But you’ll have to click This link to see it. A curious piece of domain name squatting. I have linked to a copy of the original page, so as not to reward the bastards with clicks.
How did my name end up on a fake ruth gledhill dot com site? My best guess is that they have a script which goes through the logfiles, looking for the searches which led people to the site. The most popular terms are then written into the page, as links to yet more advertising pages. This is to some extent a process with positive feedback, since every time they get a success from misleading googlers in this way, the next success becomes a little more likely.
Nameview, the company squatting this page, are ingenious scum. I found an ICANN judgement against them which appeared to involve a company suing itself. The explanation, when I got to it, was simple enough:
Following Complainant’s filing of its Complaint, Nameview, the Registrar of the disputed domain name, caused to be changed or acted in concert with the party that caused to be changed the WHOIS records for the disputed domain name to reflect the Complainant as the Registrant. Although the Complainant and Respondent are both nominally the same entity, Quantum Loyalty Systems, Inc. is the Respondent only by name and does not have access to or control of the disputed domain name.
B. Respondent
Complainant initially filed its Complainant against Domain Administrator c/o Nameview, Inc. Based upon the WHOIS records, Complainant was required to amend its Complaint to show itself as Respondent in the case, so that both Complainant and Respondent are the same party. Respondent concurs with all allegations contained in its Complaint.
Anyway, the moral is clear enough: don’t let your domain names lapse if you care about them at all. Ruth let this one expire in 2005, and now she can’t get it back.
Andrew, your hair is much longer than I’d have supposed.
I know; more at the front than many people notice, too.
But aren’t my heels great?
I don’t know, it the picture has certainly captured your air of cultivated disinterest.
Seriously, does Ruth know about it? she’ll have a fit.
The commercial side of domain name management, she is broken. I had bumf.org for a while, but let it go through… can’t remember, stupidity, probably – and the robots nabbed it. That’s why I haven’t gone for the rupertgoodwins.* selection; if I need it, I’d rather get it then, than get it just in case and see it vanish for good due to not remembering to renew.
But now and again, this madness throws up the happy marriage of you, Ruth Gledhill, and what appears to be a hi-fi reviewer utterly unlike any I’ve met (or perhaps it’s Barry Fox relaxing at home). For that, I forgive all.
R