I think the closest analogy we have is that someone purchased a house at 1 Lian Street, and is receiving mail sent to them that the sender had meant for 11 Ian Street.
Aside from the intent of the purchase, there's really nothing wrong with that. The mail was sent to them, after all, and without the intent it could easily just be an accident.
If nobody lived at 65 you'd get "return to sender" or similar. The point is receiving mail is a passive act, interception is not.
Regardless of the researchers' intentions, somebody has a responsibility to address their mail correctly. I get enough email from my namesakes to (first).(last)@gmail.com to know it's not the recipient's responsibility.
Yes it is. You can intercept something for good or for ill, there's no connotation there, but it does imply some degree of intent to capture something.
These researchers fully intended and expected to capture some e-mails. They didn't want to steal them, they weren't doing anything wrong, they just wanted to see how many e-mails they'd get and write a paper. I'd say intercepting the e-mails is at least a better description than theft.
Because the researchers were registering domains contain trademarks or derivatives of the trademarks for the specific purpose of intercepting email, this would qualify as IP infringement. I think it would be pretty easy for any of these companies to win a civil court case. Of course, its not these researchers that they should be worried about.
