Nominet wins data mining case
Publish date: 29 September 2004
Issue Number: 1049
Diary: Legalbrief eLaw
Category: Cybercrime
Nominet UK national registry for all .uk domain names has won an Australian court battle against Australians, Chesley Rafferty and Bradley Norrish, who used information stolen from the registrys database to send misleading domain name notices to thousands of its registrants, reports Out-Law.com.
In January 2003, Nominet discovered that its WHOIS database had been the subject of data mining attacks. Following the theft, 50 000 registrants received misleading notices from the so-called UK Internet Registry. These resembled invoices and told recipients that the .com version of the .co.uk name was unregistered and available for purchase. An investigation found that Chesley Rafferty and Bradley Norrish as well as three of their companies were behind the theft and misleading notices. While the other defendants admitted guilt, Bradley Norrish did not and was taken to court. An Australian judge has now found that Norrish had authorised copyright infringement, and was involved in misleading or deceptive conduct. Full Out-Law.com report
