Register.com argues it can't be sued for negligence
We were negligent. But it wasn't gross
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US domain registrar Register.com has told a federal judge it can't be sued for a DNS records switch that wreaked havoc on Baidu because the ham-fisted blunder didn't amount to "gross negligence".
The January 12 attack caused people who typed valid Baidu addresses into their browsers to visit a site controlled by the Iranian Cyber Army. It succeeded because an employee of Register.com accepted an invalid confirmation code from an impostor claiming to work for Baidu, the registrar fully admits. But because the goof doesn't meet the legal standards for gross negligence, Baidu's lawsuit should be dismissed, attorneys argued in a recent court filing.
"When the hyperbole and conclusory buzzwords of the Complaint are stripped away, Baidu’s allegations entirely fail to support gross negligence," they wrote. "A customer service agent mistakenly verified a customer by failing to confirm that the correct security code was provided back by the requester. But that is not an allegation of gross negligence; at best, it is simple mistake or ordinary negligence."
Under Register.com's terms of service, customers are barred from bringing civil complaints for normal negligence, so the lawsuit should be dismissed, the attorneys wrote.
We wouldn't be surprised to learn that the lawyers are on solid legal footing. But like counsel for OJ Simpson and countless other winning parties, we wouldn't be surprised if they awoke to find they won the court case but lost an equally important public relations battle. ®
COMMENTS
Outdated imperial codes....
That were never revoked.
The code they used was "an old one but it checked out". the failure of the data protection officer to insist old codes were cancelled means that it was unlikely that the Empire would have been fully SOX compliant, (had they existed in this galaxy, at the current time, and had a stock listing in the USA).
They should have called it the moon of Enron......(see what i did there?)
That's obvious
Well of course the Register can't be sued for negligence. Within 24h of trying, the prosecuting lawyer would end up having a fatal accident involving a length of cat6, two crocodile clips and a car battery courtesy of el Bastardo.
Oh, THAT Register...
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