P2p.com Stolen And Sold To NBA Player

A Union County, New Jersey man is accused of stealing a company's Internet domain name and selling it to an NBA player on eBay for $111,211.

Daniel Goncalves, 25, is facing theft and falsifying records charges.

Prosecutors say Goncalves hacked into a GoDaddy.com account of P2p.com, stole their domain name, and sold it to the unsuspecting NBA player on eBay.

There is a large community of individuals who frequently refer to themselves as "domainers" who buy and sell domain names they speculate will become more valuable over time. Two and three letter domain names are particularly valuable as they are easy to remember and generate larger amounts of traffic, which produces revenue.

Because of its short length and connection to the exploding Peer to Peer file sharing, the domain name P2P.com was particularly valuable, with an estimated value of between $160,000 and $200,000 at the time of its theft.

Prosecutors claim that in May 2006, Goncalves illegally accessed the GoDaddy account belonging to P2P.com and initiated a transfer of the domain name to his personal GoDaddy account.

They say he then moved the domain name to a different registrar and listed the name for sale on eBay.

Prosecutors say NBA player Mark Madsen was unaware that the domain name was stolen and purchased it. 

Goncalves is free on $60,000 cash bail.

The future of the P2p.com domain name is still tied up in civil court.