Domain Registration Related News
Nominet wins UK domain scammers case in
Australia
September 2004
An Aussie judge has branded the actions of two
internet domain conmen as "nothing less than
deceitful" after they sent out 50,000 fake
invoices to domain name holders in the UK.
The dodgy invoices from UK Internet Registry were
sent out last year after Chesley Rafferty, Bradley
Norrish and their three companies had hoovered up
the details of thousands of domain name holders
following a data mining attack on the .uk WHOIS
database.
The attack in February 2003 was so bad it
forced Nominet - the .uk Internet domain name
registry - to suspend its WHOIS database for nine
hours to prevent the theft of further details.
After pursuing UK Internet Registry for 18 months,
Nominet has won a milestone legal battle that
centres on infringement of copyright, a breach of
Australian fair trade laws and the issuing of
misleading notices.
Just before the hearing at the Federal Court of
Australia, four of the five respondents coughed to
the scam. As a result, the trial went ahead
against Norrish only. The judge found he had
authorised copyright infringement, and was
involved in misleading or deceptive conduct.
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