The Clinton Intern Scandal: Exploitation.com

Dateline: 01/24/98 - Weekly feature from your Guide to Personal Web Pages.

It was inevitable that Monica would become a Web goddess.

Within hours of the news of the scandal, Monica Lewinsky fan pages erupted and debates raged in newsgroups and on Web bulletin boards about whether she was a victim and of whom, Bill Clinton or Linda Tripp.

This was all perfectly understandable and a familiar sight to anyone who trawls through the Web's trenches following a major news event (remember the week the Web mourned?).

But there's another all-too-familar Web activity that occurs after big news: Domain vultures who rush to InterNIC (the authority that issues Web addresses) to try to capitalize on the hype. And so it was that in the week following Princess Diana's death, the following domains were registered by commercial enterprises looking for easy hits:

Now, with the Clinton Intern scandal, a similar kind of domain exploitation is taking place. Let me give you three examples: On Thursday, January 22, the day after the Washington Post broke the story, records reveal the following sites were registered with InterNIC: MonicaLewinsky.com , LindaTripp.com, and VernonJordan.com. Of course, the individuals whose names were used have no involvement in these sites. On the Web, your name is up for grabs.

Domain madness is reaching a new level, says Edwin Hayward, the creator of an extremely informative site about domain-name registration. "Domain pirates" have long tried to register company names before the companies themselves got around to it; lately, Hayward says, "such 'creativity' has expanded to include company abuse domains such as microsoftsucks.com as well as names that are nearly, but not quite, the same as a popular site, such as nasa.com. Now, following news events, these exploitive domains pop up."

Hayward concludes, "The market for domain names is completely anarchic. If you are a company, you can resort to litigation to defend your name (although even there history shows you may well lose). If you are an individual, forget it! So what's to be done? Regulation of some kind seems called for, but the nightmare of wording such regulation..."

Cynically pure

MonicaLewinsky.com is an "under construction" site from an outfit called SiteLeader.com, a domain registration and web hosting company. There's not a single link or shred of info about the intern scandal to be found here. Will SiteLeader ever put anything on this page to justify the use of that domain? Why should they? There's a purity to a cynicism that can register a hot-button domain and then not even try to justify it!

LindaTripp.com was posted by two Hawaii-based Web designers. At least these guys are trying to offer some information; they've got a poll and a "soundoff" board going. An exercise in poor taste and opportunism, certainly, but hey, they appear to be trying to "add value."

VernonJordan.com is a "pointer" URL that leads to "McSpotlight," an activist site "dedicated to bringing your attention to the real world of corporate politics" and "how your life is controlled by the big boys." Come to think of it, that's not a totally inappropriate message at this moment.

Now for some media opportunism: What's the news value in posting "an approximation" of Monica's former AOL profile page as this Utah newspaper did? This ranks with the "dramatic reenactment" as a highly suspect journalistic practice (the paper could have at least made her page look better).

Not that there isn't some blatant commercial opportunism going on. I just received an emailed press release touting presidentkneepads.com, a site selling - you guessed it - "a kneepad emblazoned with a red, white and blue logo and the word 'Presidential' scrawled across the front." This site also boast a chat room and a scandal joke list.

Name game

Apart from the sad and sordid intern scandal itself, there's something disturbing about the way a person involved in a major news event loses control over their Web identity - the way they get officially coopted by the Net.

Monica Lewinsky is now an unpaid front-man for some sleazy Web company. Linda Tripp is a handy portfolio item for a couple of designers. Vernon Jordan, the ultimate insider, is your gateway to a site devoted to knocking down the "big boys."

Can't wait for the next big news story.

News flash: The technology news service TechWeb reports that the address Lewinsky.com was bought by a "domain reseller" who is trying to sell it for $5,000. The beat goes on.