IP: Issue: Dead Education Dots becoming Porn sites

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 11:24:12 -0500
> To: David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
> From: "K.Ellis" <guavaberry () earthlink net>
> Subject: Issue: Dead Education Dots becoming Porn sites
>
> Dear Dave,
>
> I sent the following to:
>
> Bruce P. Mehlman <mehlman () ta doc gov>
> Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy
> US Dept of Commerce,
> 145h and Constitution Ave, NW
> Washington, DC
> 20230
>
>
> Dear Sir,
>
> My name is Karen Ellis and I am the Founder of the Educational CyberPlayGround
> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com>
>
> I am an educator and have been on the net since 1991 before there was a www.
> and started the conversation about dead education website domains becoming 
> porn sites on my mailing list called Diversity University Collaboratory.
> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/diversity.html>
>
> About me:
> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/AboutUs/aboutus.html>
>
> I would like to give you a  summary below of some of my remarks regarding 
> the topic of the responsibilities of dead education site domain name 
> owners for their dead domains that are bought and used by pornographers.
>
> --  Educators and Education Business Owners who don't realize what is 
> going on need to read a set of standards for them.
>
> -- Education Professionals should be held accountable for providing an 
> Exit Plan for their Dead Dots. "Professionals" have a responsibility, a 
> moral responsibility to the  public they serve. They are obliged to 
> protect the citizenry, as well as other standards of conduct. I feel being 
> a Good Netizen is part of an Education "Professional's"  responsibility if 
> they own a domain name and website.
>
> --  ALL DOMAIN NAME OWNERS ARE IN BUSINESS
>
> --  Educators who are referred to as  "PROFESSIONALS' and who have "BOUGHT 
> A DOMAIN NAME" have "GONE INTO BUSINESS".
>
> --  The perception by educators is that if they don't sell anything on 
> their site they are not in the marketplace,
> and feel they have no responsibility to understand the commercial 
> connections to domain name ownership.
>
> --  "Educators" who own domains and decide to let them die have a 
> responsibility to bury their dead dots with dignity.
>
> -- Educators are considered Professionals and have duty to make sure they 
> do not hurt the public, but protect it.
> They must  not let their domain name land into porn hands where it will be 
> seen in public spaces like the classroom or even the library by a well 
> intentioned learner who gets the unwelcomed surprise, and annoyance. 
> Example <http://www.mcguffy.org> They are obliged to protect the netizenry 
> from any harm that may come to them as a result of their website.
>
> --  .org .net or.gov  are in business,  with grant writers, DC 
> connections, Fortune 500 connections, University connections,  they are 
> part of the supply chain somehow and they are absolutely trying to make 
> money! Orgs can make more money than any for profit 
> company.<http://www.McGuffy.org> had DC connections, a boat load of 
> money,  hired a PR firm to brand them, position them, Pr for them, 
> everything a 'BUSINESS' does to make money.
>
> -- The CEO of McGuffy should be sued for letting the domain name become 
> porn. I think it pure negligence to have let the site get into that 
> position and  there was enough funding to own that domain forever. That grant
> money they got was mine, it was  my tax payer money!! They are accountable 
> to the tax payer for their behavior. They were given  $1 million and more 
> followed, probably at least $1.25 million. And their site is now a porn 
> site!!  Who were the Education  CXO's responsible for his? And who is 
> going to hold them accountable for the tax payer money they were given and 
> squandered?
>
> -- The Education Domain Death EXIT Plan
> Should be thought about and executed as part of the web development plan 
> when initiated.
>
> 1st -
> Take the pages down and let the 401 error page be there.
>
> 2nd
> Own your domain for a long time until there was no traffic  and becomes a 
> worthless property,
> then dropping  it would probably be ok.
>
> 3rd
> Offer your site to a education professional for free who'd want to take 
> care of it so that it didn't die and would protect it.
>
> 4th
> Sell it to someone who wanted it for commercial reasons that signed 
> a  contract that said it wouldn't be sold to porn into perpetuity or something.
>
> 5TH
> Simply sending a "that's all folks...." message to mailing lists is not enough
>
> 6th
> When domain name owners  spend time putting themselves into the search 
> engines they are obligated to spend the same amount of time and more 
> removing their dead domain and clean up the cyber trash they are leaving
> behind. Search engines will  remove the URL and all the other ones linking 
> to it. If Education Domain name owners put a site up that they want the 
> public to see and use and never put into a search engine they are still 
> morally responsible to remove the URL from search engines, because they 
> did not intend to keep the information on the site protected behind a 
> database from the public. They wanted the public there, they made it for 
> the public.
>
> -- Professional Educators hold students to state standards when delivering 
> curriculum but when educators  go on the net they will be held to real 
> world standards.
>
> -- The STANDARD for a PROFESSIONAL in EDUCATION is to do what they need to 
> do to bury the dead dot with dignity. If they had the money to buy the 
> domain, and built a site for the public to have access to USE then they 
> are obliged to clean up their cybertrash left behind if they abandon their 
> domain and let it die.
>
> -- I would recommend the government demand Network Solutions and Verizen 
> provide a quarantine bin for dead education domain names at no cost for a 
> period of time to be protected from the purchase of porn sites.
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> Karen Ellis <mailto:admin () edu-cyberpg com>
> Founder Educational CyberPlayGround
> Gulph Mills, PA 19428
> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>
> The Educational CyberPlayGround
> http://www.cyberpg.com/
> 7 Hot Site Awards
> New York Times, USA Today , MSNBC, Earthlink,
> USA Today & Best Bets For Educators, Macworld Top Fifty
> Philadelphia Inquirer <http://education.philly.com/>
>
> Diversity University Collaboratory Mailing List ISSN:1529-7861
> http://www.cyberpg.com/diversity.html
> Cul De Sac Online Curriculum Mailing List ISSN: 1531-7196
> http://www.cyberpg.com/culdesac/Home_culdesac.html
> <>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>~~~~~<>


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