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Register.com Loses Class action Lawsuit 454

Posted by timothy from the and-nelson-laughs dept.
Anonymous Blowhard writes "I found out today I am a member of a class that just beat register.com in New York Supreme Court!! The suit was filed by Michael Zurakov because register.com pointed his newly registered domain(s) to 'coming soon' web pages. Mr. Zurakov receives $12,500 for the harm caused by register.com while members of the class can look forward to a settlement of $5 off their next domain renewals. Register.com will also pay 'reasonable Class Counsel attorneys' fees and costs in an amount not to exceed $642,500.00, subject to Court approval.' If you want to exclude yourself from the class, giving up any settlement and not being bound by its terms, you have to opt-out."
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Register.com Loses Class action Lawsuit More

Register.com Loses Class action Lawsuit

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  • I won this class action lawsuit... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jonny Royale ( 62364 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:24AM (#6919637) Homepage Journal
    ...and all I got was a $5 off coupon.

    $650,000 in court fees, huh? Guess we know who the lawyers were fighting for.
    • In one of the most recently settled tobacco company CA suits, the lawyers fees alone were in the billions. Class action lawyers are working in the honeypot of litigative law.

    • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

      by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation&gmail,com> on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:46AM (#6919729) Journal
      ...and all I got was a $5 off coupon.

      Register.com today announced their fees are increasing by $5 for new domain registrations and renewals.

  • Coming Soon page is common for new domains? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by turnstyle ( 588788 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:24AM (#6919638) Homepage
    Isn't a Coming Soon page pretty common for most new domains?
    • In other words, doen't this apply to any small ISP that also starts a new user's domain hosting service with a Coming Soon page?

      btw, that Register Coming Soon page was awful, with a flood of popups. Suprisingly un-pro thing to do.

      • Re:Coming Soon page is common for new domains? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I think the decision is right, but not that it had to be reached in this way. Domain registrations should result in the minimally required DNS-records, unless stated otherwise. If I want a domain for emails, I don't want to find out that someone has put up a webpage which most likely doesn't represent me. These announcements may get into search engines before I get around to putting my pages up. If there are links to the provider on the announcement page, they get free page-rank and my name becomes associat

      • Re:Coming Soon page is common for new domains? (Score:5, Informative)

        by dnoyeb ( 547705 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:25AM (#6919959) Homepage Journal
        Register.com is not an ISP, but a registration service. This means they did not simply have pages loaded by default on his new server, which lots of ISPs do. They redirected the domain name to a different IP address than he intended. That domain name should have come up as "404-No Such Domain."
        • "That domain name should have come up as "404-No Such Domain."

          Not to nit-pick, but a 404 is for Page Not Found and it would need to be sent back by a Web server running at that address. In other words, that domain would have to resolve to an IP that points to a Web server if you want to get a 404.

          Just about all new domains (and new hosted sites once you move that domain to an ISP) start off with a Coming Soon page.

    • The lawsuit wasn't over the 'Coming Soon' page, but over links to Register.com services on the coming soon page. Basically, I register madirish.net with register.com, don't put up a page for a month, but during that time Register.com gets free advertising for the services linked on their 'Coming Soon' page off my domain without paying me for it. Thats what the lawsuit is over. Its legit to put up a 'Coming Soon' page, you just can't include links to the registration provider's services on that page.
      • "The lawsuit wasn't over the 'Coming Soon' page, but over links to Register.com services on the coming soon page."

        But plenty of ISPs also have their own set of links on their Coming Soon pages -- it's certainly not just Register.com that does this.

        And plenty of those ISPs are small 'boutique' companies -- shouldn't they all now be worried if their Coming Soon pages include links back to their site?

  • damages? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lseltzer ( 311306 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:24AM (#6919641)
    $12.5K for that? How was he harmed? He had tools to point it elsewhere.

    • Re:damages? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation&gmail,com> on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:44AM (#6919722) Journal
      $12.5K for that? How was he harmed? He had tools to point it elsewhere.

