<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">I had a domain roll out once.<div><br></div><div>(long story with odd vendor deleted here).</div><div><br></div><div>I was advised at the time (two years ago) that if you have the trademark you will eventually win it back. </div><div><br></div><div>If you don't you are in a much tougher position. </div><div><br></div><div>The bad news is your link-farmer does this for a living. He probably knows the true value of your domain better than you do. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Somebody up here must know a good attorney to go to on this.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Ron "Elvis" Stephan</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>From: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Jeremy Leader <<a href="mailto:jleader@alumni.caltech.edu">jleader@alumni.caltech.edu</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Date: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">November 1, 2010 9:48:51 AM PDT<br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>To: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Alex Teslik <<a href="mailto:alex@acatysmoof.com">alex@acatysmoof.com</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Cc: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><a href="mailto:losangeles-pm@mail.pm.org">losangeles-pm@mail.pm.org</a><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>Re: [LA.pm] Need some advice</b><br></span></div><br><div>I'm not sure how much recourse you have. It probably depends how much of a paper trail you can show to demonstrate that you're the "real" OpenWebMail project. If you can show that, and show that the project existed prior to his registration of the domain, you might be able to us the "Uniform Dispute Resolution Process" to get the domain away from him. See <a href="http://www.icann.org/en/udrp/udrp.htm">http://www.icann.org/en/udrp/udrp.htm</a> for the details; basically, you have to show that you had rights to the name before he registered the domain, and that he registered the domain in "bad faith".<br><br>You might also see if you can find an attorney familiar with domain names, and willing to advise you on a "pro bono" basis.<br><br>-- <br>Jeremy Leader<br><a href="mailto:jleader@alumni.caltech.edu">jleader@alumni.caltech.edu</a><br><br>Alex Teslik wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">Hi LA.pm,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> I am the lead developer of OpenWebMail (http://openwebmail.acatysmoof.com)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">and I need some advice. Our old homepage at openwebmail.org has been taken<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">hostage by the guy who registered it. He is now link-farming the site and<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">making quite a bit of money from the pagerank everyone's work has given his<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">domain (over $2400 this month so far). He will not grant us any access to<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">change the site and refuses to stop link-farming it.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> I've wanted to bring it up at several of the last meetings, but I've missed<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">them due to a new baby at home. I'd really appreciate your input as I'm not<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">sure what to do. We've got a release coming up after two years of hard work<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">and I'd really prefer not to fork the project. I've tried contacting google to<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">make them aware of his abuse of the pagerank that was built up by open source<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">contributors, to no avail.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> Is anyone aware of an open source project's homepage being hijacked like<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">this in the past? How did they handle it?<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Thanks,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Alex<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">P.S.- You can see how much money he's made here:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">http://www.openwebmail.org/donation<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">"support payments" he says :(<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Losangeles-pm mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Losangeles-pm@pm.org<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/losangeles-pm<br></blockquote><br>_______________________________________________<br>Losangeles-pm mailing list<br>Losangeles-pm@pm.org<br>http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/losangeles-pm<br><br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>