Talk:Sigmund Solares

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"vandalism?" that's ridiculous. everyone knows sigmund solares is a cybersquatter, as defined by the anti-cybersquatting act. how is stating the truth an act of vandalism?

Has he been convicted by any court under the anti-cybersquatting act? Then you can write it.
Has someone else called him a cybersquatter in a well known magazine or similar? Than you can write "has been called X by Y in Z".
But calling him cybersquatter because you think he is one does not follow the rules of the NPOV.

I agree. What's next? You can't write that Hitler is a fascist dictator or that someone is a murderer? A fact is a fact is a fact. Isn't that what Wikipedia is for?

No, you can't call someone a murderer who is not convicted of murder. (Exceptions apply where there is no way for the law to pursuit the murder, e.g. if he's a dictator)

Godwin's Law noted.

From Whatis.com:

"According to the U.S. federal law known as the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, cybersquatting is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else."

My comment: The act also includes people's own names - eg. www.johndoe.com

These are a few of the cases where one of Sigmund Solares' companies (Intercosmos, NOLDC and others) has been found to have registered domains in bad faith and been forced to return them to its rightful owner:

http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2005/d2005-0890.html

http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/311365.htm

http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/word/2002/dbiz2002-00099.doc

http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2005/d2005-0016.html

http://www.worldlii.org/int/cases/GENDND/2004/1042.html

Furthermore, Kenyatech (www.kenyatech.com) says this is their business: "Kentech specializes in after-market domain names, meaning Kentech has acquired the right to resell these domains to you at discounted rates from an existing domain name registrant. These domain names are exclusively brought to you by Kenyatech.com and are not for sale elsewhere on the Internet."

Check out their thousands of listings, and you'll find that they include domains related to trademark names (eg. Yahoo, Google, etc) and names of people (eg. mattblagg.com). In the latter case, they were taken from their rightful owners. They are offering those domains by sale for hundreds or thousands of dollars. If this is not an example of registering "a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit," (cybersquatting), I don't know what is.

Kenyatech claims to be based in Kenya but:

1. Every single domain offered by "Kenyatech" has been registered through NOLDC, Intercosmos or Domain Contender (which are all run by Sigmund Solares).

2. To buy a domain from Kenyatech you are instructed to pay NOLDC (I repeat: a Sigmund Solares's company)

3. The IP address for "Kenyatech" is not in Kenya but in Lousiana, where Sigmund Solares and all his companies are based.

As all the evidence shows, Sigmund Solares is indeed a cybersquatter. That's not difamation or vandalism. That's a fact.

And let's not forget that NOLDC (one of Sigmund Solares' companies) recently took the domain a mother created in honor of her dead child - and demanded $15,000 to give it back.

From:

http://www.komo4.com/stories/40223.htm


'I Don't Know If It's A Scam Or A Crime, But It Hurts'


November 11, 2005

By KOMO Staff

SEATTLE - She started a Web site to honor her murdered toddler. But now, a local mother says the site has been hijacked, and the hijackers are demanding a steep ransom.

It's the heartbreaking consequences of something called "cyber-squatting".

Margot Wetzel just can't believe the Web site honoring her dead daughter is gone.

"I don't know if it's a scam or a crime, but it hurts," she said.

18-month-old Charlotte Wetzel was murdered by her daycare provider Robin Johnson 7 years ago.

CharlotteWetzel.com chronicled a mother's grief and offered tips on preventing abuse.

But when Margot tried to renew the domain name, she discovered that someone else beat her to it.

Then, she got an e-mail demanding she pay $15,000 to get it back.

"Well they're basically holding it for ransom, right?" she said. "It's like, 'yeah, you can use it but we need some cash.' "

PC World columnist Stuart Johnston says it's called "cyber-squatting". Usually, cybersquatters buy up the names of successful businesses and then try to sell them back.

But Johnston says he's never seen anything like this.

"I haven't seen anything that's quite this heinous of someone taking a domain name that's so close to someone's heart," Johnston said.

We found out who bought the domain name -- they're called New Orleans Leftover Data Centers. We tried calling them to find out just what they're up to, but every time we called, we got the answering machine.

We also sent the company several emails and got no response.

"They just want to make money off people, they don't really care what the Web site is all about," Margot said.

Charlottewetzel.com will be up for renewal again in 2006. Margot says she'll be ready, hoping to beat these cyber squatters to the punch.

