A funny and cautionary story took place in the US city of Kenner. This place with about 65,000 residents and the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is the largest suburb of New Orleans. Citizens for a Better Kenner, Inc., a non-profit watchdog of the government, has now been operating in Kenner for a long time and for many years, it published on its site material criticizing the mayor, city council, local police and other municipal agencies.
However, this year, the human rights defenders simply forgot to renew their CitizensforaBetterKenner domains in .COM, .ORG, and .NET, Domain Name Wire reports. And their ill-wishers took advantage of the situation. Unknown persons immediately registered the domain names that became available. Now the site is again working at CitizensforaBetterKenner.com, but it is in stark contrast to the one that the social activists ran for eight years. Its home page praises the mayor, the police chief and members of the city council. And it assures that the vast majority of city residents are delighted with their work for the benefit of the society.
The outraged human rights defenders filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Louisiana. They are trying to prove that the situation has the signs of cybersquatting. However, observers doubt that the trial will be a success. The new site is clearly not intended for profit, and therefore it is unlikely that it will be possible to prove that the domain and its reputation gained over the years are used for personal gain. Another claim made by Citizens for a Better Kenner is that the content of the new site is completely and defiantly contrary to what has been published on the CitizensforaBetterKenner.com domain for years. But the counterargument is quite obvious: nobody canceled freedom of speech. As well as the need to timely renew the registration of the domain name.
