Someone bought my friends name.com, resolves it to porn. Help!

February 19, 2008 9:54 AM

A disgruntled customer has purchased my friend's name as a domain and re-routed it to a graphic porn site. What can be done to stop this?

The whois is listed as Domains By Proxy but the culprit is telling people that he did it. What steps can we take to get this taken down?

posted by Mamapotomus to computers & internet (16 comments total)

There's ICANN's Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy. The downside is that you'll probably have to file suit or do arbitration. Apparently how things work is that once you dispute the rights to own the domain with Domains By Proxy, they then set the domain's ownership back to the original registrant. Once that happens, you can go after the actual registrant. Per DBP's usage agreement:

You further understand and agree that if DBP is named as a defendant in, or investigated in anticipation of, any legal or administrative proceeding arising out of Your domain name registration or Your use of DBP’s services, Your private domain name registration will automatically revert back to You and Your identity will therefore be revealed in the Whois directory as Registrant.
posted by zsazsa at 10:06 AM on February 19

It seemed to me that the original poster's question implied that their friend never owned the domain name at all; it just happens to be his or her actual real name.

I doubt you're going to be able to do anything about it.
posted by sjl7678 at 10:09 AM on February 19

IANAL, but I think a defamation lawsuit against the culprit may be the best course of action. The individual is attempting to insinuate a connection between your friend and the porn site.

Even the threat of a lawsuit may be enough to get him to take it down. I'd advise your friend to consult a lawyer.
posted by justkevin at 10:09 AM on February 19

There's nothing you can do, and frankly, I'm not sure why you care. Not many employers are stupid enough to add .com after someone's name instead of doing a google search. Even if they did, and saw the site, why on earth would they associate it with your friend?

It's a small world, there are likely lots of people with the same name as your friend, and they can't control everyone else's behavior. Let it go.
posted by chrisamiller at 10:33 AM on February 19

I seriously doubt defamation would fly, but a good internet lawyer would probably be able to get this taken care of pretty quick-like.

Unless, of course, the person who did it shares your friend's name, in which case your friend is probably SOL.
posted by toomuchpete at 10:33 AM on February 19

sjl7678, ICANN's Dispute-Resolution Policy is made especially for this type of dispute.
posted by zsazsa at 10:34 AM on February 19

From a non-legalistic perspective, you could try to route lots of traffic to the site, giving the disgruntled guy exactly what he wants while increasing his bandwidth fees to the point where he will either need to shut it down or have to spend even more of his time dealing with advertisers.
posted by cardboard at 10:45 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

...unless he's getting paid by the porn site to bring in customers, in which case directing traffic his way doesn't help the situation.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:58 AM on February 19

He really should see a lawyer. It seems like you could make a case for intentional infliction of emotional distress, or defamation, or (insert more qualified legal theory here.) This will probably go away when the lawyer writes a cease and desist letter to this guy; and if it doesn't, then you go after his bank account. This is not legal advice and he really, really needs to get a lawyer to answer this question.
posted by Happydaz at 11:14 AM on February 19

From a non-legalistic perspective, you could try to route lots of traffic to the site, giving the disgruntled guy exactly what he wants while increasing his bandwidth fees to the point where he will either need to shut it down or have to spend even more of his time dealing with advertisers.

The guy in question is simply redirecting traffic- his bandwidth usage is nil, unless he also owns the porn site.

IANAL, but I think that the defamation angle is pretty clear here- unless your friend has a very common name, the dots all pretty much connect themselves.
posted by mkultra at 11:32 AM on February 19

Any thought of legal action such as defamation depends on what country he lives in. I think you would need a lawyer in his country. If that's not the same as your friend's then it would be either impossible or very expensive.
posted by tetranz at 12:45 PM on February 19

zsazsa: sjl7678, ICANN's Dispute-Resolution Policy is made especially for this type of dispute.

From the ICANN's requirements:

1. The domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights;

So unless your friend trade/servicemarked his/her name, UDRP does nothing for you. Not that it's a viable option anyway, given that arbitration + lawyer fees are going to run you at least $3000.

If it's a huge deal, find a lawyer friend, and have them send a C+D. I don't think there's any actual legal action that can be taken, and that a defamation suit would be a bit of a stretch, but most people will balk at the sight of a C+D unless they're REALLY passionate about whatever it is they're doing.
posted by SpiffyRob at 1:09 PM on February 19

IAAL. Defamation will not fly - that refers to a false statement of fact, damaging to reputation.

The cause of action that would come closest is called "false light". It is considered to be a subcategory of invasion of privacy, but the theory is actually pretty well suggested by its name. It is in fact closer to defamation than to true invasion of privacy.
posted by yclipse at 3:58 PM on February 19

Ignore the site completely. Don't visit it and don't tell other people about it. I know it sucks that your friend has his/her name associated with the site but, as mentioned earlier, no employer is going to freak if they come across it (they won't think it's your friend).

I'd keep my eye on the site, searching for the domain on Google (but not visiting it) to see if he's posting the address around on forums - if he is, contact the forum moderators with an explanation, and they'll get rid of the post - this is unlikely but it's still a possibility.

Don't threaten, don't instigate, just don't visit the site. You'll want to, to see if the site has changed at all, but don't, he has stats on visitors and if he sees that it's bothering you, he'll keep it up forever.

People like this get bored if there isn't a giant reaction from the other party. Let it slide, wait until the domain expires, register it, and forget about it.
posted by 913 at 4:34 PM on February 19

From my (non-US) course on defamation, it has to be D.I.P. to qualify.

• D is for defamatory -- is it damaging to your friend's reputation to have a porn website (apparently) in his name?
• I is for identifiable -- is it unmistakeably your friend's domain name?
• P is public -- do people know about it?

A website is pretty much public so I think we can assume the P part, but we don't know your friend's name, so we can't answer the second; we don't know what kind of culture he lives in, so we can't be sure it's actually defamatory, even if he has such an unusual name that people might assume it's him.

It doesn't look like a defamation case to me, although the law (and the defences against it, like "in the public interest") vary between jurisdictions.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 6:34 PM on February 19

Thanks everyone! No single best answer, but my friends employer has offered their legal counsel to get this taken care of.
posted by Mamapotomus at 12:16 PM on February 21