To recover stolen 4-number domain names — Lawsuit filed

Previous owner states two four-digit domain names were stolen.

Thomas Keefe, Jr. has filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) in U.S. federal district court to recover domain names he alleges were stolen from his eNom account.

Keefe alleges that the domain names 1414.com and 6144.com were stolen in December 2015, although he didn’t notice the theft until October 2016.

His lawsuit includes a number of claims, counting violation of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. For this, he is claiming common law trademark protection in the domains due to his long use in connection with paid advertising services (i.e., domain parking).

As stated by the suit, Keefe used eNom’s two-factor authentication, so it’s not clear how the domains were stolen.

That stated, the domain name 1414.com sure did get around following the apparent theft. I count nine different owners in whois since the alleged theft, as stated by DomainTools historical whois records.

Keefe is represented by Attison Barnes and David Weslow of Wiley Rein. Wiley Rein is also representing the plaintiff in a stolen domain case for GMF.com, which was filed just three days ahead of the Keefe case.