By Rob Ginter - Staff Writer
The city of Morehead is having to switch the domain name of its website and all city employees email addresses from .com to .net, after city officials say their website was stolen via “cyber squatting.”
“Someone has appropriated our domain name and we think they’re in Thailand,” Morehead Mayor David Perkins said. “Usually they try to sell it back for some awful price and we aren’t going to bite. Our mail hosting and police department webpage is hosted by a third party.”
That third party host, according to officials, is Premier Quest Internet Service Providers based in Flemingsburg.
“Essentially it’s a classic case of cyber squatting,” said Jason England of Premier Quest ISP. “Folks typically from the same type of geography that the majority of the world’s spam and viruses come from, China, Eastern Europe and Russia and third world countries.
“They monitor domains for expiration and if the domain is allowed to expire they basically snag it up immediately. They try to extort the domain owners for money,” he said.
“It was an inconvenience getting everyone switched to a new email,” said Morehead Police Department Assistant Chief David Sexton. “The problem you have is the domain registrar is in another country.”
“There is an entity from the United Nations that handles the arbitration of these issues,” England said. “Essentially there is a fee that they charge to review the cases and get the names back and the name registrar will only transfer the name with a federal court decision or WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) and there is a fee for that.
“They get the domain name and email the company with the trademark and say ‘hey I’ll sell it back for $10,000’ or however much, it’s a fairly pricey option and not something that city wants to pursue."
The email addresses for all city employees remain the same except they are all at cityofmorehead.net.
