Domain name/website content issues - help!

[nwscubamom]

I have no idea what to do.

For years I ran a small website building company for small businesses around town. It was called Sparklepages. I owned the domain and had a hosting account through www.tlcwe.com. Over the years I have been doing less and less of this, and more and more Fish ID teaching, so decided to phase out of the business. A couple years ago, I posted a note that said I was not taking on any new clients, but was just maintaining existing customers. I removed the pricing pages, FAQ and just left the home page and the 'examples' page which had links and thumbnail sketches to the sites I designed.

When the domain and hosting came up for renewal Sept 2008 I contacted my ISP and let him know I wanted to cancel the account - domain and hosting. That was done, although I think he left my site up for quite awhile (months?) afterwards. I don't know, I didn't really check and just forgot about it.

Today when checking stats for an old client of mine I noticed she was receiving referrals from my old website: www.sparklepages.com !! HUH? How could that be? It was canceled!

I typed in the URL and wow - there's my content - my home page as well as the examples page - my logo, my design - the whole works. Only now, it has two additional text links added: Debt Consolidation and Credit Counseling.

But it's MY design, MY logo, the works!

The new owner is a Pete Mraz in Kelowna BC, according to WHOIS.

What should I do? If anything?

- Janna

[lizard0924]

You obviously own the content you created. The new guy only owns the website name/address. Send the new registered owner a cease and desist letter requesting that he immediately stop using your layout/design for his website. Obviously, as the new owner of the domain name, he has full rights to the website address/name, but not to your work product. I would also send a separate letter to the website hosting entity requesting that they immediately pull your work product from the website.

I always start politely with my requests and only escalate to threatening legal action in subsequent correspondence if the nice approach doesn't work first.

Good luck!

[spatman]

hey janna

lizard's dead on with the approach to handling this. i would really lean on the hosting company to pull the plug. i'm willing to bet that they never removed your original account and when someone else bought that domain, those files were and still are intact.

their website hasn't been updated in years, so don't be surprised if they don't respond to the support ticket system. the whois on tlcwe.com yields this guy for both admin and technical contacts:

TLC Web Enterprises
Martin Hoskins (tech@tlcwe.com)
+1.8778865208
Fax: +1.8778865208
PO Box 1509
Hiram, GA 30141

[dwashbur]

The new owner is tacky in keeping/using your content, but the host is the one most at fault. When you canceled the domain and all that, they should have IMMEDIATELY removed all of your content, deleted it as part of the cancellation. The advice you've already been given is bang on the money.

[JimmyEis]

To me it doesn't look like its hosted by your old host.

It looks like its hosted by http://www.theplanet.com/

Sparklepages.com resolves to this IP 70.86.236.106 doing an Arin lookup on that IP gives The planet

Doing a reverse DNS on the IP gives ich-18.com

Doing a ich-18.com whois gives this:

PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St - F1
C/O ich-18.com
Bellevue, WA 98007
US


So there are a few more contacts but it looks like the planet could pull the plug the fastest.

[nwscubamom]

Marty (TLC) was my hosting service and guy I purchased the domain name from. I still use him for my pnwscuba.com website and he's quite responsive, even if his website hasn't been updated.

So maybe he should have erased the content (or I should have!- lessons learned) when I canceled the account.

When I do a WHOIS on Sparklepages, it shows that ICH-18 is now the host. What's confusing is it says that the domain has been around since 2001 (when I first purchased it) - indicating that it did not actually expire - but this guy bought the domain without it lapsing? Huh? How does that work?

- Janna

[JimmyEis]

My guess is the guy didn't get the site content with access to your host servers.

Either he took the files while the site was still up or from some cache service like the below google link.

You have to remember all of the files for a website get transfered to your computer and put in your browser cache so it can be viewed. With a static html website it is very easy for me to go "steal" entitre sites in seconds and then publish the content on my own servers.


http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache%3A ... 1I7DKUS_en


As for the date my guess is that is just the initial date that domain name was created. As for understanding all the methods and rules around domain name renewal grace periods and such I haven't kept up on it. But I do know never let your domain name expire tons of people have automated tools to buy up domain names that expire and then attempt to sell them at higher rates and while they are trying to sell them they publish ad sites on them.

