86'd from PayPal AND Amazon just for owning a Domain Name

[andriegel]

Hi,

I got 86'd from Paypal just for owning Earthliberationfront.com

Two days later, I got the same from Amazon. (Funny thing, they still sell their ELF book under Google Adwords when you search under Earth liberation front.)

I simply bought the domain for the traffic- it gets around 750 uniques a day.

I can live without both, but no Paypal is a hassle. I never even ran any transactions with Paypal from the site.

Andrew
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[JMJ]

Probably best to park it at a general parking page. Where people go from there is their own business. Anything you do with this domain that relates to the subject is going to cause you trouble.

 

[dgridley]

If it were mine, I'd turn it into a faux UFO site quick!

 

[-db-]

Andrew, I'm curious...

- Did you catch the name when it was dropping? Or purchase from another domain seller?

- Has anybody from the organization contacted you to ask about getting the name back?

 

[JMJ]

ELF is an underground organization so far underground that the members don't even know other members so noone who considers themselves one would dare purchase the domain. Actually from what I understand about it is it's not really even an "organization" but if you have the same beliefs and you want to burn down a house in a new development or spraypaint a SUV at a dealership you can call yourself a member. I would assume in most cases it's used by someone who doesn't care to much about the new subdivision going in down the street or something along those lines and they go burn it down and spraypaint ELF somewhere to give the perception there was an actual reason other than ignorance.

 

[andriegel]

Andrew, I'm curious...

- Did you catch the name when it was dropping? Or purchase from another domain seller?

- Has anybody from the organization contacted you to ask about getting the name back?

I got the .com from Pool; when I won that, I hand reg'd the .org, .info, and .us. The .org gets around 75-100 uniques a day.

No one has contacted me from the group saying they want it.

Andrew

 

[painperdu]

Wow! This brings back my experience with Godaddy as I stiil have no reason from them why they refuse to accept my checks after 2 years of using the same account with them.

These corporations hold power over us unequaled in history. They can in effect tell us what and what not to buy. They operate as governances yet don't have to answer to a constituency.

This sort of stuff will only get worse untill a critcal mass of people grow tired of it. Then what?

 

[-db-]

ELF is an underground organization so far underground that the members don't even know other members so noone who considers themselves one would dare purchase the domain.

Hmmm. Interesting....

A secret society, so secret that even fellow members are anonymous to each other.

Sounds like a Hollywood movie.

 

[JMJ]

Ebay which owns Paypal has stated publicly they would willingly give the government any information on any client they wish at any time. It doesn't at all surprise me that if whomever is contacting the advertisers and what not are checking into other aspects of your online business, real world business, and personal life aswell. If said party was to contact Paypal regarding your business transactions it's probably not going to be very long thereafter that you have no Paypal account.

 

[dgridley]

The same Frat guys who were on Double Super-Secret Suspension while at Faber College, I'll bet...

A secret society, so secret that even fellow members are anonymous to each other.

 

[RogueWriter]

Maybe you need to start contacting news organisations about being persecuted.... maybe exposure of the facts on a news channel would force PayPal to reconsider, given your previous reputation. Even if it didn't force them to reverse their stance, if a news program picked it up, you migth get several nice inbound links and traffic binges.........

Also, you might take a look at www.tshirthell.com , I don't think they give a rats hiney about what other people think. Maybe they have some humorous related t-shirts that would sell.

 

[Ben42]

At some point you have to ask youself if that investment is worth the benefits.

It seems everything the domain has cost you: time spent fighting, loss of peace of mind, loss of accounts. It's not really worth it...even for 10,000 uniques a day.

I would break all connections to that domain and try to rebuild.

 

[andriegel]

Maybe you need to start contacting news organisations about being persecuted.... maybe exposure of the facts on a news channel would force PayPal to reconsider, given your previous reputation. Even if it didn't force them to reverse their stance, if a news program picked it up, you migth get several nice inbound links and traffic binges.........

Also, you might take a look at www.tshirthell.com , I don't think they give a rats hiney about what other people think. Maybe they have some humorous related t-shirts that would sell.

Thanks for the tip on the affiliate.
As far as rabble-rousing, (sp?) I am not going to try to fight the machine at this point. I'm here to make money first, The political idealism will have to come second. For my own ethics, I don't want to deal with heavy-handed companies anyway. Thankfully, there is some tier-one competition for these guys. The advice of "cutting your losses and move forward" is sound- to draft the letter and the phone calls have cost me precious development time.
It was unerving to communicate with the men in black, but I have no fear as I have nothing to hide.

 

[RJ]

It's very likely that the FBI or CIA has you in their sights and suspects you to be a member of ELF. Consider this,

Your domain is the #1 site that returns for a "earth liberation front" search at Google.

