Heyhey,

I am trying to find out who owns a domain. It is alot harder than I thought it would be since they are hiding their information from whois searches. The registrar says not to contact them about domains hosted on their servers and says to use the information found with a whois search instead.

The reason I am trying to track down the owner is to A) buy it from them or B) obtain it through UDRP proceedings.

The website I am looking for the owner of is phoenixstone.com

I found an other website registered in australia that is phoenixstone.com.au

So, the question is; Is phoenixstone.com and phoenixstone.com.au one in the same?

Thanks!

Unless the IDentity shield people are going to give you some more information I think you're out of luck. Try the 604 phone number

Registrant
PHOENIXSTONE.COM
c/o Whois IDentity Shield
142-757 W. Hastings St., Suite #777
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6C 1A1

Administrative Contact
PHOENIXSTONE.COM
c/o Whois IDentity Shield
142-757 W. Hastings St., Suite #777
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6C 1A1
E-mail: zWI8OeusDbrUs/cVGJzzks2bCMPUFBF+RTe5t+70//DOuPy+Ziqma6tGdQ==@2009.identityshield.com
Phone: +1 (604) 484-4206



Doesn't look like the same as the au site - at least they use different name servers.
Registrant Contact ID: 62718O557796
Registrant Contact Name: Phoenix Stone Pty Ltd
Registrant Contact Email: Visit whois.ausregistry.com.au for Web based WhoIs

I had already tried that number a few times with no luck. I have also contacted them via the contact us link that is on phoenixstone.com. I just left them another voicemail at the 604 number. Hopefully they will get back to me and say merry christmas heres the domain..lol..like that'll happen...anyways, thanks for your reply..i'll post what happens here.

Or they ignore you because they have no intension of selling the domain. Why would they want to sell it? Seems it's used for their business.

Their business being? Link farming, perhaps? There's no actual business that I can see at phoenixstone.com

because the domain that I am talking about is not one that is used for their business. It is one that is parked with links pertaining to our industry.

Exactly. They are using the fact that our company, Phoenix Stone Company, is a landscape company. People would go to phoenixstone.com thinking they are gonna get us, and then end up at that page full of landscaping related links. Which, in turn, makes it so that we have a claim via UDRP and ICANN. But, we would much rather resolve it BEFORE filing a claim.

Oh. I must have looked at the australian site. Well, in that case one would think they would be intested in selling, if the price is right.

Indeed, but, the price will have to be their out-of-pocket cost. If they come back with an inflated price then we will end up having to file a UDRP claim, but we would much rather avoid all that jazz. it doesnt look like much fun.

Well, good luck.

I can't imagine that the Australia one is related in any way (haven't looked, though). Presumably this sort of cybersquatting is done with minimal thought, because the returns on the adverts are not going to be exactly enormous.

But I would have thought it was best just to file a complaint (whatever the procedure is). The first thing that should happen is that they need to make a response -- if they don't you should get it by default. And you don't want to give them money...

These junk sites are a minor irritation: I only ever find them when people arrive at my website from a google ad on one. How do people get there? Do they just type random sequences in the address bar? It would be nice to have a list of sites to ban adverts from going on. (... ramble...) Actually, the bottom line is that Google's so-called "content" network is mostly junk...

The problem with just filing a complaint is that it isnt cheap. It costs upwards of 1,000 usd to get the process started. If we have to do that we will, but we would much rather get it over with without all the legal mumbojumo.

phoenixstone.com.au: I get "no server"

http://phoenixstone.com -- I see a panel of junklinks

You see something real?

Try typing it like this http://www.phoenixstone.com.au

The phoenixstone.com is the website we want to obtain. We dont have a claim against phoenixstone.com.au

Yes, that's the site I saw. Sorry, confused the URLs.

I'm no expert on this, but I've seen issues like this discussed on mailing lists many times, and I wouldn't get my hopes up. It's obvious what they are doing, we may think it's immoral, but the name is pretty generic.

BTW, I hear there are lawyers who specialize in internet related matters. Maybe worth a try?

However generic the name may be, it is our trademark. If their site was full of junk links leading to home made viagra and sleeping pills then we would not have a claim. But the fact that the site is full of links relating to the industry that our company is in makes our claim valid.

We will use one if we have to, but would much rather settle it without getting to that point. It is really a matter of actually speaking with the owner of the domain at this point.

Answer No.

To get an Australian .com.au is a little different to getting a .com, you need to have a registered business name very similar to the domain name.

Cause of this there is no market for the sale of domain names, should you think some one is squatting on a .com.au domain we can make a complaint an the squatter needs to show a valid reason why he has the domain.

So for an American Co. to get a Australian Domain basically they would need to have presence in Australia.

I know that they are not squatting on the .com.au domain. The one I think is being squatted on is the simple .com address. What I was asking in the first post, in an attempt to find the owner of phoenixstone.com was if they were the same to this respect:

Example:

If I wanted to register sleven.com.us I would first have to register sleven.com and have it be a US entity
If I wanted to register htmlhelp.com.us I would first have to register htmlhelp.com and have it be a US entity
If I wanted to register anydomain.com.au I would first have to register anydomain.com.au and have it be a AU entity.

Is that not the case? Does one not have to register the .com before it can register the .com.au? or could I simply go and register sleven.com.us (provided i meet the criteria of course)?

No. Some countries don't let you register first level domains, or reserve them only for companies. Then they let you register under certain sub domains insead. Another example is .co.uk. Here in Sweden only companies could register .se domains earlier. Private persons had to make do with pp.se.

Here you can see that you can register a com.au.
http://www.domainregistration.com.au/

I guess that should be called second level domains really, but you understand what I mean. I hope.

I understand what ya mean

That is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you very much for that info. Now I KNOW that phoenixstone.com and phoenixstone.com.au are not the same people, which is exactly the outcome I was hoping for.

Now for the fun task of acquiring phoenixstone.com

(if anyone has any advice on acquiring a domain that is A) being squatted on and B) you cant find the owner for, please let me know)

Thanks to all that replied

Walk softly and bring a big wallet.

I wish you luck.

This is only generic advice... I would go straight for the resolution procedure, whatever it is. These people are only interested in (a) the (tiny) income from the parasitic ads, (b) a big lump of money. (I guess: because (a) is entirely automated and costs nothing, (b) costs something to organise.)

As a matter of principle, it is a bad idea to give them a big lump of money: it benefits everyone if you go through the Procedure -- because even if it costs you somewhat _more_ in the end, you are not feeding the Enemy. And often Official Procedures are actually not very arduous, provided you do them yourself.

I definatly agree with that. At this point it looks like we will be filing a UDRP proceeding. Now it is just a matter of exactly how we are going to proceed. The next step for us is to get our lawyers involved. <sarcasm>FUN FUN FUN!</sarcasm>