A pair of fraudsters who made millions using a domain registration scam have been ordered to pay AU$2.3m by an Australian court.
Brad Norrish and Chesley Rafferty conned victims into stumping up non-existent fees under the threat that they risked losing their domain names unless they paid up. The duo used data from domain name registrar Nominet to produce authentic-looking notices that lent credibility to the trick, the Australian reports.
Read full story: The Register
Related topics: DNS, Domain Names
This isn't the first time Bradley Norrish has been in the news. Recall my 2002 analysis of top .US registrations, where I found Norrish to be the number three largest .US registrant, with 1,746 domains registered. See http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/dotus/US-topregistrants-l-1.html . It's not immediately clear to me whether (or how) Norrish complied with .US nexus requirements; despite his large volume of registered .US domains, he may actually not have been entitled to register any .US domains at all.
For the Brad Norrish & Chesley Rafferty story, see: http://domainwatch.org/