We are a medium sized company that develops and sells software which is constantly under attack from the hacking community. One of our main problems recently has been the high profile of one particular site.
We managed to have it closed down several times (they also cracked MS, Adobe etc. so we contacted their piracy teams and let the lawyers handle it) but they have recently re-hosted to <snip> so that is now a non-starter.
What we would really like to do is have the domain name revoked. This would vastly reduce the exposure of the site to the average user which would be a major boost. Does anyone have any experience or tips on how this could be done or whether it is possible ?
A secondary problem is the high traffic ranking of the site on google and other search engines. They use 'GoogleTagged' (?) and, in some cases, can produce a higher result than the actual software developers site. Does anyone know whether Google will pay attention to complaints on these lines and what the correct channel would be to pursue this further (e.g. can we stop Google spidering or listing their site)?
One crucial point is that they do not host warez - they are a cracking community and the final 'products' are then hosted on <snip> or other filing hosts.
Thanks for any advice.
[edited by: Webwork at 8:50 pm (utc) on Aug. 19, 2008]
[edit reason] Removed some particulars [/edit]
The Domain Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com] explains that we try to avoid "giving legal advice" threads. (See Charter for explanation and reasons.)
I suspect there will be multiple legal issues - from jurisdiction to choice of law to injunctive relief or other remedy to international treaty/enforcement issues, which takes the topic well beyond our ability to contribute meaningful guidance. Given the character and/or practices of the entity you are dealing with there may even be criminal law enforcement issues.
I would suggest you have your company attorney contact Google's corporate offices for details about how to proceed vis-a-vis Google. Actual lawyer-to-lawyer contact may be necessary.
[edited by: Webwork at 8:53 pm (utc) on Aug. 19, 2008]
