[shiftpgdn]

Look at it from the GoDaddy's point of view: This woman is claiming she has rights to a domain in one of their customer's accounts. As far as they know it was legitimately transferred in by one of their paying customers. Her real issue rests with HostMonster and the ICANN dispute resolution system.

[unreal37]

GoDaddy could seize the domain until the dispute is settled. If everyone recognized she was the previous owner, that should be enough to cause an investigation into the transfer.

Not saying a claim from anyone should cause a seizure, but the legitimate previous owner should be able to dispute it for a time period. Domains are stolen all the damn time.

[shiftpgdn]

I worked in webhosting for nearly a decade so I'm quite familiar with the volume of fraud and stolen domains. But to play the devils advocate how would you feel if somebody claimed a domain you own was stolen just to freeze your account and waste your time. You'd be furious at GoDaddy for freezing your account over a fictitious claim.

[philbarr]

They only need to freeze the account if the domain was moved very recently.

[dsrguru]

This. I want to upvote this comment a hundred times. If there's a dispute with probable cause, temporarily freezing the domain while launching an immediate investigation seems by far the best balance of thwarting domain theft and minimizing fraudulent claims.

[shiftpgdn]

By ICANN policy domains can only be moved once every 60 days. Did you want the domain name taken offline?

[dsrguru]

I'm not very familiar with their policies. Does that apply even in the case of theft? Didn't the article's author recover her domain within a few days?

[unreal37]

No, not offline. Just have the administration of it frozen.

And it's only for recently transferred domains where it's the previous owner disputing the legitimacy of the transfer.

Domains are entries in a table. A "60 day freeze", if it exists, is just a policy.

[weaksauce]

And that you were demonstratively the previous owner.

[Geekette]

No, GoDaddy was never in doubt: "No one at either company questioned my statement (supported by written proof) that the website belonged to me. No one doubted that it had been transferred without my authority".

So GoDaddy's refusal to help was ridiculous. At the very least, they could have frozen control of the site for a day or two while investigating.

[shiftpgdn]

By ICANN policy domains can only be moved once every 60 days. How did you want them to go about freezing the site? ICANN has a dispute resolution policy in place.

[Geekette]

They could have disabled access to it by the thief.

The 60 day policy does not apply to cases where it is "being transferred back to the original Registrar in cases where both Registrars so agree ..." http://www.icann.org/en/resources/registrars/transfers/polic...

And given that both registrars acknowledged that she was the real owner, I'd expect the transfer (to the thief) would not be counted as a legitimate one within that period.

[rhizome]

The business goals of GoDaddy preclude them from giving a shit because they can't hire enough people to support issues like this.