news Mayor says town website takeover was 'extortion'

[soccertrick]

BARRIERE, B.C. — The mayor of a British Columbia town says she's appalled that a pornography website acquired the Internet domain name for the local chamber of commerce.

Virginia Smith said the chamber in Barriere believed the domain name was automatically renewed, but it had expired.

"Their website domain was expected to roll over and it didn't and by the time they discovered it, it had been captured."

The new owners of the domain name are demanding the chamber pay $9,700 before the porn site is taken down, Smith said, calling that extortion.

Read the full story here: http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canad...over-was-extortion/ar-BBodgBv?ocid=spartandhp

 

[Mahogany]

Not sure how I feel about this.

 

[johname]

What is the domain?

 

[canswift]

It's the website for the Barriere Chamber of Commerce in British Columbia. This type of story always somewhat annoys me, when it's reported breathlessly that "Our domain was hacked..". It's in the BC newspapers today with that sort of tone to the story. The website wasn't hacked, it expired. The Chamber ignored the renewal emails, and no surprise, it expired. Not hacked. Having said that, what's up on the barrierechamber dot com domain at the moment must have been something of a heart-starter for the good citizens this morning… Hope they get the name back somehow.

 

[iowadawg]

I side with the town and I would fight whomever put up the porn site all the way!
But then, that is really typical of most domainers.
Hey, they forgot to renew and I will take and I will hold this site hostage until they pay me big bucks.

 

[disaac81]

Kind off agree with the above. Domainers already have a sh** image and this type of thing does not help. How exactly are they promoting a "business model" by doing this?

Typical bad domainer, sorry to say.

 

[canswift]

One thing that makes me curious about this story (and other similar domain expiry stories) is how no-one noticed until the domain was gone?? This domain is at GoDaddy, so there would have been several weeks when the website had reverted to GD Domaincontrol name servers, and no longer functional. The emails would have been non-functioning too. How asleep at the switch do you have to be not to notice??

 

[TRY]

One thing that makes me curious about this story (and other similar domain expiry stories) is how no-one noticed until the domain was gone?? This domain is at GoDaddy, so there would have been several weeks when the website had reverted to GD Domaincontrol name servers, and no longer functional. The emails would have been non-functioning too. How asleep at the switch do you have to be not to notice??

Also what about all the renewal reminders and cancellation emails they would have been sent?

 

[Nattydomain]

Here is how I see this go down. This website was not built by the Mayor herself. She or the city hired more then likely an outside web desinger who may have as well registered the domain. More then likely as well the admin info was that of the web designer. Now this would explain why no emails were sent to the mayor herself. It is not her job to worry about the website that is what her IT staff or web people handle.

For all we know as well is the person who has the domain now yes may have porn up but who is to say that when contacted all they said was "sure our price is $9700 OBO, thank you" and the Mayor is taking this as well if we dont pay they wont remove the site.

Dont always in cases like this believe the Mayor is correct as most times then not I am sure this is rally not extortion but a high price to pay for a domain for sale...period!

 

[johname]

The reason I wanted to see the domain was to figure out if the name had some stand alone aspect to it.

Turns out it is BarriereChamber.com

Fence, barrier, gate in French followed by chamber

Person that owns it now, lives in a English/French speaking country, thats not Canada

 

[canswift]

Barriere is a small town in the interior of British Columbia (in Canada). I live in BC and the newspapers today are full of this story. Small town, nefarious doings, porn etc, what's not to like as far as the press are concerned…

The town itself uses barriere.ca as their website. The domain that expired "barrierechamber" was the website for the local Chamber of Commerce. So it's the town's local business brains who didn't notice their website and emails weren't working, for (probably) close to a month, or whatever the GD expired auction / delete cycle is.

Yes, indeed, as Johname says, the domain is now owned by someone off-shore. "Off-shore" in this case being the UK Channel Islands. Every day that goes past is going to cost the town more as the Canadian dollar slides into free-fall… I'm certainly staying tuned to see how this one works out.

 

[iowadawg]

Why should it cost the town?
You siding with the extortionist?
Again, as said above, someone did all the work and it could of been someone in a bigger city farther away.
And that person has moved on, died, whatever.
So no need to blame anyone and everyone in this town for the domain going away.
Now if the town was smart?
They would not deal with the extortionist but take their case up the chain to some very good legal beagles for the Canadian government.

 

[soccertrick]

Unfortunately, this is how this business works. If there is a domain with traffic that is dropping, people will be waiting to get it. Maybe the the person did not know that the domain was used for a township and just took it as " barrier chamber". Then once they had the domain and got emails, they realized and figured they could make some money.

Deals are hard to come by... I don't think we can judge the domainer.

 

[cocaseco]

Also what about all the renewal reminders and cancellation emails they would have been sent?

Sent to an employee who had left the company. But again, negligence on the city for not fixing it, or having a "catch-all" mailbox.

 

[DaveX]

Here's how I see it. A domain name is like a piece of real estate. If you don't make the payments, you're going to lose it. Period. Might be a mistake, might be and accounting error, might be a huge oversight. Bottom line, just like a house, if you lose it, someone will buy it up immediately, and it's done.

I could care less who, what, when, where or how. Don't pay, you lose it. No mister nice guy, you don't pay, you lose it.

As to the domain name, I don't think it's worth much to anyone but the Chamber. I wouldn't have bought it just because I don't like the name. But if I did like the name, and saw it drop, I would have grabbed it too.

Shame on the person or persons that let that happen to begin with. Just shows that domains are no different than anything else....You no pay, you no have domain.

 

[bobbarato]

Extortion. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

So legal people, is this really extortion? And FWIW, the dropped domain 'just' redirects to the porno site (um, nice horsey) so it could be worse.

This incident also reminds me to feel sorry for any poor schlubs who pay those fake domain renewal invoices.
Some don't pay, get shafted. Some pay, still get shafted.

So this incident has put me in a generous mood and I'm putting this "gem" domain up for sale at a deep discount for the next 24 hrs - just $123 and it's a super brandable Chinese phrase too!

yourpictureisusedforgullibleinthedictionary . com <= RARE!

I'll predick that the porno site will eventually just give the domain back to the "Chamber" - they've gotten more than a reg fee worth of traffic and attention, that town too. Win Win?

 

[DaveX]

Domain Names are:

A. Registered and not available
B. Available for registration

There is no C.

Certainly, I am very aware that us domain name investors are constantly looking for opportunities, and each domain investor lives by their own set of ethics, right or wrong. Nobody likes a slumlord in real estate, or real estate investors that take advantage of the law and bring pain to helpless people in financial despair.

I think the buyer of the domain name will have to decide the future of the domain as he or she is now the rightful owner. I feel for the loss of the domain, but there is little excuse for letting the domain fall into category B.

 

[BostonDomainer]

I don't want to say this was common practice back in the days but it certainly happened a lot more. Domainers have grown up quite a bit but there are still bad apples in this game making the hard working, ethical, strategy driven domainers look bad. What this person is doing may not be wrong by measure of the law; he saw an opportunity and he grabbed it. But it doesn't mean it's not in poor taste. Get paid or get screwed :D (pun intended)

 

[DU]

I'm sure most people would go to the .ca now anyway so it's not a huge big deal.

The porn site would be brought down because it may have resulted in unwanted trouble without all the filed paperwork required for porn based on the registrants locale. Plus the whole children accessibility issues etc.

The name has legitimate business value though to a tourism company or other outfit other than the Chamber so it's a bit of an awkward one (except the porn/extortion angle is a bit much)

 

[DaveX]

All domainers buy domains that they perceive have current or future value...to someone else.