Radaris Forfeits Its Flagship Domain After Ignoring Court Orders
Consumer data broker Radaris.com, long notorious for ignoring takedown requests from people who wanted their personal information removed, has lost control of 14 domains — including its flagship radaris.com — after a New Jersey Superior Court entered a final judgment by default against it on August 27, 2026. The ruling caps a lawsuit filed by Atlas Data Privacy Corp in February 2024 alleging Radaris violated New Jersey's Daniel's Law, a statute that lets law enforcement officers, judges, prosecutors, and their families demand removal of their home addresses and unpublished phone numbers from commercial data brokers. Rather than pay a judgment, Radaris simply lost the domains: visitors to radaris.com now see a court-ordered transfer notice instead of a people-search storefront.
Case Details
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Plaintiff | Atlas Data Privacy Corp |
| Defendants | Radaris.com and affiliated "Radaris family" of people-search sites |
| Law invoked | New Jersey's Daniel's Law (protects covered persons' home addresses and unpublished phone numbers) |
| Court | Superior Court of New Jersey, Middlesex County |
| Case filed | February 8, 2024; amended complaint expanded the defendant list in mid-2025 |
| Ruling | Final judgment by default, August 27, 2026 |
| Domains transferred | 14 domains, including radaris.com, rehold.com, and trustoria.com |
| Claims assigned to Atlas | Roughly 21,760 "covered persons" — law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and their families |
| Potential damages exposure | ~$21.76 million at $1,000 per violation |
| Alleged operators | Igor and Dmitry Lubarsky, Russian-born brothers based in Massachusetts |
| Radaris.com estimated revenue | ~$42,000/month |
| Sister site Veripages estimated revenue | ~$45,000/month, via partnerships including Lifetime Value Company (PeopleLooker, PeopleSmart) |
| Prior uncollected judgment | $7.5 million default judgment from the 2014 Huebner v. Radaris case |
What Happened
The Lawsuit: Atlas v. Radaris
Atlas Data Privacy Corp, a company that has built a litigation practice around enforcing Daniel's Law on behalf of law enforcement and judicial personnel, sued Radaris in February 2024. Atlas later amended its complaint to dramatically expand the scope of the case, asserting claims assigned to it by approximately 21,760 covered persons — police officers, prosecutors, judges, and their family members whose personal information Radaris and its affiliated sites had allegedly continued to publish and sell despite removal demands. Daniel's Law permits statutory damages of $1,000 per violation, which is how Atlas arrived at a potential $21.76 million exposure figure — an amount Atlas's team estimated at roughly 43 years of radaris.com's revenue.
Radaris' "Island-Hopping" Defense Strategy
According to Matt Adkisson, CEO of Atlas, Radaris ran the same delay playbook that had historically let it outlast plaintiffs: dragging out litigation and shifting corporate identity across jurisdictions. "We refer to this period as their island-hopping phase," Adkisson told KrebsOnSecurity. "Privacy policies changed constantly, and new entities kept appearing from places like the Marshall Islands, the British Virgin Islands, and Seychelles." Court records identified roughly ten nominal shell companies behind the operation, including Bitseller Expert Limited and Veripages. Radaris had also reportedly used a fictitious executive persona, "Gary Norden," in investor pitch materials — a pseudonym one of the company's own attorneys, Val Gurvits, previously admitted was fabricated.
An attorney working the case for Atlas noted that this attrition strategy "worked for a decade" because plaintiffs' lawyers typically gave up chasing foreign shell entities before trial — and it likely would have worked again here, since collecting a money judgment from operators based offshore is difficult. This time, Atlas pursued a different remedy: the domains themselves.
The Default Judgment and Domain Transfer
Radaris repeatedly failed to appear and defend the case, and its attorneys surfaced only near the end — arguing that Atlas had never properly served the real owners of the business. The judge found the defendants "had multiple chances to appear" and had instead stonewalled the proceedings, and entered a final judgment by default against Radaris.com, Rehold.com, and Trustoria.com on August 27, 2026. As part of that judgment, the court ordered 14 domains transferred directly to Atlas, bypassing the practical problem of collecting a cash award from offshore shell companies entirely. Radaris.com now displays a notice explaining the court-ordered transfer rather than selling personal records.
