November 18, 2000

2:08 PM

Who are these guys? And why have they registered a thousand or more domains, only to have them all point at the same generic portal? I bumped into them three times today while doing searches for DHTML, Budd Uggly, and boxing. No banners, no logo, no company info, and search results are a framed page from goto.com. Strange.
posted by nikzhowz (12 comments total)

(first post - nice to meet you all)

A networksolutions DNS check will tell you it's from Tucows.com, but also lists the DNS service it was registered with. Checking that, it turns out to NOT be from Tucows, but from a company in Hong Kong:

Ult. Search Inc.
Suites 1601-1603, 16F
Kinwick Centre
32 Hollywood Road
Central, HK

Weird...
posted by jwells at 3:50 PM on November 18, 2000

i was bummed a while back when i discovered that budd uggly had disappeared. that site was a scream. but this development has taken place since the last time i tried to hit wwwvoice.com. i wonder if all their domains were semi-popular sites which the owners dumped, and if so, how did they get a clue when they became available? with NSI that seems to be a mystery these days!
posted by quonsar at 3:56 PM on November 18, 2000

Simple. They are a Goto.com affiliate.
posted by attitude at 4:18 PM on November 18, 2000

Oh geez. So that's how they're expecting to make money. Well, it just might work. I got the Budd Uggly URL from a personal links page, the boxing link from FastSearch, and the DHTML from playing URL roulette, just typing in d-html, dynamic-html combinations. It's been forever since I was fooled by a porn link and these guys managed to reel me in about once an hour.
posted by nikzhowz at 4:56 PM on November 18, 2000

Onionhead World (wwwvoice.com) has been gone for a couple years now. I wish I knew what happened to it.

At least there's now a mirror of the Bud Uglly Design portion, including goodies like Badi Dea Motors and Bud's Site of the Day. Oh, and Spanky's page is still up, too.
posted by Aaaugh! at 8:06 PM on November 18, 2000

Hmmm.

Every one of their sites is blocked in Vietnam - where I live.

Obviously they all go to the same site, but it must be on geocities, or tripod or some other free site, all of which are blocked here.

-Or maybe it's just their vietinfo.com which fell under the net. If so, a good indicator that the firewall here is being abused for the commercial benefit of those with friends, and not just for cultural "purity."


posted by stylo at 8:40 PM on November 18, 2000

Budd Uggly! Bless you Aaaugh!
posted by nikzhowz at 10:36 PM on November 18, 2000

"If so, a good indicator that the firewall here is being abused for the commercial benefit of those with friends..." There's some things which don't change from ocean to ocean or national border to national border. Greed, cultural ignorance and Abuse of Power are a few of those things.

I don't want to go off on a rant here but it seems not to matter how KeWl the person intended to be when he acquired office, they all turn evil when they find they can benefit their friends at the expense of the masses. Any attempt by any gov't to censor the 'Net should be viewed as an act of War against ALL other gov't's. But today the lines between gov't and corp are bleeding thin. How do we know Ult. Search Inc. isn't really owned by the communist government there? Or friends of the government hoping to keep the public cut off from info? The only real way to control the 'Net is to own ALL of it. Looks to me like they're well on their way to attempting that. Might take a few centuries, but patience is a virtue irregardless of whether or not you happen to think Mao Tse Tung looked cool in battle fatigues.

Speaking of good ole Mao, he once said, "Two types of social contradictions - those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people themselves confront us. The two are totally different in their nature." I'm surprised to hear that he said this. As a communist, he was contradicting himself here. Those who want everyone to agree on cultural dogma must view any disagreement as an enemy. If you believe in only one dogma, and refuse to allow independent thought to thrive in your culture, you must treat social contradictions among the people the same as you would any enemy. Such differences must be silenced. So communism must find some way to silence the Internet. It's why things like communism are doomed to fail. I can respect communist leaders of history even though I disagree with them, but Mao must have been on some major drugs, man. Anyone who disbelieves in Free Speech must be on some major drugs. But then that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
posted by ZachsMind at 7:22 AM on November 19, 2000

Regardless, I do not believe it.
posted by stylo at 12:48 PM on November 19, 2000

Perhaps they are simply hoping to sell these domains while not being forced to give them up because nothing is there. If it's a somewhat functional domain then it might be harder to call them squatters, no?
posted by amanda at 1:27 PM on November 19, 2000

Why are free sites blocked in Vietnam?
posted by internook at 4:06 PM on November 19, 2000

-Because there are anti xx groups with sites there (I must be careful what I write as this passes through the burning wall around the country)

-Because groups here may use them to organize.

Also:

-Everything but http, ftp, email are closed (i.e, no chat, phonecalls, messaging)

-Many major BBS sites are closed.

-Most anoxxxxxer sites are closed, but if you have a brain you can find one.

etc.

-BTW: I'm not paranoid.


posted by stylo at 9:43 PM on November 19, 2000