Stephen M. Cohen
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
who gained notoriety after acquiring control of the domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
Sex.com
Sex.com
Sex.com is an Internet domain name and web portal currently owned by Clover Holdings LTD. The domain name was the focus of one of the most publicized legal actions about ownership of domain names...
in 1995. He was later implicated in involvement in running the controversial peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
service EarthStation 5
EarthStation 5
Earth Station 5 was a peer-to-peer network active between 2003 and 2005, operated by a company of the same name. The user client application also shared this name. Earth Station 5 was notable for its strong, if overstated, emphasis on user anonymity, and for its bold advocacy of piracy and...
.
Cohen was born in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and attended Van Nuys High School
Van Nuys High School
Van Nuys High School established in 1914, is a high school in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles, California, belonging to the Los Angeles Unified School District: District 2...
in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles.
In the 1980s, he operated a paid-membership bulletin board system
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
(BBS) called the French Connection, geared toward swinging
Swinging
Swinging or partner swapping is a non-monogamous behavior, in which both partners in a committed relationship agree, as a couple, for both partners to engage in sexual activities with other couples as a recreational or social activity...
and other sexual topics, and by the late 1980s, he organized swinger get-togethers at a home in Orange County, California
Orange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
. In 1990, he was arrested for operating a sex club in a residential zone of which he was found not guilty by a jury verdict.
Sex.com
According to court documents, Cohen fraudulently obtained the lucrative InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
Sex.com
Sex.com
Sex.com is an Internet domain name and web portal currently owned by Clover Holdings LTD. The domain name was the focus of one of the most publicized legal actions about ownership of domain names...
in May 1995 from the original registrant, Gary Kremen
Gary Kremen
Gary Alan Kremen is an entrepreneur who founded personals site match.com, and registered several premiere domain names in the early days of the internet, including sex.com, jobs.com, , and autos.com...
, who had registered it in May 1994. Cohen obtained the domain by means of a forged letter to domain registrar Network Solutions
Network Solutions
Network Solutions, LLC is a technology company founded in 1979. The domain name registration business has become the most important division of the company. As of January 2009, Network Solutions managed more than 6.6 million domain names.-History:...
, faxed from Kremen's company "Online Classified", fraudulently stating that Kremen had been dismissed and the firm was abandoning the domain and that Cohen could have it. Network Solutions blindly accepted the fax with no verification and transferred the domain to Cohen, an action that would prove grounds for a later civil suit by Kremen against Network Solutions. It is estimated that Cohen illegally earned US$100 million between October 1995 and November 2000 from his ownership of sex.com.
In April 2001, the court ordered damages
Damages
In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...
of $65 million be paid to Kremen. Cohen in 2010 left the United States and was living in Tijuana, Mexico where he was arrested on October 28, 2005. As of 2011 the amount of damages owed to Kremen had increased to $82 million with interest and Cohen to this date, has refused to pay one penny towards the judgment.
Cohen was held in a civil contempt for failure to disclose his assets. He was released from custody on December 5, 2006, by Judge Ware
James Ware (judge)
James S. Ware is the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and his chambers are in San Francisco, California.- Early life and education :...
because Kremen's lawyers had been unable to uncover Cohen's offshore bank
Offshore bank
An offshore bank is a bank located outside the country of residence of the depositor, typically in a low tax jurisdiction that provides financial and legal advantages. These advantages typically include:...
accounts.http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/09/stephen_cohen_released/
External links
- (BOY) Boyle, Matthew. December 8, 2005, 4:33 PM EST. "Sex.com, drugs and a rocky road: Tracking down the millions owed after the theft of a tangled web domain". CNNMoney.com. /Fortune/News/Technology. http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/08/technology/sexcom_fortune_121205/.
- (DIN) Dineen, J. K. Updated Nov. 4, 2005, 1:10 p.m. ET. "Sex.com thief faces justice after hiding out in Mexico for four years". Court TV News. http://www.courttv.com/news/2005/1103/cohen_ctv.html.
- (GLA) Glasner, Joanna. August 14, 2002, 2:00 AM. "Sex.com Takes Aim at Registrar". Wired. /Tech Biz/Media. http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2002/08/54514.
- (SWA) Swartz, Jon. Posted March 31, 2005, 8:33 PM. Updated 1 April 2005, 8:21 AM. "Appeals court upholds Sex.com ruling". USA Today. /Money. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2005-03-31-sexcom_x.htm.
- (VIO) Violet Blue. December 21, 2006. "Sex.com: A URL -- All Crime And No Sex". SFGate.com. /Open Source (Column). http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2006/12/21/violetblue.DTL.