Man Faces 20-Year Imprisonment for False Threats Over Domain Names

David Scali, a Las Vegas resident, faces a potential U.S. federal prison term of 20-years after agreeing to plead guilty to wire fraud. The FBI alleges that Mr. Scali impersonated an intellectual property lawyer and threatened to file $100,000 trade-mark infringement lawsuits against owners of typo-based Internet domain names unless they forfeited their domain name registrations within two days.

Typo-based domain names contain nomenclatures similar to popular websites and can, for example, result in profitable web traffic for their owners by virtue of people mistyping domain names, finding themselves on typo-based websites, and clicking on revenue generating ads found on such sites. In Mr. Scali’s situation, the wire fraud charge is based on a registrant who surrendered a typo-based domain name similar to the domain name, citysearch.com. While a plea agreement could substantially reduce Mr. Scali’s sentence from 20-years, his fate will ultimately rest with the sentencing judge.

This entry first appeared in the September 27, 2007 edition of lawsof.com. For additional information, click here.