BELGRADE, Maine — Belgrade town officials have agreed to pay $3,500 to a man who owns the rights to the Internet domain name belgrademaine.com.
Town Manager Gregory Gill said the town last week signed an agreement with Matthew Hunt, owner of A2Z Computing Services Co. in Oakland, to buy the domain name rather than take the case to court.
Gill told The Portland Press Herald that it was unclear who owned the name, and it was cheaper just to come to an agreement than to fight the matter in court.
Gill says the select board wanted the town to own belgrademaine.com so staff and department heads could place information on the site without going through Hunt.
He says selectmen also wanted to rid the site of advertising.
Couldn’t just go with BelgradeME.com????
What would the town’s argument have been if the case has gone to court? “He owns it and we want it so we should be able to take it”???
The ads are still all over the site and I can’t see anything there worth the $3,500.
Guess I should have bought both gold AND domain names ten years ago…
The town paid this guy 12 years ago to build the website, but I suspect the town also allowed him to register the name on their behalf. So $3500 paid now for not thinking 12 years ago.
This is a common misunderstanding. The town could have purchased any other domain name to use, but apparently they want this particular name. The company that originally bought the domain name owns it, end of story. The town has no right to a particular domain name. This would have no place in a court room what-so-ever. Perhaps the BDN could do its readers a favor and explain how the domain name system works, which would add a lot to this article.
There are people in china that’s all they do is look up famous names an buy them an than sell them to these places