Radaris' Response
Radaris is not conceding. Attorney Victor Worms told KrebsOnSecurity the company intends to "pursue all appropriate appeals," arguing the default judgment is void because "Radaris.com" is not a legal entity capable of being sued, and that transferring a domain to a plaintiff constitutes an unconstitutional forfeiture. Whether that argument succeeds on appeal remains to be seen.
Impact Assessment
| Impact Area | Description |
|---|---|
| Consumer/officer privacy | Removes radaris.com and 13 related domains from circulation, cutting off one of the largest people-search operations still actively ignoring removal requests |
| Data broker industry precedent | Demonstrates that domain forfeiture — not just monetary judgments — is an enforceable remedy against offshore-shell data brokers that evade collection |
| People-search business model | Signals that "island-hopping" jurisdictional shell games are losing effectiveness as courts grow more willing to default judgment stonewalling defendants |
| Law enforcement/judicial safety | Reduces doxxing risk for the roughly 21,760 covered persons whose claims were assigned to Atlas, aligning with Daniel's Law's original purpose |
| Legal landscape for privacy statutes | Follows a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling on August 12, 2026 that Daniel's Law claims for actual damages require no proof of intent — strengthening enforcement, even as a First Amendment challenge to the law remains pending before the Third Circuit |
| Limits of the remedy | Daniel's Law covers only a narrow protected class; the general public cannot use this ruling to force removal from Radaris-affiliated sites and must still file opt-out requests site by site |
Recommendations
For Law Enforcement Officers, Judges, Prosecutors, and Their Families
- Confirm eligibility under Daniel's Law or an equivalent statute — at least 14 other US states have now passed similar laws modeled on New Jersey's.
- File removal requests directly with data brokers, and retain records of each request and response for potential legal action.
- Consider assigning claims to organizations like Atlas Data Privacy Corp if a broker ignores statutory removal demands; class-style assignment has proven effective at achieving large-scale enforcement outcomes.
For the General Public
- Understand that Daniel's Law does not apply to you unless you fall within its protected class — most people must still submit individual opt-out requests to Radaris-affiliated sites and other people-search services.
- Search your own name periodically across major people-search sites (Radaris, Spokeo, BeenVerified, and similar) and file removal requests where you appear.
- Use a dedicated opt-out or removal service if manually tracking dozens of broker sites is impractical, and monitor for reappearance — data brokers frequently re-list scrubbed records.
For Organizations and Security Teams
- Treat data broker exposure as an executive and personnel security risk, not just a consumer privacy nuisance — home addresses and phone numbers surfaced by people-search sites are commonly used in targeted phishing, swatting, and physical security threats against staff.
- Extend removal efforts to at-risk employees (executives, security team members, HR, and anyone with public-facing roles), not only those covered by state-specific statutes like Daniel's Law.
- Monitor legal developments around state privacy statutes, as the enforcement model demonstrated here — assigned claims plus domain forfeiture — may be replicated against other data brokers.
For Data Broker and People-Search Operators
- Litigation-by-attrition is no longer a reliable strategy. Courts are increasingly willing to enter default judgments — and order non-monetary remedies like domain transfer — against defendants who stonewall through shell entities.
- Jurisdictional shell games invite scrutiny rather than avoid it. Investigators and plaintiffs' counsel are now explicitly building cases around exposing beneficial ownership behind offshore structures.
Key Takeaways
- Radaris lost 14 domains, including its flagship radaris.com, to a New Jersey court's final default judgment on August 27, 2026.
- The case was brought by Atlas Data Privacy Corp under New Jersey's Daniel's Law, using claims assigned by roughly 21,760 covered law enforcement, prosecutorial, and judicial personnel.
- Radaris' operators — identified as Igor and Dmitry Lubarsky — allegedly ran the business through shell companies in the Marshall Islands, British Virgin Islands, and Seychelles, and used a fabricated executive persona to court investors.
- Because the operators are based offshore, Atlas pursued domain forfeiture instead of a cash judgment, sidestepping the collection problem that let Radaris survive a $7.5 million default judgment back in 2014.
- Radaris plans to appeal, arguing the judgment is void and that the domain transfer amounts to an unconstitutional forfeiture.
- The ruling has limited direct benefit for the general public — Daniel's Law only protects a narrow class — but it establishes a template other states and plaintiffs may use against data brokers that ignore removal demands.