LooseSuits

While reading your blog I found myself angry at the thought of a hacker holding your domain for ransom.

It might be coincidence, but I was just reading a post by Christian Montoya on preventing exactly this kind of hacking. Hope that helps.

I wish you the best in bringing that sucka down. On your side, David, and rooting for you.

Thanks for the link - that's just the thing indeed.

I appreciate you being on my site, and here's hoping I do bring the hacker down.

So sorry to hear about this insane fiasco, David. Can't offer any advice but thank you for the heads up and (like people have commented on your post) it seems as though your horrible experience isn't in vain.

Glad you aren't paying the ransom. Have you contacted Google? I would think for a court case having confirmation from them that your account was hacked would carry more weight.

To me you have a bigger problem: you will end up competing in the search engine for your own name. Looking at your domain now they are using it for keyword searches. Right now your name comes up pretty high for the search "logo designer" but unfortunately, it is the wrong domain. That is one of the drawbacks of using your name as the main domain. In the event something happens you don't have much of a parachute.

It would be nice if Google could take action. If you actually cannot get the domain back Google could bury it so it would not come up in a search result or better yet forward any queries from your old one to the new one. Of course that would only fix one search engine but it would help.

Or you could take this time and see if it is worth getting it back. Google updates pretty fast, people wrote about your situation and it might be the time to re-brand or re-think things so this situation does not happen again. The solutions you are talking about would take months to pursue and resolve. Theoretically, by the time you finished the legal process you could have done something else or worked on getting the domain back while finding another solution in the meantime. Just things to think about when considering all the options. :)

estarla,

I'm glad others have found use in my article, and appreciate your comment.

Tyme,

I've sent a message to Google via one of their support groups, but perhaps another avenue would be worth pursuing?

You make a good point about competing against my own name, and I've been planning a logo design-specific website for a while now. This is an ideal opportunity to get it up and running, using a new domain name and starting afresh. I've learnt a lot over the past year, and I can put that to use from the beginning of a project, rather than learning as I go along.

DavidAirey.com was my first ever blog, so it's about time I tried a new one.

Thanks for leaving your thoughts, which as far as I remember I always tend to agree with.

David, I've had issues with gmail as well, and I searched high and low until I found a phone number for Google and called their main office in California. I never did get to talk to anyone pertinent (the guy did take down my story and my contact info, but wouldn't give me his name, which just smacks of crappy customer service), BUT maybe it helped get things resolved a tiny bit faster in my case. That's just guessing on my part, of course; Google could have decided that since the whole thing turned into credit card fraud, they needed to hop on it. I too wish you the best of luck with this situation, and do keep us all updated!

You're welcome. :)

I would be remiss if I did not mention this. Remember, you do not know what the hacker is going to do with your domain and you are unsure if you will be able to get it back. While you are planning consider the worst case scenarios so you can mitigate as those before they happen.

For example, if the hacker decides to make the site a porn site.

I did a check and the domain does not expire until 2009. This is where some strategic planning comes into play. For example, if you devalue your name in search engines the domain means less and he might let it expire (if you are unable to get it back). Using GoDaddy's service you could grab the domain once it came out of redemption if the hacker doesn't renew it. However, there is the risk in that it might irritate the hacker and prompt the person into turning it into something that makes more money (porn site) but how much would it affect you if you are devaluing your name in the search engines anyway so you aren't competing with it? That type of thing.

I'm glad you shared your experience. People tend to think this type of thing would not happen to them but it could. I strongly advise against announcing a vacation on a blog, not only to secure the blog but the writer's residence. Some insurance companies will not pay if a blogger announced they were leaving.

@dreamweaver - I stopped using Gmail as a primary email address and wow, is it a PIA to switch things over. My friend had a problem accessing her email and it took weeks to fix the issue. It's one of the reasons why I work hard to attempt to provide some decent custom service on 9rules. A service is always great when there are no problems. When someone bumps into a problem and is unable to get it fixed in a reasonable amount of time it doesn't matter that they had years of flawless service, that bad experience leaves its mark.