Disclaimer

This Is a Technical Reference, Not Legal Advice

Hartzer.net is written by a domain name consultant and expert witness. It is not written by an attorney, and nothing on it is legal advice.

The distinction is real and it is worth understanding. This site records what a policy says, what a procedure involves, what a registry or registrar actually does when a particular request arrives, and what commonly goes wrong. That is technical description. Legal advice is something else entirely: the application of law to one person's specific facts, by someone licensed and accountable for getting it right, with the obligations and protections that relationship carries. A page cannot do that, and this one does not attempt to.

So where a page describes a dispute procedure, it is describing mechanics — not telling you that you have a claim, that a claim is worth bringing, or that a particular remedy is available to you. Those are legal judgments, and they belong to counsel.

No Attorney-Client or Consultant Relationship Is Created

Reading this site creates no relationship of any kind. Neither does downloading a page, citing one, sending a message through the contact form, or receiving a reply to that message.

Because no relationship exists, none of the protections that come with one exist either. Nothing you send through this site is confidential. Nothing is privileged. Nothing is protected as attorney work product. Nothing is subject to a duty of care that would make anyone responsible for a mistake you make after reading it. Please do not send confidential case material, evidence, or documents covered by a protective order through this site.

A professional relationship — consulting or expert witness — begins only with an executed written engagement, and that process is handled through Bill Hartzer's practice at hartzer.com, not through this site.

Domain Disputes Are Jurisdiction-Specific and Time-Sensitive

This is the reason the disclaimer exists rather than a formality.

The outcome of a domain name matter depends on where the registrant is, where the registrar is, which registry operates the extension, which country's law governs, and which contracts the parties are already bound by. Two matters that look identical in summary can resolve in opposite directions on those facts alone. General material published for a general audience cannot account for any of it.

Timing compounds the problem, because in this field clocks run whether or not anyone is watching them:

• Registry lifecycle windows. After a domain name is deleted it enters a Redemption Grace Period — a fixed window during which only the previous registrant may restore it — and after that window closes, restoration by right is gone.
• Transfer dispute deadlines. The ICANN policy governing transfer disputes is available only for a limited period after the transfer, and it is not revived by discovering the loss late.
• Evidence that expires. Registrar account logs, DNS history and email records are retained on the provider's schedule, not yours, and the record that proves what happened is often gone before anyone thinks to ask for it.
• Statutes of limitation. Statutory and common-law claims have filing deadlines that vary by jurisdiction and by claim.

If a domain name has been taken, is the subject of a dispute, or is at risk, engage qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdiction promptly. Do not use this site, or any general reference, as a reason to wait.

No Guarantee of Any Outcome

Nothing here predicts a result. Descriptions of how recoveries proceed, how disputes are decided or how registrars respond are descriptions of process and of patterns, not forecasts. Domains are lost that by every structural measure should have been recoverable, and disputes are decided against parties whose position looked unassailable on paper.

Where this site refers to the author's own experience — including his self-reported count of more than 500 stolen domain names recovered — that is background on the practice, not a representation about what any other matter will produce. Prior results have no bearing on a future one.

Any action you take based on material published here, you take at your own risk and on your own judgment. No liability is accepted for decisions made in reliance on this site.

Sourcing, Currency and Corrections

Content here is written against primary sources — ICANN policy documents, registry operator documentation, technical specifications and dispute provider rules — and is believed accurate when published. It is not verified continuously afterward. ICANN policy is revised, registries change their handling of grace periods and locks, dispute providers amend their rules, and courts decide cases that shift the landscape. Any of that can leave a page here correct as written and wrong in practice.

Fees and prices are deliberately omitted throughout for the same reason: a published figure goes stale in a way you cannot detect. Cost is described structurally instead. Statements attributed to the author's own experience are labeled as such, and self-reported figures are identified as self-reported.

If you find an error or something overtaken by a policy change, report it through the contact form. Corrections are the most useful message this site receives.