      Technically, the $12.5K is for his services in representing the class. Otherwise, he likely would only get $5 as well. Still, what a completely frivolous lawsuit. It doesn't say in the article, but did he at least try to negotiate up-front first before wasting over half a million dollars in legal expenses?
  • I regged my first domain with them, when I didn't know any better, and quickly moved it to addresscreation when I saw the alternatives. Are there any advantages to paying the premium registration charge for rdc?
    • Well, they offer a toll free (1800) tech support line, and you can just call that whenever and they'll make any changes to your domain name for you. This saves time and grief for those less-experienced users. Also, if you register several yrs you get a good discount. Add to that the fact that you can actually negotiate with them about the registration price, and you end up getting the better service etc at no additional charge.

  • phew, finally.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by andih8u ( 639841 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:28AM (#6919662)
    Now I can sue apache for that horrible advertising page that informs me I've successfully installed the apache server and welcomes me to my new home in cyberspace.

  • Lawyer Spam! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NoSuchGuy ( 308510 ) <do-not-harvest-m ... dot@spa.mtrap.de> on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:30AM (#6919670) Journal
    You have to opt out to exclude yourself from a class action suit? - What a world!

  • This was a stupid lawsuit. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CrazyJoel ( 146417 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:31AM (#6919673)
    Just stupid. I've got several sites registered on register.com. I don't see what is so offensive about having a Coming Soon page until it switches to your DNS. That's like 2 days?

    What an idiot!

    Now, he's costing them $600,000. Which ain't pocket change. I hope they can handle it. They've done pretty good. Customer service is okay. A little slow, but they answer their phones.

    • Re:This was a stupid lawsuit. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by delcielo ( 217760 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:53AM (#6919750) Journal
      Agreed. I opted out and sent an e-mail to the plaintiff's lawyers protesting.

      This is the sort of litigious bull**** that we could do without. If the guy didn't know better than to submit his domain without name servers, or didn't know that these things don't get organized immediately, then he should sue whoever told him how to set up a website. Or better yet, he should just chock it up to learning the new forms of business in the internet age.

      And class action my butt. It implies that he was doing this for all those people who were wronged by the defendant. If there were serious damages done, we'd have heard more about it from the enraged masses, and the settlement would have been something real or substantial. This was just a way to "lawyer up."

      • Re:This was a stupid lawsuit. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by __aavonx8281 ( 149913 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:41AM (#6920064)
        Its not stupid at all. Basically the guy paid for a domain name. Register.com put up a 'coming soon' page with their own advertising on it and didn't pay the guy for it. Register.com had no right to the domain name, before or after the sale. They can put up a nice page so you don't get a 404, but they shouldn't have been able to advertise on the page, even if its only for 24 hours, without the owner's consent. That was their own fault and they deserve to get sued for trying to get free advertising. How hard would it have been to put in some fine print on their site when you buy a domain letting you know you're going to have an advertisement page on your domain while you wait for DNS?
        • This was certainly a huge waste of time and money, and the plaintiff should be ashamed.

          It reminds me of last year when I got my house painted. A few days before they came out, they stuck a sign on my lawn that basically advertised their services. True, I didn't appreciate that they didn't ask me to stick this physical sign in my lawn, but I understood that's how they advertise. I'd rather they do that than take out a $10,000 Yellow Page ad and charge me more for painting.

          Again, shame.

        • A "comming soon" web page has an important role to play in the process of a new site/domain. It tells visitors that may go there that a site may be appearing at some point, and to the uninformed layman, that the domain has been purchased by somebody. (Many internet users do not know what a registrar is, nor that they would be a necessary part of the domain name system.)

          An error message (which is the alternative) is an indication the domain does not exist, or is not functioning. Those are distinctly diff
    • I think the advertisments plastered all over your new domain may be the issue, though I might be wrong
      here's [register.com] the coming soon page, if anyone cares (I've seen far worse, tho)

    • Re:This was a stupid lawsuit. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dnoyeb ( 547705 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:30AM (#6919995) Homepage Journal
      First of all, the blatant advertising on YOUR domain is wrong, then the sorry ass nature of it with the tons of popups and such is distasteful.