There are federal laws against cyber-squatting, but experts tell us they only apply to cases where the Web site was trademarked.

In the end, Mrs. Wetzel got the domain back (NOLDC probably realized this was very very bad publicity), but come on, is there a more clear example of cybersquatting?

--- And the AntiCybersquatting Act of 1999 does consider taking people's names, eg. charlottewetzel.com, a cybersquatting act:

From Gigalaw.com:

Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act Signed by President Clinton, November 29, 1999 (Page 3 of 11)

SEC. 3002. CYBERPIRACY PREVENTION.


(a) IN GENERAL -- Section 43 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (15 U.S.C. 1125) is amended by inserting at the end the following:

(d)(l)(A) A person shall be liable in a civil action by the owner of a mark, including a personal name which is protected as a mark under this section, if, without regard to the goods or services of the parties, that person --

(i) has a bad faith intent to profit from that mark, including a personal name which is protected as a mark under this section;

[edit] NPOV

I do not believe is article is written from a neutral point of view. This article reads like an attack on the person and not a biblography about him. Please discuss, I would like to clean this article up and make it into an actual biblo. Onthost 23:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you check the edit before yours, you will see that an anonymous user replaced a decent article with what we currently see. In future, it would be good to check to see if there was a good article at a previous stage before slapping notices on it. --Daniel Lawrence 23:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry I didnt see there was a good article, plus there was a bunch of discussion on the subject, so i didnt want to revert without input from someone else. I figured the npov tag was a good step towards a real bio and not a slanderous article. Onthost 23:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The information from this link:[1] still needs to be integrated.--Drat (Talk) 13:24, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Well if it had something to do with Sigmund Solares go ahead. However it just says that a company of his purchased a domain name for themselves or on the behaf of someone else. Mike (T C) 14:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Are we denying that he's been accused of this sort of thing? That's all I said, "accused", and provided several links with a myriad of accusations. If you don't feel it was neutral enough, feel free to edit it, but deleting half the story about this guy is ridiculous. The article currently makes him look like a saint who braved a hurricane, but talking to people who've dealt with him or his companies paints a very different picture. His name comes up several times in WIPO arbitration decisions, how much more of a reliable source do you need?--Deadpool42 05:02, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The two WPIO cases werent for cyber squatting, they were because of trademark issues. Part of their business is registering expired domain names, its legit. Also I am having a check user done on your name, Clesp and the IP addresses. Mike (T C) 14:12, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

As it stands, I can't see any verifiable evidence that Solares is implicated in this at all. If someone wants to go and add the company to cybersquatting then they can do so, but there is nothing here which links the two other than some vague and unspecified association. It is not as if there is any evidence he is responsible for the disputed policy. A susual bith biographies of living people, we need to be conservative about including anythign which is potentially actionable. Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 09:21, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

What are you talking about here, JzG? That Solares is CEO of Intercosmos and thence all of its DBAs is a matter of record. That it is a major cybersquatter and trademark poacher is indisputable based on the hundreds of WIPO cases. As long as we stick to that information and avoid all the weirder accusations we're on absolutely safe ground, and in fact are being responsible. Please present your explanation for why we should not include this basic and accurate information. graball

[edit] How about keeping it balanced?

I note that someone has gone back to deleting all of the information about Solares cybersquatting after I thought we had reached a fair and stable version about a month ago. Could we please stop this back and forth. The revision which features information on his business as well as a brief and documented section on his cybersquatting is more than fair and balanced. Let's not post any more all-attack versions or crazy conspiracy versions and let's not post the sanitized version anymore. Doesn't that seem reasonable?

And Mike, there aren't TWO cases of WIPO violations, there are well over 300 of them. Go to http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/search/ and use the 'full text' search for Intercosmos to bring up a relatively full listing of cases - 182 at last count, of which most are trademark cases. Trademark infringement is still a pretty significant ethical issue. Then do searches for NOLDC, Kenyatech and Kentech (a new one I found which is also Solares). That brings up a total of about 120 more cases, all of which are straight cybersquatting and many of which include multiple domain names or domain name variations. For example, check http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2005/d2005-0890.html which is a case featuring more than a dozen cybersquatted domain names. And BTW, in almost all of these cases Solares doesn't even bother to dispute the charges.

