Sex.com was originally registered by Gary Kremen of San
Francisco in 1994. The following year, Stephen Cohen, an
ex-convict, took the name from Kremen by sending a forged letter of
transfer to Network Solutions (which subsequently became part of
VeriSign).
Cohen then ran a highly profitable porn portal until November
2000 when a court awarded Kremen the return of the domain name
having found that the forged signature on the letter to Network
Solutions misspelled Kremen’s name.
A Californian district court ordered Cohen to pay the sum of $65
million in damages to Kremen. However, Cohen has to date paid
nothing and has failed to appear at several court hearings.
In 2000, a lower court ruled that NSI, which is the sole domain
name registry for .com domain names, is immune from civil suit in
cases where it negligently handled a domain name. The 9th Circuit
is currently examining Kremen’s appeal against that ruling.
VeriSign denies responsibility for turning the domain name over
to Cohen after receiving his forged letter. The company claims that
it should not be held liable, because its domain name database is
merely a “translator” between web addresses and domain names and
not representative of an ownership right.
However the judges of the 9th Circuit challenged this argument
and asked VeriSign to demonstrate why its database is different
“from a stock certificate”, according to a report by CNET.
Kremen’s attorneys, on the other hand, accuse VeriSign of
breaching an “implied” contract of ownership of the sex.com domain.
They also claim that, if the domain name registry had notified
Kremen and asked him if he approved the transfer, the case would
have been avoided.
The judges are expected to issue a ruling within the following
weeks or months.
