Sex.com update

[Matthew X]

Sex.com Saga Continues- At Least for a Couple More Weeks
That Gary Kremen, the owner of sex.com will never see the $65 million the 
courts have awarded him in his legal battles against Stephen Cohen is 
almost a given. Now Kremen will have to wait a few more weeks to see what 
the 9th District Court of Appeals will come up with. Kremen yesterday 
presented a case in San Francisco in which he holds Network Solutions, a 
division of VeriSign accountable for the whole sex.com mess to begin with. 
It's Kremen's contention that Network Solutions never bothered to verify 
Cohen's forged request to transfer the domain from Kremen.
Kremen is saying that the largest U.S. domain name registry should be held 
accountable for an error that put the Internet address in the hands of 
Cohen, a known con artist. In a hearing before a federal appeals court 
panel, Kremen's lawyers argued that Network Solutions committed a breach of 
contract when it failed to verify the forged request. "This all could have 
been prevented with a simple call or e-mail to Mr. Kremen saying: Did you 
authorize this?" said James Wagstaffe, the attorney for Kremen, who's 
seeking monetary damages.
This is Kremen's second try at a court judgment against Network Solutions. 
Kremen lost the first case in May, 2000 when federal judge James J. Ware in 
San Jose, California ruled against him basing his decision in part on the 
fact that at the time Kremen registered the site, in 1994, domains were 
free. Ware contended that because Network Solutions was offered nothing of 
value in exchange for its efforts, it not should be held financially liable 
for its error. But Ware also held Cohen, liable to the tune of $65 million 
in largely uncollected damages. Cohen's attorneys were also in appellate 
court Tuesday, seeking to undo that ruling.
In yesterday's appellate hearing, attorney Wagstaffe argued that even 
though Network Solutions didn't get money for registering the domain, it 
did get personal information about Kremen for its database. Wagstaffe said 
that should count as something of value. The company was also able to begin 
charging registrants shortly afterward, having developed its initial 
database of free registrations.
Attorneys for Network Solutions, disagreed rejecting the argument that a 
domain name's entry in Network Solutions central domain name server, or 
DNS, constitutes proof of ownership of that Internet address.
http://www.generossextreme.com/
Is this guy the matt Drudge of the naughties or what?
http://www.newarchitectmag.com/documents/s=2443/na0902f/index.html
Study carefully,there will be questions.
ICANN of Worms
The Internet governing body is short on answers and out of time.
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