      Second, for that "coming soon" page to show up, they MUST have propagated an IP address into the DNS servers. This suggests they could have just as easily propagated YOUR IP address instead of theirs. Which gives them incentive to delay your processing.

      Thrid, if they received ANY revenue off the advertising on your domain, aren't you entitled?

      • Re:This was a stupid lawsuit. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by JeffSh ( 71237 ) <jeffslashdotNO@SPAMm0m0.org> on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:49AM (#6920126)
        "Thrid, if they received ANY revenue off the advertising on your domain, aren't you entitled?
        "

        Maybe you already received this amount in the form of discounted registration prices.

        i myself use godaddy, though. http://www.godaddy.com
      • "Second, for that "coming soon" page to show up, they MUST have propagated an IP address into the DNS servers. This suggests they could have just as easily propagated YOUR IP address instead of theirs. Which gives them incentive to delay your processing."

        You're confusing domain registration with hosting. Just because a person registers a domain does not mean that person has an IP address ready to go into the DNS servers. I hardly think it's worthwhile to trade customer service (by delaying processing)
  • wow, now you only need 4 more coupons and then what you have left is the average price of a DNS from a company that doesn't rip it's customers off.
    • " wow, now you only need 4 more coupons and then what you have left is the average price of a DNS from a company that doesn't rip it's customers off."

      According to their web site, it's $35/year (or $30 if you register for 5+ years) to renew a domain so I think 4 more coupons may be a bit much. :)

      On another note, maybe register.com can use the extra business generated from their $5 coupons to pay for the lawsuit.

  • Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gclef ( 96311 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:34AM (#6919682)
    He didn't win. It was a settlement. Register decided to settle, rather than fight this stupid lawsuit. Note: the lawyer made more money than anyone else in this stupid little charade.

    Is it obvious that I'm not exactly impressed with this? Register initially pointed his domain to a "coming soon" page when he registered his domain, and they should have put that they would do this in their contract, fair enough. Is that worthy of a lawsuit? Hell no. Is that worthy of hundreds of thousands of dollars in "damages"? Hell no.

    • Re:Sigh (Score:3, Insightful)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 )

      Is that worthy of a lawsuit? Hell no.

      This guy probably saw this as a way to make some easy money. Yup, his free $12,5k is costing the company over $600k. Guess who will pay for all that in the end?

      Now ISPs will either remove these 'under construction' pages or be more specific about them in their contracts. Watch for the next leech who sues his ISP for not providing an 'under construction' page resulting in a DNS error message. Sigh. I am beginning to appreciate my own country's legal system more a

  • "NY Supreme Court" can be misleading (Score:5, Informative)

    by restive ( 542491 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:36AM (#6919691)
    NY is different than most states because the title of their trial court is the "Supreme Court", which is what most people think is the title for the highest court in the state.

  • i really don't mean to be anti-us (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fuckfuck101 ( 699067 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:36AM (#6919692)
    But this is the kind of stuff we here in the UK hear about Americans, if they trip over because they're drunk they sue their shoe companies, or the council who made the pavement.

    This is a real turn-off, it portrays Americans in a really bad light, I know your corporates are all like this but do you the people need to be to?

    • Re:i really don't mean to be anti-us (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ratpack91 ( 698171 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:48AM (#6919733)
      I know exactly what you mean but your example doesn't hold very well because I remember a few years ago loads of people were suing Manchester council for ... tripping over the pavement and 'breaking' their ankles. The trouble with America is that (bastard) lawyers come along and tell people they could make loadsa money if they sue company x for something that happened to them even if they hadn't thought about it seriously before.

      • Re:i really don't mean to be anti-us (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "The trouble with America is that (bastard) lawyers come along and tell people they could make loadsa money if they sue company x for something that happened to them even if they hadn't thought about it seriously before."

        That's the lawyers fault? Funny, I make that the fault of the people for allowing such a law to exist. Change it if you don't like it.
        • Funny, I make that the fault of the people for allowing such a law to exist. Change it if you don't like it.

