Best of the ISP-Lists

Domain Hijacking

The ISP-Webhosting list takes on a question of ethics.

[March 14, 2000]

On the ISP-Webhosting list in February, BB posted a question about domain transfer ethics:

"Have any of you encountered hosting companies that 'forge' the administrative email address rather than properly filling out a domain transfer/modification form? I've just encountered this, and was informed by the hosting company's rep that 'this is how all hosts do it.' We've been hosting domains for five years and have never done this. I am curious if any of you had encountered this type of (what I consider) illegal activity by other ISPs?"

Some respondents defended the practice under certain circumstances:

[Eurowolf wrote] "We have done it a few times, on request of the domain name owners. Their previous hosts did not want to co-operate with the transfer, so we used the lax security on their system to 'hi-jack' the domain back to the owner."

[LS opined] "If I were do to such thing I'd do it because they've used their domain to post porn (either copyrighted or 'faked'); used fake companies and addresses; or listed the site in search engines as an 'official' celebrity site when it isn't. If I were to hijack a celebrity domain, I'd 'give' it to that celebrity."

However, one respondent pointed out that there are legal as well as ethical issues:

[WXW wrote] "Domain hijacking is never acceptable, no matter what your perceived justifications for it are, and regardless of who the victim is or what he has done. Even if the domain owner has violated a law, your recourse is not to be a vigilante but to see that unlawful actions have legal penalties. Otherwise, you would also be guilty of a criminal act, and would be subject to not only civil damages but also possible criminal charges. AND, the original domain owner will get their domain name back, so you would have accomplished nothing, and gotten yourself into quite a predicament."

—End