John Zuccarini
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John Zuccarini (born c. 1947) is an American businessman who served time in federal prison for violating the Truth in Domain Names Act. Zuccarini operated a domain name speculation business. He is reported as owning 5500 domains before his arrest.
[edit] Domain name speculation
This form of arbitrage is often hailed as the online equivalent to real estate speculation. A speculator often registers or buys a domain name that has the predicted potential to be sought after by another person or receive mistaken visits by people expecting to find a site or both. Zuccarini registered thousands of domains that were close misspellings or "typos" of popular sites such as Cartoon Network or even acquired domains identical to well known brands such as Hot Wheels. Speculators normally place a pay-per-click web page in place of the legitimate website visitors expect to find. A PPC page looks similar to a search engine page but the design additionally blankets the home page with a copious amount of links that are often related to the subject of the domain name. Under the normal model of business, the speculator profits from the money obtained from visitors clicking on these links. However, Zuccarini deviated from this business convention by redirecting his audience of largely children to pornographic websites.
[edit] Prosecution
Companies holding brands misrepresented by Zuccarini have taken overwhelming action against him through dozens of arbitration cases pursuant to the UDRP and state and federal lawsuits.
The Federal Trade Commission in October 2001 charged Zuccarini's business practices violated federal law and sought an injunction. A federal court granted an injunction that "permanently bars the defendant from: redirecting or obstructing consumers on the Internet in connection with the advertising, promoting, offering for sale, selling, or providing any goods or services on the Internet, the World Wide Web or any Web page or Web site; and launching the Web sites of others without their permission", and ordered Zuccarini to relinquish nearly $1.9 million in gains [1]. After this decision, Zuccarini fled the U.S. for the Bahamas.
In 2003, the Truth in Domain Names Act was passed to address concerns created by Zuccarini. The law makes it a federal crime for "whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name on the Internet with the intent to deceive a person into viewing material constituting obscenity" and "whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name on the Internet with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material that is harmful to minors on the Internet". On September 3, 2003, Zuccarini was arrested in Room 448 of a Holiday Inn in Hollywood, Florida, where he had been living for 10 months. It had been assumed that Zuccarini remained in the Bahamas. Zuccarini would become the first man prosecuted under the new legislation. On December 10, 2003, John Zuccarini pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison on February 26, 2004. He was later released on November 4, 2005 [2].