          Nice idea, but in the real world lawyers have a lot more influence in shaping laws than regular people do.

          Having been living in the UK for 5 years now, I see a lot more of the US-style ads encouraging people to think of reasons to sue somebody. It's a process that feeds itself, the more successful they are, the more they are able to twist the system to suit their needs.
      • Like that never happens in the UK?

        There seems to be loads of ads on the TV now - "have you had an accident recently that wasn't your fault? Mrs Briggs of Smothersby broke her hip when a circus elephant went on the rampage, and she was awarded 57p!"
      • "because I remember a few years ago loads of people were suing Manchester council for ... tripping over the pavement and 'breaking' their ankles."

        Claims are capped based on the long term damage and usually an offer comes in quickly at the lower end of the cap. I believe an ankle is 5000-15000, but again, this is for physical, verifiable damage rather than that amorphous 'it hurt me in ways that are hard to describe' and Dr Evil-like numbers.

        It's like those estimates of companies that lose thousands thr

    • Re:i really don't mean to be anti-us (Score:4, Insightful)

      by EasyTarget ( 43516 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:53AM (#6919751) Journal
      Well, I guess the general population takes it's cues for behaviour from the rest of the population.

      If all they see in society and the media is spin, profit over ethics and threats (I'll sue you). Where the amount of money you have is generally the only relevent measure of somebody's value or 'worth'. Where everything you ever see, hear or read is distorted in some manner by these forces.

      How do you expect people to behave differently?

      Here in the UK things are nearly as bad. I personally reckon the BBC is probably the only thing that has stopped us decending to the unfortunate state the US has found itself in.

      So next time you hear of a little thieving toe-rag (oops, sorry, I meant underprivaleged young man who has fallen to peer-pressure) coming out with the usual excuses ('I brought it off a man in a pub', 'I was threatened by the way the old man ran away from me so I kicked his head in' etc..) blame the spin doctors and barristers.. The criminaly are just learning from the masters.

      Our lives are now nothing more than manipulation, external and internal.
      • Here in the UK things are nearly as bad.

        I would have to disagree with that.

        1. In the UK, punitive damages are very rarely awarded. So you only get compensated for your actual provable costs probably something like 95% of the time. So, awards are typically something like 20-30% of what US awards for similar incidents are. (I don't have actual figures, but my impression from widely reported cases suggests that is true).

        2. It doesn't cost a fortune to defend an action. As a small company owner,

    • Stupid lawsuits by the few... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MyNameIsFred ( 543994 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:02AM (#6919801)
      There are a few things you need to understand about stupid American lawsuits...

      It is a tiny minority of Americans that file stupid lawsuits.

      Americans laugh at these idiots too.

      Frequently, the media portrays the lawsuits as idiotic, but when you dig into the details and hear the other side it is not so idiotic. Case in point, the famous case of the old women suing McDonald's for the hot coffee spilled on her. Stupid lawsuit until you read the full story behind it. That McDonald's coffee was the hottest in the industry. That McDonald's coffee temperature was on the "knee of the curve" where a few degrees made the difference between a minor burn and a 3rd degree burn. The women received 3rd degree burns and had to go to a hospital. By pushing their coffee temperature to an extreme, well beyond industry practice, McDonald's created a hazard. The lawsuit is not so stupid in that context.

      The case sited in this story does sound stupid, but I would like to hear the whole story before I judge.

      • The lawsuit is not so stupid in that context.

        I agree that sometimes lawsuits are required to force companies to change their behaviour. However, this lawsuit was, IMHO, stupid, because of the sum that was paid out (can't remember the exact figure, but it was huge).

        I was in NY a few weeks ago (I live in Europe), and after two days I started taking pictures of warning labels, because they were stupid. The reason for these retarded warning labels is obviously the retarded lawsuits.

