The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

I Am Being Blackmailed - Need Help

Dan_Fastlane

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
170%
Jan 3, 2017
412
701
World Citizen
If I was Nike, or Kim Kardashian, I guess I'd get my attack dog lawyers to sort this one out for me, however I'm not.

I have basically been namesquatted, I have a domain name which is identical to my name. It hasn't been connected to an actual website in quite some time, however I still used it for my email, so that I could basically have a me@me.com email addy.

Apparently in China, a popular black hat tactic with company websites, is to set notifications on various small biz website names for if they become available. Then, once they do, you buy the name and stick a load of porn up under that url. Then blackmail the poor business owner into paying you to get the site back and save their reputation.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I didn't have that domain on auto renew, and was a week or so before I got round to renewing it (I check emails about once a fortnight, if that), I simply assumed that nobody would want my name, it's pretty unique, I've searched for other people with my name and have come up with one other person on the planet, and he spells it differently.

To cut a long story short, I discovered that some random dude in China had registered my domain through a Chinese registrar. I went to buy it back and the s.o.b. is trying to charge $200 for it, which I assume will be an annual fee.

I remembered @Walter Hay's advice about allowing a Chinese person to save face, so wrote a very polite letter in which I expressed my regret at not being able to afford to buy my own name back from him, hoping that he'd come back with a reasonable offer. He ignored my little missive, so I contacted the registrar directly and stated my case.

The registrar told me that he could not get hold of the guy either, and said that there was nothing he/she could do about it and gave me the email of some regulatory body whose name I can't remember. I wrote to them and they wrote back saying there was nothing they could do.

Anyway, Even though this is entirely my fault I feel pretty violated and sad about this one, I didn't think anyone would want to squat a complete nobody, with no actual website. So I'm just wondering if there's anyone else out there in TFF land who has had a similar experience and managed to resolve it successfully?
a yearly fee of 200us? before you assume you just should really write to that dude, do you have a huge business under that domain? if not chances are good he would be happy to sell for 200usd to you! they are about the money. Play the small biz owner! good luck to you!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

SkyLake

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
134%
Nov 29, 2016
107
143
Check your emails people..

Even if you ended up not checking your email for 14 days, you would still have had time to pay for your domain, as they don't just become available for rent again, but they give you a grace period. Maybe it depends on the domain registrar.

Still.. it's your F*ck up. Either suck it up and pay it or forget about it. Consider it a cost of doing business.
 

Alleghenyman

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
87%
Nov 18, 2019
31
27
How much does it really matter to you? Are you just being emotional because it's your name or does the domain matter that much to your strategy? How likely are people to really associate it with your business, or instead recognize it as unrelated porn spam bullshit?

One other thought, can you contact the host server and register a trademark infringement or dilution notice and threaten them with legal action? They might not truly be legally liable (this can be complicated) but they may also have policies against intellectual property violations that would cause them to suspend the site.

Similarly, they may have no porn policies, or age verification policies, or policies against stuff that resembles illegal porn.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top