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I posted a short disclaimer as a blog post on the main website. Let me know if any of you have suggestions or comments. I wanted to make sure we have at least something out there to explain the situation. Or should we just totally ignore it? I did some very brief research. It seems we could possibly make a formal complaint of cybersquatting and attempt to get the URL under out control, but it looks like it can take up to $3K in fees to push an issue with the registrar community.
Doing some more research. StayLDS.org is owned by Chris Hohnbaum of Herrieman, UT. A brief Google search revealed that he was partially involved in a lawsuit by the Utah Lighthouse Ministry (The Tanners) against FAIR and a computer firm in Arizona for cybersquatting against the Utah Lighthouse Ministry. They were the victim that time. It seems his action against us is not his first involvement in this type of problem.
http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/trademark/utlmcomplaint.pdf Short bio on Chris:
http://www.equippingchristians.com/About-us.php Public Myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/443222850 One example of his exit narrative:
http://whyweleftmormonism.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html OK …. hmmmmm Mr. Hohnbaum is getting more out of control with his squatting on the StayLDS.org. He updated his site to make it more aggressive, and even addresses our site directly. I am a little concerned he is trying to build a serious case perhaps for copyright infringement or something like that. I may have to call this guy to see what his real deal is.
My suspicion is that he is stepping up the game to eventually extort money for purchasing his domain (to get rid of him). He obviously doesn’t know how small the purse is here to rob
I say we wait and see if he actually drives traffic our way. We have the measures in place to deal with trolls, but the extra exposure might reach someone who otherwise might not find us. At the very least, he is destroying any chance of a member mistakenly thinking his site is ours – if they simply read the disclaimer. His mention of us is quite stupid at this point, imo. I say let him yap for a bit and see if he does anything else.
Yeah, I say we just not worry about it (at least for now). I see no reason to buy his domain. Have we gotten a bunch of people that are going to that website in favor of our own? Perhaps he’ll just go away eventually, but even if he doesn’t I don’t think it’s too big a deal. I sent him a brief message through his website with my email and phone number. I asked if he was trying to squat the domain to extort money, or if he was really in it for the idealism of the cause. That was the other day. No response as of yet.
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