people Before taking their stuff (all done by the book), but otherwise it sounds believeable for there, too. Not too unlikely for japan, either. Each has their own spin on it, of course.
*That is, origionally meant.
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Details... details....
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Sounds like a case...
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THEFT OF PROPERY BY FRAUD/ABUSE OF POWER
BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, THEFT AND FRAUD JUDICIAL ABUSE IN VIOLATING OTHER ASSETS IS COMMON CIVIL AND CRIMINAL RACKETEERING UNDER BOTH, 18 USC, 1961, 1964. THERE EXIST A LAUNDRY LIST OF CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LAW.
CLEARLY, THESE CASES ARE CLASS ACTION, AND MORE. A FEDERAL CASE IN L.A. WITH THE APPEAL IN THE 9TH CIRCUIT MAY BE THE BEST LOGIC.
AND A TEMPORAY INJUCTION, AND NAME THE FEDERAL JUDGE THAT ORDERED THE CASE SEALED FOR OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, AND ASK TO DEPOSE HIM UNDER DISCOVERY, THEN ASK THE THE SEAL BE REMOVED, DUE TO THE CONFRONTATION CLAUSE, DUE PROCESS, FED RULES OF CIV/CRIM PROC. WHY WOULD THIS CASE BE ANY DIFFERENT, JUST BECAUSE ITS INTERNET. ALL LAWS AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS APPLIES, BECAUSE THE US DIST CT IS GOVERNMENT, THUS INVOLKS FULL CONST. RIGHTS. MY OP. RON ELSBERG, PROF OF LAW
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