Resend: Correction on Dick Cheney and domain name misstatement

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[This didn't seem to go out to everyone last week. Apologies if you're 
receiving this as a duplicate. --Declan]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Correction on Dick Cheney and domain name misstatement
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 14:13:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
To: politech () politechbot com


---

From: Adam Rosi-Kessel <adam () rosi-kessel org>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: [Politech] Dick Cheney's domain name misstep
Message-ID: <20041007131502.GB12600 () bostoncoop net>

On Thu, Oct 07, 2004 at 05:11:44AM -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> George Soros capitalized on Cheney's error, snatched up the URL, and
> now if you type "factcheck.com" into your browser, you get redirected
> to a page titled, "Why we must not re-elect President Bush: a personal
> message from George Soros."=20

Declan:

This isn't quite correct.  According to this Yahoo news story:=20

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=3Dstory&cid=3D694&u=3D/ap/20041006/ap_on_el=
_pr/debate_web_sites_1&printer=3D1=20

As well as the George Soros site itself <http://www.georgesoros.com>, the
site administrator for factcheck.com decided to redirect to Soros' site
on his own:=20

  The company decided to redirect traffic to the Soros site after it
  became inundated with hits . about 100 a second after the debate, John
  Berryhill, a Philadelphia lawyer for FactCheck.com, said Wednesday. =20

  "This was to relieve stress on the service and to express a political
  point of view," said Berryhill, who spoke with the site's
  administrators shortly after the debate ended. =20

I checked the URL during the debate, and it was, indeed a banner
advertising site.  It was only later that the site director redirected to
georgesoros.com.  Interestingly, at this moment, georgesoros.com appears
to be down or responding poorly.
--=20
Adam Rosi-Kessel
http://adam.rosi-kessel.org



Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 09:21:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Paul Jones <pjones () metalab unc edu>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: [Politech] Dick Cheney's domain name misstep
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0410070511210.29387 () well com>

talking points memo covers this well. i blogged the soros link plus other
related links at http://ibiblio.org/pjones/wordpress/index.php?p=68
for tpm:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_03.php#003585





Subject: RE: [Politech] Dick Cheney's domain name misstep
From: "Erik Sojka" <esojka () NBME org>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>

I know it's highly popular these days to cite the blogosphere as a true news
source but at the end of the day even bloggers who write random nonsense 
must
"check their facts" as well (pun intended).

If you check the WHOIS information for "factcheck.com" you will see that it
has nothing to do with Soros, and was registered in February, long before
Tuesday's debate.

You should also check the following news story, where the author actually
talks to the parties involved:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&u=/ap/20041006/ap_on_el_pr/deba
te_web_sites_1&printer=1

I'd urge you to check things before submitting them to your list.

[Unfortunately that's not feasible for Politech -- that would be a
full-time job. I do have a pretty good record of rejecting false claims
and sending out corrections when necessary, though. --Declan]




From: "Peter Swire" <peter () peterswire net>
To: "'Declan McCullagh'" <declan () well com>
Subject: RE: [Politech] Dick Cheney's domain name misstep (correction)
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 10:00:44 -0400
Message-ID: <000001c4ac76$1ad7b880$0200a8c0@Peteroffice>

Declan:

        What a great example of people finding conspiracies where none
exist!

        The better-researched story shows that George Soros did not
"snatch up the url."  According to the lawyer for the company that owns
factcheck.com, their site was overwhelmed by hits after the debate.  The
company decided "to exact revenge on Cheney for causing it such grief."
On its own, the company decided to redirect traffic to the Soros site.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12901-2004Oct6.html?sub=A
R


        Not a "vast left-wing conspiracy."  Instead, a company taking
action to prevent its system from crashing after a mistake by the Vice
President.

        Peter

Prof. Peter Swire
Moritz College of Law of the
    Ohio State University
John Glenn Scholar in Public Policy Research
(240) 994-4142, www.peterswire.net




From: "Meeks, Brock (MSNBCi)" <Brock.Meeks () MSNBC COM>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: RE: [Politech] Dick Cheney's domain name misstep
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 07:17:07 -0700



And of course, we know now that the GeorgeSoros.com folks did nothing of the
sort, did not "snatch up the URL."

As the Washington Post points out, after having actually DONE SOME REPORTING
on this, rather than shooting their mouth off on a hipshot blog,

> From the WPost story:

The company behind the site, Cayman Islands-based Name Administration Inc.,
which also owns sites such as Lipbalm.com and Antarctica.com, was quickly
overwhelmed.

"Suddenly they had 48,000 hits in an hour, then 100 hits a second,"
said John Berryhill, a lawyer for the company. "They had a technical problem
on their hands."

To avoid crashing, and to exact revenge on Cheney for causing it such grief,
Name Administration decided to forward traffic to GeorgeSoros.com -- a site
that could handle the traffic, was not soliciting funds and clearly wasn't
tied to Bush. "And you got to admit it was kind of cute," Berryhill said.



From: Brad Templeton <btm () templetons com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: [Politech] Dick Cheney's domain name misstep
Message-ID: <20041007194218.GB31586 () main templetons com>


No, Soros didn't snap up the domain.  The owner of the domain found
his site overwhelmed, and figured for the duration to exact revenge
on Cheney, it is reported, and redirected it to georgesoros.com, without
asking Soros.



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