And now, some more fun in cyberspace

[dancinghorse]

I have been laboring under the delusion that I had access to the domain, judithtarr.com. Communications did not happen and it appears that the domain has been taken by a cybersquatter posing as a fan. As far as I can determine, I am legally entitled to that domain because it's a "brand" i.e. I make my living off the byline. There are laws in the US against cybersquatting, which this appears to be.

I've sent a polite note through the contact form on the site, and we can all hope he responds that oh yes, I can have my domain, so sorry. It expires, btw, on June 5th.

Just in case this is not a cooperative fan but a squatter, what does one do to get possession of one's domain?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That is appalling.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

You may have to have a lawyer versed in cyber crimes and the laws therein, take a look at it and see wehat you can do.

Otherwise, not sure. You may be able to contact the ISP the site is hosted on and get it taken down that way.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what the necessary steps are to reclaim it, I'm afraid.

For what it's worth, judith-tarr.com is still available. Would you like me to register it for you as a backup option, in case reclaiming judithtarr.com turns out to be time consuming and/or expensive? (When you do get judithtarr.com back, we could redirect judith-tarr.com to point to it, and no harm done.)

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Wow, yes! How much would that be?

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

That btw is my sff.net handle, so it works in terms of consistency. :)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

It's just $10/year for the straight-up registration. I'll go ahead and register it now, since it's not much $$-wise. Do you have hosting space already to use with the domain?

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Not sure. Have to check. I have sff.net which I think allows that. Might be more.

I have to go out now for several hours. Back later.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

No problem. The domain is registered, so there's no hurry; you can figure out what you want to do with it whenever, and I'll send you the registration information. :)

[pegasi1978.livejournal.com]

I had a friend go through something similar recently with having someone cybersquatting at her former personal art site. She ended up waiting them out and when the domain contract expired, took it back over. I don't remember her saying anything about contacting the person, just periodically checking to see if the domain was free again or not.

[herald-mari.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure SFF.net comes with hosting space. Pretty good service, too. *smiles*

Sorry to hear about the cybersquatter -- those guys are leaches.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Hope it all turns out well. But with friends like these, how can it be otherwise?

[editrx.livejournal.com]

I have a great IP attorney who loves going after cybersquatters--he's an old friend any would probably do it for you either cheaply or just because he likes smacking down squatters.

Send me an email with the details and I'll send it along to Juan. I'm nhanger AT windhaven DOT com.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

The sff-net guys will help you set up a domain--they did it for me.

[ingulf.livejournal.com]

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Resolution_Policy, http://www.icann.org/en/dndr/udrp/uniform-rules.htm

They're clearly a major squatter. According to their site http://www.epik.com/, they have 630,000 domain names, so my guess is that they'll give it up without a fight - assuming they bother to read their email, that is. They have judithtarr.com listed in their auction system, and someone has bid $59 on it. If they're evil, they will offer it to you for some amount a bit less than the dispute resolution fees (I'm not sure if you get it back when you win).

It's possible that they have conned some fan into actually doing the site, which would be sad.

[miintikwa.livejournal.com]

Um... did I neglect to warn you that Mercury has gone retrograde? *hides head* *shuffles feet* It'll come out of retro in May, May 18th, IIRC. I can double check if you like.