For the domain CyanogenMod.com demanded a ransom

The CyanogenMod team (which released version 10 on Tuesday), and behind the most popular custom Android firmware, with millions of installations, turned out to be drawn into a curious story that began with the loss of the official site and, in the end, ended with a move from cyanogenmod.com to cyanogenmod.org.

According to the project’s official blog, disassembly inside the team began when it turned out that the unnamed owner of the cyanogenmod.com domain (the domain was purchased in 2009 and was “donated” to then not very popular firmware) began to introduce himself as the head of CyanogenMod and tried to make money on referral projects with other sites. The team tried to stop this clandestine activity and asked to rewrite the domain to itself, but then the owner requested $ 10,000 for it ...

The team naturally does not have that kind of money, and they refused to pay for such brazen extortion, after which the person simply drowned out the domain. In addition, access to the Google Apps for Business account was lost. Steve Condik himself (Cyanogen) initiated a trial at ICANN to return the domain, and the team began moving to CyanogenMod.org.

Condic later announced on Twitter that the domain was returned to the team, however, cyanogenmod.org will remain the main one and cyanogenmod.com will now simply redirect visitors to it. And the CyanogenMod team is forced to do restructuring to prevent a recurrence of such an incident.