Bindi Irwin website squatter

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

An unauthorised Bindi Irwin website linked to anti-Israel material and the names of Federal Government ministers has been condemned by her late father's friend and manager John Stainton.

"It should be stopped - I don't know how that's allowed, I don't know how a little eight-year-old girl's name can be linked to anti-Israel propaganda," Mr Stainton said today.

Bindiirwin.com, set up by a Queensland man just hours after Steve Irwin's death on September 4, appeared to be a tribute site to the Crocodile Hunter's eight-year-old daughter.

However, a string of politically charged domain names - including fuckisrael.org, philipruddock.com and amandavanstone.com - automatically redirected web surfers to the Bindi Irwin site.

All the domains were registered to "Wayne Smith" of Brisbane, who also owns the terriirwin.org and bindisueirwin.com names.

After the Bindi site was reported on smh.com.au this morning, all links were temporarily  redirected to a Yahoo chat room, the "Unofficial Bindi Irwin Yahoo Group!".

In a post on bindiirwin.com, Smith says he is not a "cybersquatter" - a person who registers website addresses in the names of famous people or corporations with the aim of selling them for a profit.

Instead, he says he is protecting the Irwin name by keeping the addresses from profiteers and he will transfer ownership of the domain names to Irwin's widow, Terri Irwin, for free.

"I've been advised by several people that I can make serious money from this domain and that I even have a convincing case in court to retain it," Mr Smith said.

"I won't be doing that. Taking an eight-year-old to court over a domain name that I only payed $6.95 for is simply not my style. It's only drawing interest because of her fame anyway ... The main reason I purchased it was to keep it out of the hands of advertising agencies."

...

Mr Stainton said Australia Zoo had received an email from Mr Smith on September 11 offering to transfer ownership of the Irwin domain names.

He also said a Wayne Smith had worked as a volunteer at the zoo for two weeks in 2001.

...

On other websites, such as Wikipedia and several science and space-based sites, user names linked to a Wayne Smith have been banned for cyber-vandalism and inappropriate comments.

smh.com.au tried to contact Mr Smith on the phone number he used to register the domain names but the call went through to an unrelated business.

Comment has been sought from Mr Smith via email, but he is yet to reply.

Mr Smith describes himself as a 35-year-old Queensland security professional/science writer on his online Yahoo profile.

He says his favourite hobbies are "reading, writing, inventing exercise machines, scuba diving, sci-fi movies, nuclear rocketry, space exploration, camping. Founded the Pro-Nuclear Space Movement".

The CEO of the body that regulates Australian-based domain names, auDA, said it was "outrageous" that someone other than Bindi Irwin herself, or her family would claim rights to her name on the internet.

However, because bindiirwin.com is a dot com address, as opposed to a dot com.au address, Australian authorities are unable to shut it down.

"I'm happy to say that I think it's outrageous. It's a real shame that there is no process in place in dot com that enables people to simply and easily recover what is effectively their own property," Chris Disspain said.

If it were a dot com.au site, Mr Disspain said auDA would be able to deregister the domain name.

"I would immediately investigate it and we'd ask for an explanation. Assuming that there was no satisfactory explanation, we'd take it down," he said.

Such a scenario occurred earlier this year when a cybersquatter set up the domain names toddrussell.com.au and brantwebb.com.au - the names of the two men who were trapped in the Beaconsfield goldmine.

Mr Disspain said cybersquatters usually tried to sell their domain names for a profit - sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars.

Joshua Smith, director of Gold Coast online marketing company iOnline, said Mr Smith had bought domain names related to celebrities, scientists, politicians and competing websites.

"[He] is benefiting from 'type-in' traffic and high search engine rankings by creating keyword-rich title tags and meta data in connection with these domains and by creating misleading inbound links to these sites on Wikipedia and elsewhere," he said.

"Since all of the domains redirect to a single Bindi Irwin fansite, his actions are misleading to the casual web surfer and to those who stumble across his links in search engines or Wikipedia."

Read more here.

Comments

[Wayne Smith]

Apparently the "cybersquatter" is back to his old tricks.

http://www.lawrencespringborg.com
http://www.amandavanstone.com
http://www.georgebrandis.com
http://www.markvaile.com
http://www.philipruddock.com

I don't think I'll ever believe another newspaper article as long as I live.

[Wayne Smith]

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20551434-3102,00.html

http://www.amandavanstone.com

I just got a phone call from Mr Epstein. He confirmed that the reporter had twisted everything around and basically hyped up a story about nothing. He also invited me to lunch. I'm now awaiting details on where to transfer those domains to.