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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

#111

Post by testplzignore »

indigodaddy wrote: post #20
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…

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.

I'm wondering if anything legally prevents Verisign or a registrar from saying "screw it, we're selling every domain name under our control and then shutting down our business." The total assets of Verisign and all of the .com registrars are surely far less than the value of all of the .com domains. Heck, the value of the FANG domains alone is probably worth more than all registrars combined. If Verisign transferred technical control of all .com domains to another party, I guess that would effectively result in a fork of the entire DNS system, assuming the rest of the root name server operators didn't go along with it. But could Verisign legally get away with it?

In the france.com case, presumably the owner of the domain was paying Web.com for the domain, and they allegedly received no compensation from Web.com when it was transferred. Seems like a pretty blatant breach of contract to me. Why isn't Web.com being sued? Suing them indirectly via Verisign doesn't make sense.

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

#112

Post by Silhouette »

lkrubner wrote: post #79
Silhouette wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The courts, in the USA, have found that domain names are not property, instead they are like telephone numbers The implications of the current legal position you describe are troubling. These virtual identifiers, whether it's a phone number or an email address or a domain name or a Twitter handle, are now the dominant way we contact someone. Physical addresses that are inherently tied to their current occupant (and t…

" These virtual identifiers, whether it's a phone number or an email address or a domain name or a Twitter handle, are now the dominant way we contact someone. " That's a good argument for changing the law. However, this is wrong: " More than that, these IDs are becoming trusted ways to reach a specific person. " That is something that I would like to see, but that is definitely not the way things work now. If I fail…

I agree that your suggestion of some sort of official, permanent point of contact would be better. However, even with the proviso that you have to keep paying for a service to retain it, it seems to me that some sort of regulation giving the current user of a particular ID first refusal over renewing it and a clear warning before they lose access to it would be beneficial. Possibly some restriction on reusing the same ID for anyone else within a reasonable period, say a few years, would also be a good idea. The fact is that these IDs are being used for sensitive, important, often government-sanctioned purposes already, and protecting them as such is surely an improvement on the status quo.

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

#113

Post by dghughes »

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,…

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say an IP addresses is like a phone number?

The DNS phonebook analogy would mean France.com is the name and the IP is the phone number.

What was done would be equivalent to taking a man's name from him leaving him with only his phone number.

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

#114

Post by icebraining »

dghughes wrote: post #113
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,…

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say an IP addresses is like a phone number? The DNS phonebook analogy would mean France.com is the name and the IP is the phone number. What was done would be equivalent to taking a man's name from him leaving him with only his phone number.

I'd say the domain is the phone number (the visible identifier used to contact him) and IP address is whatever internal IDs the operators use to route calls to whatever cellphone he happens to be using.

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

#115

Post by hokus »

fasj82 wrote: post #51
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,…

Maybe I'm weird but I think France.com belonging to France is the just thing. The last thing we need is giving more rights to squatters.

no no, the country should be represented by some American.

IMHO the only offensive part is how they took so much time to do it. That part is very nasty.

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

#116

Post by thaumasiotes »

ada1981 wrote: post #73
geezerjay wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they have not. Each country can manage country-code top level donains, but that's just it: a specific top-level domain they are free to use. That doesn't negate them the right of using other domains, just like if you buy a domain name you don't lose the right of using a second or a third one. It boggles the mind how anyone in their right mind can believe that a cyber-squatter shoud somehow have the right to hold…

Except he wasn’t a cyber squatter — he built a business around it. It’s seems uncommon for countries to actually own COUNTRY.com - UnitedStates.com, America.com, Germany.com and many more are privately held.

germany.com isn't in the same class as the other examples; France's claim on france.com is arguably more similar to Germany's hypothetical claim on deutschland.com . Why assume that what governments really care about is the English name for their country?

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

#117

Post by gsich »

koolba wrote: post #88
ThomPete wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did, but more importantly, the French government isn't a business either.

Nor is the French government a US citizen, permanent resident, or corporation. Does this mean they can seize the word “France” in other languages well?

They definitly want to. France is a vulture when it comes to it's language.

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

#118

Post by gsich »

simias wrote: post #75
hultner wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But so are domains, just with a suffix instead of a prefix. You oughta think a .com domain is more suitable for a commercial entity then for a government/state department.

.com has become the de-facto default TLD for the net for better or worse.

somewhat disagree, hipster companies use .io for example

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

#119

Post by JetSpiegel »

jack9 wrote: post #97
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Wait, Voice of People Today is registered in Tirana, Albania to a @gmail address? Seems fishy.

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

#120

Post by onetimemanytime »

jakobegger wrote: post #94
onetimemanytime wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ...

>> applewatch.com, ipadpro.com macpro.com...iphone7.com iphone8.com iphonex.com

UDRP cost a few thousand dollars. iPad.com, IIRC, was registered before Apple came up with iPad. Plus, iPad is an entire product line.

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