Looking at the court documents, it seems shady organizations registered a bunch of domain names that are used in the trade of brand-name athletic gear. The victim's identity was used to register one of those domain names, but just looking at the other registrations it's pretty clear the organizations are based out of China. In this context, the case brought by the brand owners is a little more reasonable -- if they did not try to defend their brands against this level of counterfeiting, then, they can be found to have lacked diligence in defending their trademarks.
However, in the case of the victim, her owing $1.2mm in penalties hinges on her identity being used as the owner of some domain names that contain these brands' names.
I suppose if the victim had "infinite resources" the next step as the victim would be to file a lawsuit against the domain name registrars for claiming she owned the sites. If the registrar would remove her stolen identity from the site then the suit would have no basis to link her to the domain names and she would be cleared.
But then again, what incentive would a domain name registrar have to remove your stolen ID as the owner? If they simply agreed to do it when asked, then anyone could send a fake letter to the registrar claiming you don't own your DNS records and remove you as the owner of them.
Genuine question to HN readers -- if you woke up tomorrow and found a whois entry that had your name and details listed as owner for a site that traded in illicit goods and/or morally objectionable content, how would one go about correcting that?
globalsupport@icann.org and contacting the registrar to start. File a police report (this will help if anyone comes to visit your address) regarding identity theft. Contact the IRS regarding identity theft and possible foreign dba. Contact the post office if you dont have a locked mailbox..also, if you get any domain related mail, it can elevate the federal response. Talk to your bank about invalidating all checks and putting a limit on daily withdrawls/spending.
This is just off the top of my head. It is a huge headache that will trouble you for a few years.
So in other words, the state that results from wrongfully typing someone's name in a textbox that is never verified when buying the domain is a multi-year endeavour for that person? Surely there has to be a better way.
However, in the case of the victim, her owing $1.2mm in penalties hinges on her identity being used as the owner of some domain names that contain these brands' names.
I suppose if the victim had "infinite resources" the next step as the victim would be to file a lawsuit against the domain name registrars for claiming she owned the sites. If the registrar would remove her stolen identity from the site then the suit would have no basis to link her to the domain names and she would be cleared.
But then again, what incentive would a domain name registrar have to remove your stolen ID as the owner? If they simply agreed to do it when asked, then anyone could send a fake letter to the registrar claiming you don't own your DNS records and remove you as the owner of them.
Genuine question to HN readers -- if you woke up tomorrow and found a whois entry that had your name and details listed as owner for a site that traded in illicit goods and/or morally objectionable content, how would one go about correcting that?