"stealing" domain names by Israeli registrar

[Shachar Shemesh]

Boaz Rymland wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
>
> Consultation needed:
>
>
> A friend of mine and myself are volunteering to launch a charity web site.
>
> My friend is not proficient in web technologies so when he went to 
> check for registration of the domain, he followed the instructions 
> recommended on one of the Israeli registrars - internic.co.il and 
> check through their website the vacancy of the domain we wanted, with 
> .co.il . It was as vacant as it can be.
>
>
> The following day, he went to actually register the domain and guess 
> what? The domain was already registered(!)... .
>
> This smelled very fishy: the domain name was very unlikely to be 
> requested "by coincidence" at that exact timing; the person holding 
> the domain was some Israeli name with a very unreadable email address 
> ending in some .info domain (cannot quote the email address here - see 
> PS section below).
>
> Now I have another friend who's deep into the hosting business and he 
> immediately told me that the owners of Internic.co.il are know to be 
> doing this very ugly move on whois queries running through their web site.
>
>
> *My questions*:
>
> * is that business method illegal?
>
> * what can be done here in order to react? (be the internic method 
> legal or not).
>
>
> Thanks!
>
> Boaz.
>
>
> *P.S.*
>
> * luckily for us, after I talked to my friend we made it clear that 
> the needed domain should finish with a .org, not .co.il, so we 
> actually weren't hit by Internic sting. The incident was and still is, 
> very irritating.
>
> * the .co.il domain was hijacked on March 24 (IIRC) but its now free - 
> no registration records exists for it so I cannot quote the snatcher 
> details. But, since Internic (or the people they're affiliated with) 
> are making a living in the described method, it should be rather easy 
> to prove how they work - its a little matter of persistence... .
>
Complain to ISOC. info-domains at isoc.org.il

Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd.
http://www.lingnu.com

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