However I've asked an admin to look into this because it is a biograpgy of a living person and he could not find any factual evidence linking him, as well since it cannot be 100% proven we cant include it because we can be held liable for it. Wikipedia isnt a soap box. Mike (T C) 20:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Mike, every single accusation in the version of the article I vetted has been substantiated. One is from a published newspaper article which is cited and the other is from WIPO documents which are also cited. There's no ambiguity here. I took the previous inflamatory version of the article and deleted every accusation except for the two which are clearly and indisputably true and fully documented. There's no liability when we're dealing with truth. Yes, there are lots of crazies out there who are really pissed at Solares and are hallucinating stuff, but I'm not one of them. I was originally a supporter of his actions in New Orleans and went and researched his other activities when they were brought to my attention by some of those very angry people. Their efforts to smear him aren't acceptable, but just ignoring hundreds of documented instances of cybersquatting is a lie by omission which is almost as bad. - Dave/graball

JzG: What discussion is actually going on here that we need to wait on? If you look up to the top of this discussion criteria are clearly laid out for what are legitimate facts to post with no risk of liability. The latest version of the post which YOU just replaced yet again, clearly meets those criteria. If the rules have changed, let me know, but if not let's leave at least some of the negative info in there. BTW, I now have information on a lawsuit against Solares for harboring spammers. Shall we add that information in too? - graball

Could you post the info on this lawsuit here? I'd be very interested in seeing it.--Drat (Talk) 07:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

You can read a deposition of the employee Solares designated to give a deposition in this case. I've had some communication with the attorney, but the details of the case are not yet public. If you wade through the whole deposition, the nature of the case becomes pretty clear. You can read it at http://www.nvo.com/ringlaw/nss-folder/intercosmosmedia/ - Dave/Graball

You can indent your messages by putting a number of colon symbols before your message. More colons, more indenting. No need for blockquotes--Drat (Talk) 06:42, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The current version is much better than what you were posting before, we will keep it as such for the time being but in the future I may have to RfC this and get the concensous of the community in order to protect our own asses. Truth or not, the WPIO isn't a legal entity, but rather a mediation committee, and their rulings are not legally binding, and do not prove or disprove anything. Even though I still have huge doubts about solares being the KenyaTech/Kentech person I won't revert these changes for now. Mike (T C) 07:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

As Drat will certainly attest, I came to this subject as a Solares defender, and I'm not even a big believer in cybersquatting as a crime - your point about WIPO being a very good one - but I think the connection to KenyaTech has been pretty definitively established, since he's named in WIPO proceedings as being associated with the company and the fact that they share an address has been established. I think a lot of those going after Solares are either crazy or too angry to think straight, but all things considered he's definitely up to no good at least as far as Cybersquatting and trademark infringement go. - graball/dave

I'll second that craziness assessment. Some of them seem to think that if someone isn't screaming "SOLARES MUST DIE!!!", then they must be in cahoots with him.--Drat (Talk) 06:42, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
See the problem is its all cirmcustantional evidence, but I don't want to push a POV and the article in its current state is much better than before. Removing the shock and awe part and sticking with comments about eh WPIO is the best way to keep this NPOV. Also you can sign your posts automatically with ~~~~.
I understand deleting circumstantial evidence, but when the evidence is that he's the CEO of a company which operates under a registered DBA which is engaged in cybersquatting there's nothing ambiguous. Removing the reference to KenyaTech as unsubstantiated is ridiculous, as is deleting the KenyaTech article itself. Is Wikipedia now only interested in printing puff-pieces, or is there at least some interest in presenting the truth? Dave
Kenyatech fails WP:WEB and WP:CORP, if you can post a referece to DBA for kenyatech then it can stay, otherwise its speculation. Unless you want to pay the legal fees for the foundation it has to be referenced! Mike (T C) 02:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Warning

To all editors: Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert a single page more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Jossi: There's no discussion going on here as far as I can tell. The 'controversy' section contains only documented and verified information. All of the questionable stuff was removed long ago. Yet it keeps getting removed with no valid explanation and no discussion or explanation. Perhaps someone at a higher level of authority could step in and decide whether the documented WIPO cases and news reports on Solares business abuses can be included. - graball

The problem is they don't specifically label him as a cybersquatter. They name his business along with the actual cybersquatter and from that you have deduced that he is a cybersquatter. Mike (T C) 07:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Wrong, Mike. Many of the WIPO decisions identify him specifically by name, and since he is CEO of Intercosmos he certainly bears responsibility. graball

Ok then, not getting any further discussion here I take it that we're done. graball