.name Grandfathered

Re:.name Grandfathered by Spivak on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @01:20PM (#50444082)

For it to be illegal I think we would have to have much stronger digital ownership laws. I would certainly support them. But for now a domain you "own" is just an entry in someone else's ledger and control is only enforced by contract for big players willing to pay.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by mzajc on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @01:25PM (#50444165)

These domains wouldn't be worth a penny if they came with a disclaimer that they can be deregistered or even taken over at any point. With a bit of luck, somebody could snatch popular last name domains and set up a catch-all mailserver.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by schoen on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @01:27PM (#50444203)

They do have such a limitation, because of things like UDRP. It's just that there are maybe some forms of restriction on the processes by which domain names can be involuntarily transferred or seized. But it's a real possibility!

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Re:.name Grandfathered by not2b on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @03:03PM (#50445543)

People persist in "buying" digital movies e-books, and games despite the fact that they can disappear at any point, without warning, because the seller's license expired or they just feel like discontinuing the service.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by schoen on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @01:26PM (#50444179)

There is a Ninth Circuit decision that domain names are a form of property

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremen_v._Cohen

but it's tricky because the domain name registries and registrars have a kind of thicket of contracts nowadays that subordinates registrants' property interests to other rules and considerations. So I don't think a court would think that a modern-day domain name registrant has property rights in a domain name that supersede all of those contractual terms.

Edit: my recollection is that Kremen v. Cohen interpreted the legal defaults that applied because Kremen registered the domain name in an era when Network Solutions didn't require registrants to agree to a contract that limited Network Solutions's liability and gave it various explicit rights and powers.

I'm not a huge ICANN expert, but I think ICANN broadly thinks the status quo is preferable to one in which registrants had stronger, less equivocal property interests in names.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by otterley on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @02:27PM (#50445046)

The Wikipedia summary of the case suggests that the ruling was much more than it was. Courts tend to rule on narrow issues, as it did here.

The question before the Court was not whether a domain name is a form of property. Both parties agreed that a domain name are a form of property; that wasn't in dispute. The Court did affirm their position in black letter law, though.

Rather, the question before the Court was whether, as intangible property, a tort of conversion claim could be made against it under California law. Previously, cases disagreed as to whether it could be recognized. The Court found that it could be.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by falcor84 on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @02:06PM (#50444734)

Agreed, but I just wanted to say that essentially every single thing anyone owns is, and has been from the invention of tally marks on clay tablets, an entry in someone's ledger.

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