Legality of domain name "hijacking" with Firefox add-on?

[moonman239]

Let's say I create an add-on that directs a user that types in a domain name to a different Website. Companies who want to snag a domain name that a reseller has bought and wants to charge a higher price for the domain name can ask me to add that domain name and the domain name of their company Web site to the database that the add-on checks. To be fair to non-resellers, I or a designatead team of employees will check to see if that domain name has not been acquired by a non-reseller before adding it to the database and the domain name will be removed when we are aware it has. We will also check to ensure the domain name is not trademarked or copyrighted for reasons unrelated to the selling of the domain name.

[penagate]

Not sure about the legality, but it's certainly unethical and I suspect most would consider the addon malware. It's on about the same level as 'phishing'.

[moonman239]

Not sure about the legality, but it's certainly unethical and I suspect most would consider the addon malware. It's on about the same level as 'phishing'.

It'd get rid of those annoying resellers who snag domain names just to sell them off again.

[penagate]

No excuse to deceive people. No one would install it.

[SambaNeko]

Yeah... sounds terrible (and unethical, per penagate). Can't see anyone willingly installing this ("you type in a domain, but we'll decide where it takes you"), and can't see it being successfully pitched to people who'd want to use the service ("only users who have the add-on installed will actually get to your site successfully").

[KiwiDexter]

Yeah... sounds terrible (and unethical, per penagate). Can't see anyone willingly installing this ("you type in a domain, but we'll decide where it takes you"), and can't see it being successfully pitched to people who'd want to use the service ("only users who have the add-on installed will actually get to your site successfully").

SOunds like something the Oz Fed Government would come up with in one of their more lunatic periods of IT decision making.

Can see some court action from a company that buys a domain name and suddenly finds potential visitors are being redirected.

[Nightwalker83]

SOunds like something the Oz Fed Government would come up with in one of their more lunatic periods of IT decision making.

Can see some court action from a company that buys a domain name and suddenly finds potential visitors are being redirected.

I would have thought it was a US thing.