Gary Kremen from San Francisco registered the domain name in
1994 in the name of his company, Online Classifieds. However, he
alleged that Stephen Cohen, an ex-convict, wrote a letter to
Network Solutions on forged Online Classified letterhead,
requesting the transfer of the domain name to Cohen’s company. The
transfer took place in 1995.
Cohen used the domain name to operate a portal for porn sites.
His site claims 25 million hits per day and is thought to make
around $100 million annually. Cohen was sued by Kremen for the
return of the domain name.
Cohen denied the forgery allegation and said that he obtained
the name lawfully, paying $1,000 to Kremen’s company. In an earlier
ruling, the same Californian court had said that a domain name is
not subject to US property law and therefore could not be stolen.
However, yesterday US District Court Judge James Ware described the
letter as a “fraud” (the signature was misspelled) and ordered the
transfer of the name to Kremen, confirming that ownership of a
domain name is a right which can be protected.
Kremen is also seeking the sum of $25 million from Cohen. The
judge has not yet ruled on this aspect of the case, but he has
frozen $25 million of Cohen's assets. It is not yet known if Cohen
will appeal the court’s decision.
