According to Domain Name Wire, a new and still poorly understood scam has emerged targeting domain registrars. Network Solutions, a major domain registrar, received an email purporting to originate from the Forum (formerly the US National Arbitration Forum), one of the principal organizations handling complaints under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). The message claimed that a UDRP complaint had been filed against a domain registered through Network Solutions and instructed the registrar to block the domain, thereby preventing its sale or transfer to another registrar until an arbitration decision had been issued.
A similar incident had occurred just over a month earlier involving name.com. Following standard procedure, the registrar blocked the domain referenced in the email and informed the registrant. However, the registrant became suspicious and sought advice from John Berryhill, a well-known domain dispute attorney. Berryhill subsequently contacted leading UDRP dispute resolution providers: the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Forum, and the Czech Arbitration Court, only to discover that no complaint had actually been filed against the domain. The message had been forged.
With this incident in mind, Network Solutions refrained from immediately blocking the domain and instead notified the registrant. The registrant also contacted John Berryhill, and it was soon confirmed that this email, too, was forged: the Forum had neither received any complaint concerning the domain nor issued any such notification to the registrar.
The motives behind these forged notices remain unclear. It cannot be ruled out that perpetrators intended to follow up with a second fabricated message, potentially including a falsified arbitration ruling and a request to transfer ownership of the domain. Another possibility is that competitors sought to interfere with a commercially valuable transaction involving the domain. In any case, registrars should probably introduce procedures to verify messages from UDRP providers.
