Stay away from Jan DeGrat.
He is a cybersquatter!
Jan DeGrat (or Jan De Grat) stole my domain name, disinfotainmenttoday.com, and he did it right in front of me. I still don't know how he pulled it off. We were working on a newspaper called the San Fernando Valley Weekly (read the whole story here) when he asked me why my newspaper, Disinfotainment Today, didn't have it's own domain. I'd been publishing it for more than a year at the free webspace supplied by Earthlink with my dial-up account, which seemed to be working out okay, but he said "Want your own domain name?" I said "sure." He turned to his computer and went straight to godaddy, the net's cheapest domain name service, and made quite a show of the fact he was entering in MY name and address as the owner of disinfotainmenttoday.com. I left his house thinking I owned my own domain name. I didn't find out till two years later, when my site went down, when I planned upon taking up the payments myself, that Jan didn't just pay the bill that first time, the domain was somehow in HIS name, HE controlled the DNS numbers, and I had no access to technical support. How the fuck did he pull that off? He did it right in front of me.
It turns out Jan DeGrat has bought a bunch of domain names and thinks of himself as a publisher, NOT because he ever intends on publishing anything, but because he hopes someone who wants to publish something with a name he's already bought will have to come to him. He thinks buying the domain names hawaiiweekly.com and newyorkweekly.com makes him a publisher, but it obviously doesn't. It makes him a cybersquatter, which is against federal law. The only reason more cybersquatters aren't busted is because local authority has no jurisdiction. The only people who can prosecute cybersquatters are the feds and they're too busy for pipsqueaks like us.
My only recourse would
have been this...
In 1999, after
assuming control of domain name registration, ICANN adopted and began
implementing the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDNDRP) a policy for resolution of domain
name disputes. This international policy results in an arbitration of the dispute, not litigation. An
action can be brought by any person who complains (referred to by ICANN
as the "complainant") that:
In 1999,, ICANN adopted and began implementing the Uniform Domain Name
Dispute Resolution Policy (UDNDRP), which says that in order to stop a
cybersquatter, the trademark owner must prove all of the following:- the domain name registrant had a bad-faith intent to profit from the trademark
- the trademark was distinctive at the time the domain name was first registered
- the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to the trademark, and
- the trademark qualifies for protection under federal trademark laws -- that is, the trademark is distinctive and its owner was the first to use the trademark in commerce.
I would have no
problem proving this since Jan DeGrat fits all four of these
descriptions.
- After pretending to buy it in my name, he offered to sell it back to me at a profit.
- I'd been publishing Disinfotainment Today at a different address for more than a year.
- Disinfotainment Today is identical to disinfotainmenttoday.com.
- speaks for itself.
- Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy -- This policy is followed by all registrars.
- Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy -- These rules are followed by all dispute-resolution service providers, with supplementation by each provider's supplemental rules.
- List of Approved Dispute-Resolution Service Providers
- UDRP Historical Documents
It's all too
complicated and costs too much, even though Jan would end up paying my
legal expenses.
My site regularly went
down due to Jan's whims. One time a friend of mine was dying and Jan
took down my
request to help him. He asked for money to put the site back
up. He somehow
imagines his ownership of my domain name will "pay off" some day.
Impossible. It's not a commercial site. I've never accepted ads, it never has, and never will, make a penny
for anyone. It's just my personal site where I post my writing. It'll
never be worth anything to anyone but me, and I'm totally poverty
stricken. I
would have thought the whole point of blackmail was to do it to someone
rich. How pathetic
do you have to be to try to blackmail someone on welfare? (my strange
and humiliating tale)
Finally, I had enough. I registered a new domain name, dareland, and here you are. Jan immediately took down disinfotainmenttoday.com to prevent people from being redirected here, but the new site has already been indexed by Google, so obviously people will find me.
I posted this page so people looking for information on Jan DeGrat would find something. I told him this page would remain up until my old domain name is transfered to me. Obviously it hasn't happened. Obviously if you're considering doing business with Jan DeGrat, don't. He's devious, despicable, a thief, and you will get screwed.
Jan's email address is scorpionreef@msn.com. Write him and tell him to give me my site back.
Finally, I had enough. I registered a new domain name, dareland, and here you are. Jan immediately took down disinfotainmenttoday.com to prevent people from being redirected here, but the new site has already been indexed by Google, so obviously people will find me.
I posted this page so people looking for information on Jan DeGrat would find something. I told him this page would remain up until my old domain name is transfered to me. Obviously it hasn't happened. Obviously if you're considering doing business with Jan DeGrat, don't. He's devious, despicable, a thief, and you will get screwed.
Jan's email address is scorpionreef@msn.com. Write him and tell him to give me my site back.