This guy is using a new technique I haven't seen. Probably trying to trick search engines into thinking that his dept links are more popular then they really are, so they show higher in search results.

[trevorrowe]

What the spammer is doing is actually quite common. Your old domain has credibility. You abandoned it, some crook (spammer == crook) picked it up for $15, grabbed your content out of some publicly available archive / cache (like archive.org). He then put it back online and added a few links to the index of the site to boost his search rank in google.

I found your old content here:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/%20Sparklepages.com
http://web.archive.org/web/200801022233 ... pages.com/

Its very common, as its a decent tactic to improve google's opinion of a spam site. As for what to do about it? There probably wont be much you can do about it. Like I already said, hes a crook. He may, or may not, be located in the US. Even if he is, the new host of your old content likely isn't and probably doesn't care. Unless you are willing to take this to court, in the country where the new host is located you are out of luck. Even if you did, its mere minutes for the crook to move the content and the domain to a different host.

Unless you were somehow able to regain control of the domain name (which would also require a court action) it can't be stopped. To top it off, you would need to hold onto that $15 a year domain name in perpetuity to prevent it from happening again.

Sorry, I really don't mean to sound so doom-and-gloom but I work on the "internets" for a living (I am a web software developer) and have had to deal with this exact issue before.

That said, good luck!

[nwscubamom]

This is all great info. Thank you SO much for all the input.

In the grand scheme of things, it probably isn't that big of a deal. It was a very small website business - appealing to a very small niche in my town. Why this guy thinks it's worth much is beyond me.

And any legitimate person trying to find a website developer isn't about to click on the Debt Consolidation and Credit Counseling text links - they look hideously out of place and it's pretty obvious it's not legit.

So if this guy wants to pay the $$ it takes to keep both the domain name and the content for two little pages online, go for it. I bet it will dwindle away soon enough....

And yeah, what can I really do about it?

- Janna

[defied]

Well you can prove precedence if you have the original copies of the images you used for the web page. Granted I could use anti-forensics to change the date on the images on my site, but then if you had the originals in a larger, better resolution format, that would defeat my tom-foolery. The ISP would be sent a cease and desist letter, not the owner. Let the ISP handle the owner.

If he moves, then catch up with him. If it's just not worth it, then let him have it. It'll run out of interest to him after a short while.

The reason the creation date is the same is because that is when the name came in to existence, period. Another person can buy it within a certain amount of time dictated by the Registrar before they remove the name from the records.

For instance, my website was created in 2k2, and I let it expire once, before re-purchasing it:

Record expires on 24-Nov-2010.
Record created on 24-Nov-2002.

RFC1591 goes a little further into management of domains from the TLD's.

You could get a dispute up the ladder to have them revoke the registrant his domain name. He is after all, only renting it, and subject to their rules and policies. (http://www.enom.com/help/HostTerms.asp)

http://www.enom.com/terms/agreement.asp

SERVICE(S) PROVIDED AT WILL AND TERMINATION OF SERVICE(S): We and your Primary Service Provider may reject your domain name registration application or elect to discontinue providing Service(s) to you for any reason within 30 days of a Service initiation or a Service renewal. Outside of this period, we and your Primary Service Provider may terminate or suspend the Service(s) at any time for cause, which, without limitation, includes registration of prohibited domain name(s), abuse of the Services, payment irregularities, serious allegations of illegal conduct, or if your use of the Services involves us in a violation of any Internet Service Provider's ("ISP's") acceptable use policies, including the transmission of unsolicited bulk email. You agree that if we terminate or suspend the Services provided to you under this Agreement, that we may then, at our option, make either ourselves or a third party the beneficiary of Services which are substantially similar to those which were previously providing to you and that any reference in this Agreement to termination or suspension of the Services to you includes this option. If we have grounds to terminate or suspend Service(s) with respect to one domain name or in relation to other Service(s) provided through your account, we may terminate or suspend all Service(s) provided through your account, including Service(s) to other domain names. No fee refund will be made when there is a suspension or termination of Service(s) for cause. At any time and for any reason, we may terminate the Services 30 days after we send notice of termination via mail or email, at our option, to the WHOIS contact information provided in association with your domain name registration. Following notice of termination other than for cause, you must transfer your domain name or risk that we may delete your domain name or suspend or modify Services to it. If we terminate Services for a reason other than cause, we will attempt to refund your fees. You further acknowledge and agree that your registration of a domain name is subject to suspension, cancellation or transfer by any ICANN procedure, by any registrar or registry administrator procedures approved by an ICANN-adopted policy, to correct mistakes by us, another registrar or the registry administrator in administering the domain name or for the resolution of disputes concerning the domain name.

