Apart from their issues with their site getting defaced, Fine Gael have made some very odd decisions about their new domain.
To start with, why on earth are they dropping their .ie domain name in favour of a .com?
Does this mean that Fine Gael isn’t happy being Irish?
(not that using a com means that, but you’d have to wonder)
But more importantly, why on earth are they using a whois privacy service to hide the domain name registration details?
Have a look at the whois output here:
Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
Registered through: ElectionMall Technologies Inc
Domain Name: FINEGAEL2011.COM
Created on: 08-Dec-10
Expires on: 08-Dec-11
Last Updated on: 08-Dec-10
Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration FINEGAEL2011.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax — (480) 624-2598
Technical Contact:
Private, Registration FINEGAEL2011.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax — (480) 624-2598
Domain servers in listed order:
DNS1.STABLETRANSIT.COM
DNS2.STABLETRANSIT.COM
Is it even legal for an Irish political party to obfuscate their domain’s details like that?
Even if it is legal it hardly sends a positive message about “transparency”, does it?
Disclaimer – While I am affiliated with FG it is on a local level only.
But I wouldn’t be inclined to read to much into the hidden whois info.
While I’m not privy to what goes on at headquarters I would have to imagine that the domain was registered by whoever FG contracted to build the site.
Likewise I presume this is why the site is also hosted in the U.S. as it is probably on the contractors server.
Now what I would really like to know is who that contractor is and how they got the job.
Robert
If the WHOIS was the ONLY issue with FG’s online strategy I’d think it was odd, but probably let it slide.
However their entire online position and the defence of it really makes me sick
Michele
I have to agree with you Michele, It’s certainly a poorly thought out strategy.
And it’s an even poorer defense that is being trotted out.
What makes it even more depressing is that there are plenty of rank and file members of FG (myself included) who would be savvy enough to actually plan out and implement a half decent online presence, but for some reason no one thought of asking the members.
Robert
Have a listen to Simon Coveney trying to defend their position on Saturday View:
http://www.rte.ie/podcasts/2011/pc/pod-v-08011153m33ssaturdayviewr1.mp3
What made me laugh (sort of) was the very valid point raised by the other woman. If every small business in the country were to create one extra job then the unemployment problem would vanish. I’m not sure how true that is, but it makes a lot of sense to me
Michele
Well this is obviously one policy they no longer care about… http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/fine-gael-1987-guaranteed-irish-jobs-leaflet/
Can’t say I think there’s much merit in FG’s approach, but I can’t really kick them for the whole .com thing or the privacy thing; .com addresses just get more traffic than .ie addresses even in Ireland (something to do with browsers taking a single word on the address bar as the X part of http://www.X.com I’m guessing) which is why I try to always get the .com of any .ie I get myself. And the privacy thing, well, I’m not hugely happy with my exact postal address being in the whois database if I’m honest about it. Even a partial address I wouldn’t mind, but when your exact postal address is tied to a site like guns.ie, it’ll give you pause…
Mark
Your comment about .com vs .ie doesn’t make much sense. It would have done a few years ago when some of the browsers used to append .com to any keyword thrown into the address bar. These days they send the query to their preferred search engine, so Bing in IE and Google in Firefox.
With respect to the privacy thing.
You are a private individual.
Fine Gael is not.
There is a very big difference in how private individuals and public organisations should use the domain name system.
Regards
Michele
Hey,
If this whole episode shows anything, is that fine Gael is not with it.
How they have managed to get it so wrong is compelely beyond me.
Nils
That’s just the default when you register a domain via GoDaddy, and activate the privacy feature, iirc.
All the same, the site seemed to be run by ElectionMall.com when I glanced at whois after it launched. My guess is that they hired ElectionMall, a US-based third-party “we’ll build your political site” company, they did a really shoddy job on the security side of things, the site got predictably hacked, and this is the result.
It really, *really* bodes ill for FG’s decision-making abilities, though, if after 3 days they still have not rectified the state of the finegael.ie site! Amazingly bad sign. If this is what they’re like with their public online presence, what will they be like in government?
Justin
I know what the privacy service is, but as I pointed out earlier, they’re NOT a private individual trying to hide their details / protect their privacy (or whatever)
They’re a political party that is trying to become the government of this country.
So why are they hiding behind WHOIS privacy?
Michele