Domain name hijack: what you can do

Family First's domain name (or website address) familyfirst.co.nz expired yesterday.

Wellington man Hamish Gowenlock (who uses the pseudonym Hamish Spencer on Facebook and Twitter, where he goes by the handle @hamfritta) told NBR he had bought familyfirst.co.nz and set it up to redirect visitors to a pro Marriage Equality Bill website (www.marriageequality.co.nz).

Mr Gowenlock  said around 200 people were visiting the site an hour.

"The temptation was to redirect the site to something less suitable for work, (i.e. porn) was very great," Mr Gowenlock wrote on Facebook. "But in the end I decided to play the upper hand and be civil."

"I grabbed the domain because I know many people (myself included) who have at some stage or another been offended by what [Family First's] Bob McCroskie has said," Mr Gowenlock told NBR.

"If I really do have to hand the domain back, I suppose I'll have to, but I don't think it will be without a fight."

What can you do if it happens to you?
In this case, someone is having political sport, and there's no particular harm done (given Mr McCroskie's organisation is already using the alternative FamilyFirst.org.nz).

But what are Family First's options - or indeed those for a business whose domain name is registered by a rival?

For example, say, if someone here was asleep at the wheel and NBR.co.nz expired, only to be bought by rival publisher Fairfax (of course, our Australian cousins would never do such a thing; this is just a for instance).

".nz" Domain names are administered by the Domain Name Commission (DNC), a subsidiary of InternetNZ. 

Domain Name Commissioner Debbie Monahan told NBR that web addresses are issued on a "first-come, first-served" basis.

However, the DNC does have a disputes resolution service, bringing the parties together for a round of informal mediation.

Ms Monahan told NBR that domain name disputes are often quickly resolved at this level.

Binding resolution - for $2000 to $7000
But if they are not, the complainant has the right to refer the dispute to the DNC's panel of legal experts. The panel is headed by Andrew Brown, QC and its members include three ex-High Court judges turned professional mediators Robert Fisher QC, Sir Ian Barker QC and Barry Paterson QC.

One expert from the panel (on a next-cab-off-the-rank basis) will assess the case, then make a decision that will be binding on both parties.

The onus is on the complainant to prove the balance of probability is that they have rights to a name, and that it was registered unfairly.

While information mediation is free, a referral to an expert panel member costs $2000 plus GST, and $7000 plus GST to mount an appeal (that's $2300 or $8050 incl GST).

Shouldn't come to that
In most cases it should not come down to mediation or an expert panel, however, Ms Monahan said.

After a domain name expires, there is a holding period of 90 days after expiry before a URL can be on-sold to a third party, the Commissioner said.

Your registrar (typically the ISP, web hosting company or domain name specialist that sold you your web address) must also remind you three times that renewal is due (a good reason to keep the phone number and email address with your registrar current).

Plus, you would expect someone would notice if there website (and their email if it uses the same domain) stops working for 90 days, Ms Monahan said.

In this instance, Family First has also been using FamilyFirst.org.nz, which is still running - although as Mr Gowenlock noted hundreds are trying to access the .co.nz version of the address, which used to redirect to them to FamilyFirst.org.nz but now lands them at MarriageEquality.co.nz.

So there are a lot of safeguards against someone swiping your address - although as Mr Gowenlock  has proved it can happen. 

And as the Decisions Appeals section of the DNC's website show, there's no shortage of disputes over who has rights to a particular domain name to begin with.

The DNC only lists one case as going to a (successful) $7000 appeal. An early decision that a UK company had established rights to thecountrychannel.co.nz (now used by Sky TV) was reversed.