Website stolen, lawsuit claims — Popular Brazilian

Site that tracks car prices has been hijacked.

Screenshot of tabelafipebrasil.com, which is the subject of a stolen domain lawsuit

An unknown person has stolen the domain name and website TabelaFipeBrasil.com as stated by a lawsuit (pdf).

João Almeida started and ran the popular website that tracks vehicle prices in Brazil. As stated by the lawsuit, the site received 2.5 million page views last month and over 93 million since it was launched in 2013.

But Almeida found out that the domain was stolen from his registrar account and transferred elsewhere. Almeida alleges that the thief is now generated revenue from the Adsense ads on the site. (I reviewed the current Google Adsense code on the website and compared it to the ad code captured in Archive.org and it has changed. Some security services now use Adsense publisher IDs to track bad actors and I wonder if they could connect this to other domains used by the alleged thief.)

Wiley Rein LLP is representing Almeida. It filed the case as an in rem action in Virginia, where .com registry Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) is located.

Also on the wire