Lewis & Lin Recovers Domain Name Stolen by Chinese Hacker

A federal court in Arizona today ruled in favor of our client whose domain name was stolen from her eNom account, apparently by a hacker based in China.

Our client, the plaintiff, is a domain name investor who registers generic and descriptive domain names that have value, holding them for development or possible resale.  The domain name at issue was <640.com>.  Domain names consisting solely of numbers have particular value in China due to their ability to transcend language barriers and provide for limitless usage possibilities.

The defendant appeared to use a number of different proxy servers to mask his true IP address, location, and identity in order to access plaintiff’s account and perpetrate the theft.  After gaining access to plaintiff’s account with eNom, defendant transferred the domain to his own eNom account.  By the time our client found out, the defendant had already re-transferred the domain to a separate account with GoDaddy.  GoDaddy refused to return the domain name to plaintiff. 

Lewis & Lin filed suit in U.S. District Court in Arizona (where GoDaddy’s is located), and subsequently filed a motion to effect service on the defendant by email, which was granted.  Upon the defendant’s failure to respond, the federal court entered default against him, and then issued judgment.  The judgment declared plaintiff as the rightful owner of the domain name, and further made the following order:

Upon Plaintiff’s request, Defendant YAN WANG; their officers, directors, employees, agents, subsidiaries, distributors and all persons in active concert or participation with them having notice of this Order; and those with actual notice of this Order, including any domain-name registrars, domain-name registries or their administrators, are directed to immediately record, change, or assist in changing the registration of record for the Domain Name in Plaintiff’s name and into an account with a domain-name registrar of Plaintiff’s choosing.

The case is Tai v. Wang, No. CV-15-01857-PHX-GMS (D. Ariz. Jan 28, 2016).