Pay.io is a stolen domain name — Lawsuit alleges

Firm recently realized that its valuable domain name was missing.

Picture of thief at laptop computer

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona alleges that the domain name Pay.io is stolen.

Deltaventure GmbH, a German firm, filed the lawsuit (pdf) against the domain name and John Doe.

As stated by the suit, the plaintiff purchased the domain name in 2012 for €5,000. The domain name was transferred to a fresh owner (apparently in Russia) in 2016, but the plaintiff didn’t realize this until October of 2019.

Most in rem lawsuits are filed in Virginia, where the .com registry Verisign is located. Still, .io is the country code domain name for British Indian Ocean Territory. The plaintiff filed the case in Arizona since Namecheap, the registrar where the domain is held, is organized in the state.

Pay.io is a valuable domain name that is worth much more than what the plaintiff paid for it in 2012. In the past year, Swipe.io sold for $68,000, Cook.io sold for $39,750 and Ease.io sold for $28,888.

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