Man charged with domain name theft
Thursday 19th November 2009
A US man has been charged with stealing a domain name and selling it for $111,000 (£66,000).
Daniel Goncalves of Union City, New Jersey, is accused of illegally accessing the accounts of domain name consultancy GoDaddy and altering registration information for the p2p.com address.
He then sold the domain name to professional basketball player Mark Madsen, of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who was unaware of the crime.
According to the indictment, filed by the New Jersey Attorney General's office, Mr Goncalves fraudulently transferred the registration of p2p.com from its lawful registrant.
He then auctioned the domain name on internet auction site eBay, where Mr Madsen placed the highest bid.
The case demonstrates the fact that individuals and businesses are often willing to pay large fees for desired domain names.
An example of this was seen last month, when Insure.com sold its web address to the Vertical marketing agency for $16 million (£10.1 million).
Written by Debra Hastings-Henry