        Some Examples:
        "WAR

      • Frequently, the media portrays the lawsuits as idiotic, but when you dig into the details and hear the other side it is not so idiotic. Case in point, the famous case of the old women suing McDonald's for the hot coffee spilled on her. Stupid lawsuit until you read the full story behind it. That McDonald's coffee was the hottest in the industry. That McDonald's coffee temperature was on the "knee of the curve" where a few degrees made the difference between a minor burn and a 3rd degree burn. The women rec

        • Quote from http://www.burnsurvivor.com/burn_types_third.html :

          Third Degree Burns

          "Third-degree burns affect the epidermis, dermis and hypodermis, causing charring of skin or a translucent white color, with coagulated vessels visible just below the skin surface. "

          You were saying? Maybe you should look into this case, in fact, the lady DID receive third degree burns, had to have skin grafts on her genitals, and was hospitalized for something like 6 months. All she asked McDonalds for was medical exp
        • The woman's skin peeled away with her clothing when it was removed. Perhaps not charred and blackened but pretty damned screwed up!

          As to the damages - she sued for MEDICAL EXPENSES and the jury went above and beyond. She stated herself that she was shocked at the award and it was later reduced. Note that she attempted to settle with them before suing - she simply wanted her medical expenses taken care of and they refused.

          Yes, she should have assumed the liquid was hot but the people serving it out of a wi
    • Strangely enough, someone told me the other day that Australians actually have more lawsuits per capita than the US. I guess the difference is in the size of the settlements. Australian lawsuits usually paid out for actual expenses caused by the action/whatever being sued for, rather than the ridiculous sums that seem to come up in US cases.

  • why to sue? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jlemmerer ( 242376 ) <xcom123@yCOFFEEahoo.com minus caffeine> on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:37AM (#6919693) Homepage
    I think that register.com wanted to offer a service, because maybe in their eyes a "coming soon" page is better than a 404 page. It would have been better (in my opinion) to just write them that you don't want to have this "service" than to suing them. But you can see this as you want...
    • One possible problem is that if you want to move quickly, having had a page there previously can cause your own site not to start working for 24 hours after the DNS change is made; if there has never been a resolving address in the domain before that can happen immediately. So this service slows down setting up your web site by 1 day...
    • For a while, register.com had a deal with Gator, where all of their "coming soon" pages, would launch one of those Gator auto-install applications.

      You could definetly argue that someone visiting your website and seeing that could be upset enough to not visit the site again, even if it wasn't hosted by the purchaser of the domain.

      However, this does seem like a rediculous lawsuit, although the settlement is also fruity. 5 bucks off of an overpriced domain renewal?

      Oh, and don't buy this crap about RCO

  • Won the law suit? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eadz ( 412417 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:37AM (#6919694) Homepage
    You get $5
    Lawyer gets : $642,500 ... so who really won?
    • *uh* ... *thinks* ... that's a catch question ... right? *sweats* ..errr

      *ducks*

      both?

      Now if you would have included register.com into that question, it would have been _really_ tricky...
    • You don't even get $5.00

      You get $5.00 off your next domain registration with them. Since they charge $35.00 a year for a .com registration, you're still getting taken. Compare that to Godaddy.com 's 8.95 registration fee.

      Register.com didn't settle out of court. They paid off the other sides lawyers to make them go away. I've got a feeling that when settlement negotiations started, the main bone of contention was how much register.com was going to pay in legal fees. Neither side cared about the consum
      • You get a lot more for your 35 bucks.

        First of all, you usually get a coupon or special or some such crap and only pay 20.

        So for your 20 you get:

        Free webmail. Free REALLY GREAT webmail with incredible spam blocking protection. Best there is in my opinion

        Completely control of your DNS. You can edit your authoritative DNS servers any way you like.

        Ability to set MX

        Ability to create aliases and point them wherever

        Ability to create A records and point them wherever.

        Ability to point aliases at sub director

    • Re:Won the law suit? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by geschild ( 43455 )

      Blockquote:

      You get $5
      Lawyer gets : $642,500 ... so who really won?

      Not that I approve of the legalistic way in which many things seem to work in the US, but consider this: At least the lawyers did real work to earn the money. All that most of the others did was 'board' a pre-existing suit out of opportunistic reasons.

