Lawsuit alleges valuable domain names were stolen

At least two of the three domains have since been sold.

A lawsuit (pdf) filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia yesterday alleges that three valuable domain names were stolen last year.

Vincent Yap, a Chinese citizen, alleges that he is the rightful owner of 284.com, 717.com and 1588.com. He says the domains were stolen from him sometime between when he acquired them in 2018 and March 2021.

Complicating the matter, two of the domain names were reported sold at Sedo in March of last year. This suggests that the current owners are not the alleged thieves, and they will need to determine how they want to defend the assets they acquired. Around the same time as these domain sales, another person bought 509.com at Sedo only to have a former owner complain that it was stolen. The domain owner defended the domain and that case was dropped.

At this point, I wouldn’t touch a three or four number domain unless it has a clear chain of title that you’ve verified. I also think courts should make sure that plaintiffs make some legitimate attempt to contact the current domain owners for notice when filing an in rem lawsuit like this.

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