Report Stolen Domains – Bringing DomainTheft.org Back to Life!

There are some positive things about living in the Wild West of the Domain Names along with some very negative realities due to lack of regulation. One of the biggest issues I’ve always had with Domaining is that someone can steal a Domain Name with access to nothing more than your email address.

Domain names are stolen every week and oftentimes the victims have little they can do to prevent the thief from posting this name for sale and transferring the ownership to someone else. Once a domain is stolen there is little companies like Pay Pal can do and if you’re using one of the big registrars like Go Daddy or Network Solutions they usually like to stay out of it.

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I started DomainTheft.org quite some time ago as a resource to report stolen domain names. I haven’t updated the site since 2009 but lately have heard some pretty terrible stories about stolen domains and thought now would be a good time to bring this resource back to life. This means doing a v3 of the site as well which Kevin Fink, my development manager will be taking on over the coming months. While the #1 way to avoid domain theft is security, if stolen domains are hard to sell this will discourage thieves from even attempting theft in the first place. Here are my ideas for improving the site – the idea is simple, try to make it as hard as possible for someone to sell a stolen domain.

  • Database with showing list of stolen domains, date stolen, and where they are listed for sale
  • WHOIS verification checking – we will contact the previous person listed on the WHOIS entry to ensure they agree that the domain was stolen after it is reported to us (help prevent falsely reported thefts)
  • Integration with domain sales services like Snapnames and Afternic – just like when a thief tries to use a stolen credit card, stolen domains should be prevented from being listed and quickly resold on major domain marketplaces

Now is where you come in? I would love to hear your ideas for how we can make this an event better resource and mechanism to protect domains and reduce domain theft. You can either comment below or email kevin directly at kevin(at)lintoninvestments.com. Comment and let your voice be heard, and help improve a resource to protect all of our domains!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton