How the sex.com domain name was stolen
Part one of our serialisation
By Kieren McCarthy | Published 17:00, 22 June 07
"Subsequently, we were forced to dismiss Mr Kremen. At no time was Mr Kremen ever a stockholder, officer nor a director of our corporation and as such, Mr Kremen has no rights, titles or interests in our domain name. Further, the internet shows that sex.com is listed in our corporation and not in Mr Kremen's personal name.
In fact, Mr Kremen is the president of a different and unrelated corporation called Electric Classifieds, which is located at 340 Brandon Street in San Francisco, California. Further, Mr Kremen’s corporation owns match.com which is listed with the internet registration.
“We never got around to changing our administrative contact with the internet registration and now our Board of Directors has decided to abandon the domain name sex.com.”
While the concept behind the letter was brilliant, its execution< was poorly handled. What company would claim that it "never got around” to doing something? Why would the president of Online Classifieds talk about match.com? In a phone conversation, the slang would be fine and the tangents about Gary Kremen, complete with precise facts, would give the listener greater confidence in the speaker.
But when put down on paper, such persuasive techniques jar. Cohen had completely over-egged it by going on about Kremen when the letter was only supposedto be handing over ownership of rights in sex.com.
The final paragraph in which Cohen sought to have the letter itself act as a passport to the domain change was too blunt and blew the whole scam:
