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France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

arstechnica.com

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Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#91

Post by jonknee »

dade_ wrote: post #3

Web.com transfers the france.com they registered for their customer (since 1994) to the government of France without explanation or warning. "on March 12, 2018, Web.com abruptly transferred ownership of the domain to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The company did so without any formal notification to Frydman and no compensation." It is actually just another example proving the warning we have all known/given…

The irony that it was generically named web.com who did this. Why should they keep their name, they don't own the web?

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#92

Post by abritinthebay »

trumped wrote: post #82
lkrubner wrote: post #7

The courts, in the USA, have found that domain names are not property, instead they are like telephone numbers: ---------------- The court found that under the California tariffs, rules, and regulations applicable to public utilities, and under the terms of the contracts, the debtors had no “proprietary right in the number.” https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0a84b472-c89f... Also: ...under Virginia law,…

Wow that's crazy... you buy something yet but you don't own it. It's a bit like cellphones, I guess.

... I own my cellphone. What are you referring to?

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#93

Post by Cyph0n »

sloxy wrote: post #86
shiado wrote: post #50

He should consult the guy that owns nissan.com.

why? nissan.com is owned by Mr. Uzi Nissan so there is a reasonable defense that he has a justifiable claim to the domain. seems a lot more clear cut than this.

So you're saying that if the owner of france.com was a Mr. James France, the French government wouldn't have done the same thing?

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#94

Post by jakobegger »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #64
dfxm12 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going by iPad.com as an example, you'd play a game of chicken with Apple, because the moment you try to monetize that site in almost any way, they'll sue you for trademark infringement. You'll hope they offer you a ton of money for it, but Apple's brand is strong enough that they don't need it. Mr. Nissan is lucky that he had an existing business that wasn't car related and he only registered his name...

Very dumb of Apple IMO. Just pay the guy. So what that he wants $x million?

Then they would also have to pay millions for applewatch.com macbook.com ipadpro.com macpro.com iphone7.com iphone8.com iphonex.com ...

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#95

Post by justinclift »

cft wrote: post #32
indigodaddy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think as soon as he heard any sort of rumblings from those French entities, he would have been smart to transfer away from web.com to a real/first-party registrar. Potentially they would have been less likely to just hand over the domain.

Can you recommend such a registrar? I also had bad experience with Network Solutions / web.com. They seem to blur the distinction between being a hosting company and a domain registrar.

easyDNS (easydns.com), based in Canada, has a reputation for not just rolling over.

Their UI though is a bit crappy compared to other places though (like hover). Hover though I suspect wouldn't put up any kind of resistance.

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#97

Post by jack9 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #29
lkrubner wrote: post #7

The courts, in the USA, have found that domain names are not property, instead they are like telephone numbers: ---------------- The court found that under the California tariffs, rules, and regulations applicable to public utilities, and under the terms of the contracts, the debtors had no “proprietary right in the number.” https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0a84b472-c89f... Also: ...under Virginia law,…

> Governments have the right to assign to themselves any telephone number they wish, and reserve ranges of phone numbers for themselves, They don't do that after the fact.

> They don't do that after the fact.

They have and do. https://voiceofpeopletoday.com/kim-jong-un-orders-change-num...

It's unusual for the French government, who has some of the strongest consumer protections on the planet.

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#98

Post by trumped »

abritinthebay wrote: post #92
trumped wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that's crazy... you buy something yet but you don't own it. It's a bit like cellphones, I guess.

... I own my cellphone. What are you referring to?

locked bootloaders/etc... They claim it's for security but they don't give you a choice.

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#99

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

lkrubner wrote: post #7

The courts, in the USA, have found that domain names are not property, instead they are like telephone numbers: ---------------- The court found that under the California tariffs, rules, and regulations applicable to public utilities, and under the terms of the contracts, the debtors had no “proprietary right in the number.” https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0a84b472-c89f... Also: ...under Virginia law,…

I feel like 1-800-Flowers Inc. and probably any company that employed a phoneword to achieve prominence could probably argue otherwise.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneword

Re: France seizes france.com from man who's had it since 1994

#100

Post by komali2 »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #84
mc32 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the case where companies pay for vanity phone numbers that either match their business name, or approximate the business name: ex, 800 mattress or 800 eyeglasses?

Is the government seizing those too?

The idea is if one, then the other. Kind of like when you spec out edge cases.
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