An article again posted online this morning covers how Weymouth Group who owned the domain name WeymouthCitizens.org for their official website lost out to the Dot Com domain WeymouthCitizens.com when it was acquired by a third party and used against them for a short period of time. Unfortunately small business and marketing companies still don’t get the power of owning a Dot Com domain name especially when its available for hand registration. WeymouthCitizens.org was registered on 17th of May and then the Dot Com wasn’t registered until 21st of May… It just baffles me that in this day in age when a Dot Com is available for hand registration you would choose another TLD…
Here is the full story below.
A resident who supports a $6.5 million operational override of Proposition 2 1/2 ballot measure struck a “low blow” when he bought an Internet address to redirect web traffic away from Weymouth Citizens, a group that opposes the ballot measure, according to co-chairs Paul Crespi and Anne Hilbert.
Crespi said Weymouth Citizens web address is weymouthcitizens.org, and said a resident bought the online domain WeymouthCitizens.com, which redirected online users to Vote Yes for Weymouth’s website, a site that supports the operational override.
The website now directs users to the webpage for Weymouth on Wikipedia.org.
“Weymouth Citizens.com was redirecting people to Vote Yes for Weymouth and that does not reflect well on them,” Crespi said.
The $6.5 million operational override is to be voted on by residents Aug. 4.
Voter approval of the operational override would require a homeowner with a property valued at $302,000 to pay an additional $284 per year in taxes.
Approval of the override would boost the school department budget $3 million annually.
The spending plans for the police, fire department, and department of public works would each receive an annual $1 million boost to their spending plans if voters approve the override.
Crespi said the WeymouthCitizens.com website directed internet users to Vote Yes for Weymouth’s website for about a week-and-a-half before it was redirected to the town’s website http://www.weymouth.ma.us/home/pages/proposition-2-12-override-information.
“They must have changed it,” Crespi said.
Kate McCulley, co-chair of Vote Yes for Weymouth, said the group had nothing to do with an attempt to direct web users to Vote Yes for Weymouth by using a web domain similar to an existing one.
“I do know that was something that was not condoned by our committee,” McCulley said. “I don’t know that man personally. He did that on his own. He got his own domain name.”
McCulley said Vote Yes for Weymouth staff are equally upset as Weymouth Citizens about the man’s attempt to direct web traffic to Vote Yes for Weymouth’s web site.
“It makes us look bad,” McCulley said.
McCulley said Vote Yes for Weymouth tried to find out who owned the web address WeymouthCitizens.com.
“He has since taken it (WeymouthCitizens.com) down, but it reroutes you to the town’s website,” McCulley said.
McCulley said the author of WeymouthCitizens.com did not help Vote Yes for Weymouth’s quest to persuade voters to approve the $6.5 million operational override.
“It did us more harm than good,” McCulley said.
Mayor Susan Kay said she was not aware computer technology could be used to create a web address to siphon Internet users away from a website.
“Our website is all business,” Kay said.
Kay also said the town website explains the operational override from a factual perspective and does not advocate voters to approve the measure.