      The lawyers' fee does seem extravagant, but again, they take the burden and the risk. My point being: don't complain about the opportunistic behaviour of others, they are merely human too. (Y

  • Locking innovation down... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by locarecords.com ( 601843 ) <david@lFREEBSDocarecords.com minus bsd> on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:37AM (#6919695) Homepage Journal
    Petty actions like this can have unforeseen consequences on the entire technology sector as they can be a disincentive to try out new technologies and methods of making new products and services. I think it is reasonable to ask that *actual* harm is being caused by this linking.

    Presumably all the company will do is add a clause to their terms and conditions that allows them to explicitly do this anyway.. But tying up every new attempt to use the technology in clauses and legalese is hardly going to free people to experiment...

  • Probably a good idea to exclude yourself.. (Score:3)

    by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:38AM (#6919700)
    Class Members will also agree that they remain bound by the terms of Register.com's Services Agreement, as it is amended from time to time.

    Yes! Let's agree to agree on things you never agreed on in the first place! Not that this is NOT worded in quite the same way as their current services agreement words it (which includes a 30 day period in which you can up and leave if they change the services agreement); it would seem that this class action settlement overrides such common sense provisions. Nasty!

    The remedy seems worse than the disease.
    • Well that is all the more reason not to take that 5 dollars.
      By taking 5 dollars, you are being party to an unnecessary and frivolos (sp?) lawsuit, I would not take that cash.Feels like taking stolen money.This opt-out thing is painful though, I would have preferred an opt-in. And on top of that you have to agree to their new all inclusive service agreement (though I don't know how legal such a contract is ).
      Funniest thing is that this person posted it on slashdot. Boy he does have an axe to grind agains

  • $5 and waive all rights, or keep the rights? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bo0ork ( 698470 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:41AM (#6919705)
    Seems to me it would be a no-brainer to opt out of a $5 class settlement. Why waive all future claims against a measly $5??

  • Sue the Lawyers! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Azghoul ( 25786 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:44AM (#6919723) Homepage
    I mean, come on now. I read a post a while back here from some guy defending lawyers... and it made some sense. But then you get this kind of nonsense, which is quite obviously a frivolous lawsuit -- and noone really gets anything but the damn lawyers involved...

    And the lawyers wonder why we want the vast majority of them boiled in oil?

    Oooohhhh Ahhhhhh my domain name pointed to a shitty "coming soon" page for two days!! The humanity!! I want to go bitch slap that guy.

  • Object to the Attorney's Fees (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:47AM (#6919730)
    This case was just a shakedown. To prevent it from happening again, members of the class can object to the attorney's fees awarded in the settlement.

    See Sec. VII (C) of the linked document for reference.

    RDC actually sends me coupons for more than $5 to entice me to keep using their service. This is pretty much the same thing. So they're effectively paying me nothing, paying the plaintiff $12.5K and paying the lawyers $650K.

    I Object!

    • Re:Object to the Attorney's Fees - Mod Up (Score:4, Informative)

      by koancomputers ( 319632 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:16AM (#6919893) Homepage
      That's what I'll be doing - here's the linked section:

      C. IF YOU WANT TO OBJECT TO THE SETTLEMENT, BUT STILL BE A PART OF THE SETTLEMENT CLASS.
      If you do not request exclusion from the Settlement Class, you may object to any aspect of the proposed Settlement, including the fairness of the settlement, the attorneys' fees and costs or the adequacy of Plaintiff or Class Counsel or Notice, by filing and serving a written objection. Your written objection must state the case name and number ((Zurakov v. Register.com, Case No. 01-600703), the grounds for your objection and your full name and address, and your objection must be filed with the Clerk of the Court, 60 Centre Street, New York, NY, 10007 with a copy to Counsel. SUCH OBJECTIONS MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN OCTOBER 14, 2003. If you mail an objection to the Settlement, then you bear the risk of any problems with the mails. Such objections will be considered at the Settlement Hearing (see section VIII below), at which you may appear if you wish.