centralnic terms and definitions: http://www.enom.com/help/centralnictermsconditions.pdf


Any watermarking of the images (All I got was "Ducky"), or the web site examples, if they have your contact information would work as well.

You don't even have to talk to the guy. Just have you lawyer contact the current ISP owner (interesting enough http://www.ich-18 points to a crapped out directory).

And if you really want to crank it up a notch, you can try to get a hold of this contact for ich-18.com:

Administrative Contact:
Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc.
Whois Agent ()
+1.4252740657
Fax: +1.4256960234
PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St - F1
C/O ich-18.com
Bellevue, WA 98007
US

and if it is unresponsive, you can go to their registrar (who appears to be enom.com as well), and tell them that the managers are non contactable. This will more than likely violate their bylaws, as this is recommended in RFC1591 as well. They will more than likely open up an investigation, and shut them down. It's also illegal to be a spam provider in Washington state. 0]

There's a couple dirty, yet legal roads you can travel to shut this guy down.

Hope this helps!

D(B)

[defied]

Some other sites this guy is hosting:


247beveragesolutions.com [70.86.236.106]
247bsi.com [70.86.236.106]
321surf.com [70.86.236.106]
4xcafe.com [70.86.236.106]
7come11.net [70.86.236.106]
9thhourmusic.com [70.86.236.106]
ABOUTFINANCEONLINE.com [70.86.236.106]
ADAMONECOURIER.com [70.86.236.106]
AGIASIA.NET [70.86.236.106]
ALQAMARCURTAINS.com [70.86.236.106]
ALTINAHUCUM.com [70.86.236.106]
ANDALOS-HOTELS.com [70.86.236.106]
ANNUITIESGOD.COM [70.86.236.106]
ASAPPLUMBINGSERVICE.com [70.86.236.106]
AUTOWISECOLLISION.com [70.86.236.106]
AUTOXB.com [70.86.236.106]
AUTOYE.com [70.86.236.106]
BALIWOODCONSTRUCTION.com [70.86.236.106]
BANGLADESHDIARY.com [70.86.236.106]
BEREFINANCE.com [70.86.236.106]
BERGERHARGISLANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT.com [70.86.236.106]
BESTNET24.com [70.86.236.106]
BONERIFFIC.com [70.86.236.106]
BROWSEINFO.net [70.86.236.106]
BROZACK.com [70.86.236.106]

[Tangfish]

Janna,

Send both the host and the owner of the domain a DMCA Notice. They are required by law to either take it all down immediately, or prove that the content belongs to them.

[defied]

Janna,

Send both the host and the owner of the domain a DMCA Notice. They are required by law to either take it all down immediately, or prove that the content belongs to them.

Short and simple.. I like your version better. 0]

D(B)

[Tangfish]

I'm in the business.

[lizard0924]

Wow.....and I thought all I'd ever learn about on this board is diving.

You guys rock!

[defied]

I'm in the business.

Roger that. I'm just a lowly engineer. 0]

D(B)

[ArcticDiver]

Just an idea from an amateur who has put up a couple web sites and is still learning:

I didn't see whether or not you still have access to the web page server. If they have been lazy and haven't canceled your access why not just go on site and delete everything that is your or linked to yours? Then put your DMCA complaint up instead?

Have no clue as to legality. But given the wild west nature of the business, who cares?

[nwscubamom]

Awesome about the DMCA letter!!

Also, I did try, first thing, to see if I still had access to the web server. No dice.

Fantastic info!

- Janna