Stephane Van Gelder - Scams

Exactly how much did Gary Kremen make (or loose) from Sex.com?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:45:47 +0200

Spotted this great article the other day about Gary Kremen, the guy who first registered Sex.com before it was stolen. 46-year-old Kremen (also the founder of Match.com) is a serial entrepreneur with business interests as wide as they are numerous.

But the numbers that caught my eye are the dollar amounts Kremen eventually made from Sex.com. I already knew that after recovering the stolen domain, he sold it for $14 million. I did not know that Kremen also got a $15 million settlement from Verisign, the company who bought Network Solutions, the registrar that was involved in the actual mechanics of the Sex.com theft. The article also explains that Kremen sold a house for $4 million last year. Ownership of the house, which belonged to the Sex.com thief, was transferred to Kremen as part of the legal proceedings surrounding the case.

Without a doubt, $33 million is a very tidy sum. But consider this: Kremen probably ended up loosing out. If he hadn't lost so many years fighting to recover his stolen domain name, Kremen might have been able to built it up into an even more lucrative business…

Snapnames auction scandal turns into $33 million lawsuit

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:24:51 +0200

I suppose it was inevitable that the recent scandal over the rigged domain name auctions at Snapnames would spill over into a major lawsuit.

According to an article published yesterday on OregonLive.com (Snapnames is based in Portland, Oregon), the company's new owners Oversee are suing Snapnames ex executive Nelson Brady for $33 million.

Brady is alleged to have spent years artificially inflating auction prices by bidding under an alias. This fraud is said to have impacted a whopping 36,000 auctions. When the scam became public, Snapnames (bought by Oversee in 2007) was forced to provide refunds to thousands of impacted customers.

Exposing the dark side of subdomain registries

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:32:27 +0100

It sounds like the title to a Star Wars parody made by a bunch of college kids but it's actually the Anti Phishing Working Group's latest report.

And a fascinating read it is too. I'm sure most people don't know what a subdomain registry is – I certainly didn't before reading the APWG report. We're not talking about actual registries as we understand it in "standard" domain name terms. These are in fact providers who offer free hosting services which include providing a free subdomain with one the provider's registered domain names. One example would be MYDOMAIN.FREEHOST.COM.

Because these accounts are often free to set-up and can be accessed without users being asked to provide any real information about themselves (not even payment information, the accounts being free), they provide a useful safe haven for phishers.

APWG provides suggestions on what subdomain registries, registrars and ICANN can try and do about this. It's certainly a topic worth learning about and the APWG report is a great way to do that.

If you're interested, download the 11 page report here.

Ill winds

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:02:42 +0200

You sometimes have to wonder about the world we live in. As Gustav prepares to pummel the very places that Katrina wrecked only 3 years ago, scam artists are already looking for ways to profit from other people's hardships.

Having noticed several new domain name registrations centered around hurricane Gustav in the past few days, the American authorities are warning people against potential email scams or phishing attacks.

Louisiana's Attorney General has even issued an advisory against a spam campaign currently ongoing and asking people to confirm their account information in preparation for Gustav.

The silver lining here is that domain names and the Internet are now well enough integrated into our daily lives that hopefully people can spot a scam of this kind a mile away and not get duped.