The chance is faint, but Informedia founder Alan Isabelle could come back and demand that the domain names that MelbourneIT releases to Realtors still belong to him. Never mind that he registered agents' domain names to his company without their knowledge.

Sources say Isabelle is hiding underground, but that doesn't mean he won't resurface to file lawsuits to get back what he took from agents.

Domain names are property, and are already viewed by the courts as such. If a person has registered a domain and listed himself as the owner, then he owns the domain name. It's for a court to decide whether or not that person had the rights to the domain; the catch-22 is that the registration of the rights establishes ownership.

Consider the lawsuit filed by Gary Kremen, who registered the domain name Sex.com in 1994. Network Solutions, then owned by VeriSign, transferred ownership to Stephen Cohen who made millions with the dot-com. Cohen persuaded Network Solutions to transfer the domain name to him and failed to notify Kremen of the contest for the domain name. Kremen sued both Network Solutions and Cohen, who transferred his assets overseas and fled the country. A lower court ruled against Kremen with the decision that domain names weren't real property. The U.S. Appeals Court disagreed and ruled against Network Solutions saying it should be held responsible for giving the domain name to another party.

This court case raises some interesting questions for the real estate agents who were cheated out of their domain names by Alan Isabelle, who registered their domain names to his company instead of to the rightful owners.

"That is for a court of law to decide," says Matt Fondel, who is currently engaged in a lawsuit against Verio.

"I currently have a RICO lawsuit in Federal Court in New York City over the nature of the Verio/Melbourne IT relationship in relationship to domain name registrations. I have also alerted ICANN officials to Melbourne IT's attempts to convince the public that Verio has the power and authority of an ICANN accredited registrar," he says.

"Verio is NOT an ICANN accredited registrar and has no authority to seize domain names, however, it is trying to convince the public that it has all of the power and authority of an accredited registrar because it invested money in Melbourne IT," continues Fondel. "In the US, Melbourne IT is nothing more than a front for Verio as Verio has total control over Melbourne IT's domain registration network and appears to be acting at Melbourne IT's lawyer and adviser in the US.

"My RICO lawsuit in Federal Courts seeks to prevent Verio trying to represent itself to the public as a registrar with the power to seize domain names. I note that in your first article you stated that Verio refused to release domain names registered with Melbourne IT by Informedia because Informedia had not paid VERIO. It is my argument in my lawsuit that Verio has no legal authority to do what it did and my lawsuit is on behalf of all of the public that has been adversely affected by the Verio/Melbourne IT relationship," he says.

Based my contacts with Melbourne IT and Verio since December 2003, it appears to me that Verio is acting as Melbourne IT's lawyer and adviser and that the "disclaimers" you refer to in your article may be intended to protect VERIO from lawsuits rather than Melbourne IT. Melbourne IT is located in Australia whereas Verio may be sued in the US.," he says.

While Fondel says he doesn't have a stake in whether agents get their domain names back or not, they should know that Melbourne IT "isn't helping" by giving them their domain names when the rightful owner, Isabelle, could pop back up and sue them.

"Only a judge can decide who is the legal owner," he says. "Anytime a company dissolves there is a successor, someone who will take over the assets of that company. That person now owns the domain names."