  • The Cost (Score:5, Informative)

    by Techen ( 705895 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:48AM (#6919734)
    I used to work for Register.com. They sell domains to people that have less computer knowledge then your average AOL user. Once people have a clue about domains they tend to shift to other Registrars. Register.com domains are costly because of the support given. Guys that don't even realize what a domain is or how it is used tend to be the client base for RCOM. As for the issue with the coming soon page I think the fella was doing a money grab.
    • I have my domains with register.com, even though I have at least five sd more computer knowledge than your average AOL user. The cost is completely insignificant to me, basically equivalent to being free, so there's no monetary incentive not to, even though other registrars may be cheaper. One of the reasons I used them originally was because I thought a popular and widely used registrar would be less likely to engage in monkey business if someone else wanted to slip them a few thousand dollars to find so

  • Are we missing something here? (Score:4, Informative)

    by plumby ( 179557 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @06:56AM (#6919763)
    On the face of it, this seems absolutely stupid.
    However, the article is published on register.com's own website, and I get a feeling that we're only getting one side of the story. Nowhere does it explain how he was possibly harmed by this redirecting. A quote on another site seems to point to something else going on -

    Michael Zurakov, the lead plaintiff in the suit, which has yet to be certified as a class, claims it took him several months to stop his Web address -- Laborzionist.org -- from redirecting to the "Coming Soon" page.

    No more details on why it took that long, but if it was the case that it took several months until he was actually able to use what he'd paid for then it might put a different slant on the story.

  • The Land of Opportunity (Score:4, Insightful)

    by akiaki007 ( 148804 ) <aa316 AT nyu DOT edu> on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:00AM (#6919790)
    It used to be that the "American Dream" was owning a home. Now, it seems, it is to be able to find something that bothers you ever so slightly and then try to sue someone for it. The "American Dream" is to hire lawyers to take your case and to win a few bucks. If you do it right, you can get several million and invest it and retire at the age of 30. If you screw it up, like Sienfeld's Kramer, then you just keep on trying until you get that million bucks. That is the "American Dream." Screw buying a house. With a million bucks I can buy a mansion!

  • Opt Out? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:16AM (#6919903) Homepage Journal
    What happened to the Opt In Class Action?

    I think that would be a violation of your legal rights. So who's going door to door to see if anyone ever used register.com to allow them to opt out in case they wish to bring their own lawsuit?

  • Law.com article about it: (Score:5, Informative)

    by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:29AM (#6919981)
    There's a small article at law.com about it:

    http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=105102823902 6 [law.com]

    Apparently he was unable to change it to direct it to his website for several months after registering it.

    I suspect that register.com may have shot themselves in the foot by claiming that the contract did not explicitly give Mr Zurakov
    exclusive control over the site. The judge did not agree, saying that if if it wasn't explicit in the contract 'to register' a site should give you more than just a listing in whois.

    Register.com should have just admitted that something went wrong with their DNS assignment system and settled out of court. They probably could have gotten away with $5000 or so.
  • That received the notice, I think the guy that filed the lawsuit is a dick. I'm sorry. Let me rephrase that I think the guy that filed the lawsuit is a DICK. A big floppy dick. How stupid is he? How hard would it have been for him to actually look into what he was purchasing? How much harm did them pointing his page back to their stuff hurt him if he wasn't even smart enough to know it was there? Meanwhile, I use register.com specifically for their webmail and spam blocking. I might get 1 spam a day and hav
  • I read about this a while back on Ed Foster's Gripe Line [gripe2ed.com]. It says both there and here that you have to opt out. But it doesn't say either place HOW to opt out.

    I've been poking around the Register.com site and can't find anything about the settlement or the opt out. Has anyone else found it yet?

  • Register.com increased fees by $10 today as a result of a recent class action settlement.
  • I got an email the other day saying that I am part of the class that won the lawsuit. When I read the details I decided that I didn't want the $5... not because it's just a measly $5... but because the lawsuit is a joke.

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