(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Twenty-five-year-old Daniel Goncalves of New Jersey became the first person in the state to be arrested for domain name theft.
He was arrested July 30 over allegations that he stole the domain name P2P.com three years ago. Goncalves allegedly sold the domain to Mark Madsen, a forward for the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, who did not know that the domain was stolen.
The state police Cyber-Crimes Unit opened the investigation in October 2008 after P2P reported the domain name, which the company had registered through Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com), had been stolen in May 2006.
P2P launched its own investigation into the domain theft in May 2007 after an individual from the domain community contacted the company and said he had spotted “irregularities” in the p2p.com website content.
After checking with the corporate Go Daddy domain account, it found out that the domain name had been switched over to another individual without P2P’s knowledge in 2006. The company contacted the state police once it discovered the suspect was in New Jersey.
Goncalves allegedly hacked his way into P2P’s Go Daddy account and transferred the domain name to his own account.
The state police said that “attempts were made shortly thereafter to transfer the domain away from Go Daddy to a different registrar, but ICANN [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers] rules prohibited this transfer for 60 days. Nine days after the … transfer prohibition was concluded, it is charged that Goncalves moved the domain name to a different registrar.”
After waiting the mandatory 60 days, Goncalves allegedly put the domain name up for sale on eBay in September 2006, and Madsen purchased it for just over $111,000.
Charged with “theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft of identity and computer theft,” Goncalves was released on $60,000 bail.
According to state police, the domain name is now the subject of ongoing civil litigation and has not yet been returned to the original owners.
