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Over the years, hundreds of valuable domain names are reported to be stolen. The high-profile case that many will remember was the theft of Sex.com many years ago. Even last week, news of domain names stolen from seasoned domain name investor Warren Weitzman has been a stark reminder that domain name theft is still very much alive and a threat to any webmasters and domain name owners.

A consolation, however, is the first case of domain name theft caught and arrested. On July 30th, Daniel Goncalves was arrested at his home in Union, New Jersey and charged in a landmark case. This is the first criminal arrest for domain name theft in the United States.

That’s a huge relief. Before, it was really a jungle out there. Every man defend for himself. In year 2000, the judged dismissed Sex.com case, arguing that there must be a property for theft cases, and that domain name is not considered as property. And just last year, Danish police said that they do not investigate domain name theft.

How the sex.com domain name was stolen
Here is the excerpt from computerworlduk

The theft of the sex.com domain name is an extraordinary tale of duplicity, greed and incompetence.
“So one day, the name disappeared,”explains Gary Kremen. “One day it said one thing, one day it said another. I saw some guy’s name next to it, but if you looked through it my information was still there. I just thought, you know, it’s some bureaucratic screw-up and that eventually they’d figure it out.”

How to steal a domain name in easy stages
(techworld.com)

It was every webmaster’s worst nightmare – waking up one day to find that your site had disappeared and someone else owned it. Then the phonecall in which you were told that it was nothing to do with the registrar and you had to try to sort it out yourself.

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