eCampaign 101: Domain Squatting Revisited

On Thursday (eCampaign 101: Protect Your Domain) we looked briefly at ralphgoodale.ca, wondering if someone had hijacked the domain or not. Further investigation shows that a number of domains one might reasonably visit in an effort to find our current Minister of Finance’s campaign web site are either silent or obviously hijacked.

ralphgoodale.ca and rgoodale.ca are both connected to Chris Thauberger, of Allstartech in Regina.

Subdomain:      rgoodale.ca
Renewal-Date:   2006/07/13
Date-Approved:  2000/11/24
Date-Modified:  2003/11/12
Organization:   Allstartech
Admin-Name:     Chris Thauberger

rgoodale.com is registered by Robert Peterson, who appears to have some connection with Allstartech as well.

%whois rgoodale.com
Name:	Robert    Peterson
Address:Box 3445
		Regina, SK S4P 3J8
		CA
Email Address:	xxxxxx@allstartech.com

(I’ve x’d out the email account to save them from even more spam)

Whether Peterson and Thauberger are acting on behalf of Mr. Goodale or to thwart him is unknown.

More obvious is the intent displayed by some anonymous individual or group who have hijacked the domains ralphgoodale.com and ralphgoodale.net using an anonymous registration service offered by Domains by Proxy.

%whois ralphgoodale.org
Domain Name:RALPHGOODALE.ORG
Created On:20-May-2005 17:36:33 UTC
Expiration Date:20-May-2006 17:36:33 UTC
Registrant Name:Registration Private
Registrant Organization:Domains by Proxy, Inc.

Both RalphGoodale dot NET and dot ORG were created this year by the hijackers, underscoring once again – if you are going to run for office, grab any obvious domain (yourname.ca, .NET, .ORG and .COM for starters) or someone else will take them from you and you might not appreciate the attention!

Perhaps the CBC might be interested in this site, since the hijacker has seen fit to copy the CBC page lock stock and barrel.

Remember Don Boudria…

Speaking of the CBC, I’m reminded of one recent and humorous case of domain hijacking, chronicled by Canadian comedian Rick Mercer on his weblog back in June.

Don is seriously pissed by the anti same-sex marriage crowd. It seems they have gone out and purchased one of Don’s domain names and they have been playing silly buggers with it. Take a look for yourself at http://www.donboudria.ca/

Conservative MP Jason Kenney got into the act on the floor of the House of Commons:

Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the only additional element that the hon. member has brought to the Chair’s attention relates to a matter which is in no way, shape or form within the purview of this House or your honour and it never has been, and hopefully never will be, that is to say, the registration of domain names on the World Wide Web.

I understand my hon. friend opposite is learned with respect to parliamentary procedure but I must infer from his remarks that he is stupefiedly ignorant about the commercial practices on the Internet.

Mercer’s version was funnier:

Anyway, long story short, Jason told Boudria it was his own fault for not registering his own domain name. I tend to agree with Jason on this; I mean, doesn’t the liberal Party have access to a teenager who can advise them on this kind of stuff? I bet a guy like Jason does.

Of course, Mercer did the only logical thing, for a comedian—he acted like a teenager and spent 2 minutes and 10$ and hijacked jasonkenney.org! Originally Mercer pointed the domain to the Marxist Leninists, but currently if you visit http://www.jasonkenney.org/ you’ll be redirected to to Egale.ca, an organization describing itself thusly:

Egale Canada advances equality and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified people, and their families, across Canada.

Kenney is reported to have laughed hard.

%whois jasonkenney.org
Domain Name:JASONKENNEY.ORG
Created On:02-Jun-2005 19:18:23 UTC
Last Updated On:02-Aug-2005 03:54:34 UTC
Expiration Date:02-Jun-2006 19:18:23 UTC

Hey Rick, it’ll be time to renew soon!