NJ Man Charged with ID Theft of Domain Name

Stolen Social Security and credit card numbers are, unfortunately, nothing new.

But in the annals of identity-related crime, the indictment of 25-year-old Daniel Goncalves may represent a “first,” a representative of the New Jersey Attorney General’s office tells The Star-Ledger. His offense: stealing an Internet domain name and selling it for more than $100,000.


By now, most people know the value of a good domain name (the most valuable on record—among them Toys.com, wine.com and sex.com—have reportedly reaped sales prices in the millions). But how does one go about getting around that pesky legal requirement that one must actually pay for a domain name as (s)he would for any other commodity—preferably, by purchasing it from its rightful owner?

To follow the path laid out in the indictment discussed in The Star-Ledger, one must first hack Godaddy.com, a web domain name registry (Goncalves, it should be pointed out, is a suspect but hasn’t yet been convicted for any crime); hack into the account of someone with a marketable domain name you can eventually sell for money (according to the allegations against Goncalves, that was “P2P.com” and it sold for $111,211 to a former professional basketball player, the ex-Los Angeles Laker and Minnesota Timberwolf Mark Madsen); and put it up for sale. Associated Press points out that the site was sold via eBay auction.


The catch to this approach is that it’s illegal. And according to an Internet law attorney quoted by the newspaper, the Goncalves case could set a precedent, with more domain name owners filing criminal complaints over domain name thefts.

Goncalves has been charged with identity theft and other charges including three counts of falsifying records, theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception and computer theft, the newspaper reports.

Not the kind of “identity theft” we typically see in these pages, but an interesting case to follow nonetheless.  Stay tuned.