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Someone claimed my domain and turned into a porn site

6 points by onmyway133 ↗ HN
Someone on SO just commented that my "fantageek dot com domain" has been claimed by some p*rn site.

I forgot to renew this domain and now it is in the wrong hand, and my apps are still using the umbrella name Fantageek Labs

13 comments

[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 37.1 ms ] thread
EddieDante
Your problem is that you thought you owned the domain name. You don't. You never did. You were merely leasing it. You failed to renew the lease, and somebody else snapped it up. It sucks for you, but you should have read the fine print the last time you renewed your domain registration.

tl;dr: you snooze, you lose

youniverse
Well that was harsh! Why do you succumb to letting off your steam on a stranger who's already bummed he lost his project's home!

Man said should've read the fine print. Smh

scohesc
Yup - this absolutely is horrible when it happens, which is why I suggest next time OP creates a domain, they set up a calendar reminder or email reminder, or possibly set up auto-billing so that this doesn't happen again.

Over the years I've seen it happen. People think if they buy a domain, they technically own it - sometimes certain registrars will hold onto the domain temporarily and try to contact you for a time, before putting it up for sale - though there's no obligation for them to do that as far as I understand.

It would be worth trying to reach out to the registrar, but since someone else has bought the domain already, good luck trying to get them to hand it back to you unless there's some sort of legal standing (trademarks, its your business name, etc. and even then the chances are slim)

Mo3
No idea why you’re being downvoted, you are absolutely correct and I’m afraid to say - the world can be a cold hard place and personal failures have consequences.

I do not see any kind of unnecessary insults or unreasonable bashing here either. It is necessary to speak the truth sometimes, if we’re just going to sit here and help OP shift personal responsibility no one benefits and no one learns. It would just further a victim mindset.

As sorry as I am for OP, there is really nothing further to add here.

youniverse
OP isn't blaming anyone but himself in his post though!

How a truth is delivered to a person matters I think. You can go the dopaminergic snarky route or have some empathy or call it maturity even. This comment reads like 'I told you so' for really no clear reason besides a perhaps grumpy commenter. Anyway not disagreeing with you in general but maybe you have an idea now! :)

In the end he lost a small project domain so there really isn't anything to add that the OP can't figure out himself especially about personal responsibility and victim mindset (lol). He was probably just looking for someone to chime in with some loophole recovery advice or otherwise.

heavyset_go
Same thing happened to me. If you have a trademark, maybe try to enforce it.
genjipress
A fellow I knew casually and whose blog I followed for many years (he was fond of trains, roleplaying games, and progressive rock) lost his domain name after he died. It ended up being spamsquatted, but weirdly, the metadata for the site remained intact (I guess as a lure?)
pestatije
Well you could change you apps's name, or use fantageek.game, or .app, or whatever... Doesn't seem to be an insurmountable issue
dredmorbius
No specific advice, though I see this as a general issue for DNS and domain registry generally.

For those who suggest hosting your own services on your own domain: the frequency and ease with which these assets can be lost and transferred suggests that any security afforded is at best illusory.

My view is increasingly that personal domains 1) should be available and 2) must be treated as intrinsically different from commercial properties. A personal Internet domain is effectively an identity, and we don't sell either names or personhood.

(This also means that commercial operations built around personal identity are not transactable. This too might well be a good thing. The assets can be sold, the identity, and its associated reputation, cannot.)

This would of course require legislated change.

Make it happen.