Demaestro - 10:41 pm on Dec 8, 2011 (gmt 0)

Short answers to your questions (and you may need a new lawyer if they think it is possible that a domain name is a database)

Is a domain name a database? No

Do the records of domain name registrations live in a database? Yes

Think of registering a domain name like a lease, you lease the rights to use the domain name, you don't own it though, you just have exclusive rights to it.

If you let it lapse and someone else registers it then you may be screwed, if the domain name is your trademark then you would have legal recourse to recoup it but the person using it wouldn't be guilty of anything unless they were squatting it.

If someone hacks the Whois database and change the domain to their info then that is something else.

I am not sure what you mean by hijack though. If you mean just squatting on a name you own the trademark to in the hopes you will pay them big $$ then that is just called Domain Squatting.

Can you explain what exactly you mean when you say "hijack"