It's notable that the same domain was used by ELF in the past to publicaly gloat about their eccoterrost accomplishments. Archive.org shows a site that encouraged these activities and proudly displayed pictures of burning buildings, etc. A ELF press release from 2002 states that they will "remain steadfastly committed to disseminating information as it becomes available, and updating the Earth Liberation Front website (http://www.earthliberationfront.com)"

Now consider the first two lines on your website: "The ELF is an underground movement with no leadership, membership or official spokesperson. The intention of this web site is to inform and chronicle issues related to E.L.F."

Even though you followed that up with a disclaimer stating that the webmaster should not be considered a spokesman/member for ELF, it did not explicitly say that you were not a member or say anything that condemed terrorism or ELF activities. On the contrary, the site contained information about ELF, news about ELF, links to other enviromentalist groups, and links to activist books. I'm not putting down your content at all, just pointing out that it would be very easy for a visitor, or the authorities, to assume the person behind creating the site is a suporter or in affiliation with ELF.

Have you received any contact from the government at all? In a way, it would be eerier if you haven't, since its far more effective to monitor someone who doesn't know they're being watched.

 

[andriegel]

Thanks for your comments, RJ:

I do not feel defensive, but want to respond to a couple of points:

I have attached the disclaimer that I used in the first paragraph of every page on the site. The links to other organizations were always Tier-one types such as greenpeace, sierra club, etc. I was also very careful to make sure that there was never ANY inflamatory "vibes".

I agree with you that people easily misunderstand because of emotion. Before I built the site, I went looking around at others such as http://terrorism.com/ to try to insure that it was a journalistic approach.

Lastly, this is technically attempting to make a buck from a bad thing, I will admit that. Would you rather have me doing that, or have the chance that the .com, .org, .ifo, .us would get in the hands of the bad guys to spew hate and violence? Lastly, is this any different from eBays and Amazon's Osama Bin Laden offerings? (Amazon also sells lots of eco-terror books)Amazon's Bin Laden offerings
eBay's Bin Laden Offerings

Very best regards,

Andrew

 

[IAmAllanShore]

Your amazon link is broken, it's a call function that would need the post data to work Maybe just link to an individual item to demonstrate your point.

Good responses, I must say, to RJ's excellent post. One suggestion I might make, taking from what I think RJ's vibe might be (purely speculation), but what if you took the position of the site and placed it even further against ELF in general. Less of an "objective" site (As terrorism.com isn't the name of a specific org) and more of a "sucks" site. Keep the name the same, but use it more as an opportunity to highlite the moronic things they do. This does raise even more issues, I must admit, as it gives them publicity... but right now when I visit the cached site (And just got a few other folks' opinions as well), the disclaimer seems more like "lip service" to cover your proverbial @$$ if you know what I mean
Just throwing some floaters out there and seeing if anything sticks.
-Allan

 

[Ben42]

Still I would get out if I were you. If your paypal account is frozen how long till you pop your ATM card in the machine and find out your Bank Accounts are frozen???

I'm sure many banks have the same sort of TOS that paypal has, if not more strict.

I dunno, if you play with snakes eventually your going to get bit.

 

[JMJ]

There's no middle of the road here. If you leave the site like it is you'll always have big brother watching. If you make it a "sucks" site and you might want to fireproof your house and get you a electric car first...lol Best bet is no site at all and a general search page..

 

[andriegel]

Good responses, I must say, to RJ's excellent post. One suggestion I might make, taking from what I think RJ's vibe might be (purely speculation), but what if you took the position of the site and placed it even further against ELF in general. Less of an "objective" site (As terrorism.com isn't the name of a specific org) and more of a "sucks" site. Keep the name the same, but use it more as an opportunity to highlite the moronic things they do. This does raise even more issues, I must admit, as it gives them publicity... but right now when I visit the cached site (And just got a few other folks' opinions as well), the disclaimer seems more like "lip service" to cover your proverbial @$$ if you know what I mean
Just throwing some floaters out there and seeing if anything sticks.
-Allan

I thought about the "sucks' type of site (or at least "I'm not one of them" type of site)- but I didn't want to piss off either side of the equation. I have contacted some bigger agencies, both public and private about the opportunity to "retire" these domains or to put up an "educational" site, but have yet received any reponses beside a few "we'll get back to you's"

Andrew
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[RJ]

I wouldn't dare build a "-sucks" site around it. Really I didn't mean to sound like anything was wrong with your site, I was only pointing out that it would be easy for someone to assume it was connected somehow with the group.

Pointed at PPC, or at an affiliate like you have now, is probably the best option

 

[OvenMitt]

Where can I see what the site did look like?