I thought that the big problem here was with matty selling out to ntl. The cybersquatting accusation is a different issue.
I have different views on that one.

sorry in advance, but I have to say this. If I am out of order I will not protest it's deletion.

Whatever the issue involved here I think the treatment of Matty in this thread has been appalling!

Once he had said he had sold the domain any further comment could (& should - imo) have gone to pm.

I posted in defence of another member earlier and reported a post, because I felt inappropriate comments had been made. In all conscience I can't see this treatment of matty is any different?

I have to agree, It certainly was a dead site, If you dont mind me saying matty. And, If it was tottaly out of response to this, that he decided to sell it.. Then fair do's :)

But.. If he deliberatly bought the domain, hoping NTL would buy it off him for a "undisclosed fee" Some time in the future.. then thats wrong, and shows a complete disrespect to the focal point of his site, helping customers :td:

What I think has raised the ire of most people is that he is not responding to his detractors. Say whatever you want about Frank but he answered just about all of this critics. Matty has appeared to make it clear that he no longer wants anything to do with .co.uk so has chosen to not make any response to our points.

Agreed:)
...and I'm off to bed now. Will catch up tomorrow night (out all day tomorrow) night all!:)

If the alternative to selling a dead domain is to be taken to court for it, what would you do?

Surrender the domain back to internic before selling to NTL.
Put a disclaimer (such as the one on this site) stating that this site is not affiliated to NTL and makes no claim to be so

I think I must be invisible.:rolleyes:

I pointed this out last night in this other thread at http://www.nthellworld.co.uk/forum/s...5&pagenumber=2


I think it must be because I'm a female.:shrug:

Incog.

Lololol this reminds me of that sketch on the Fast Show when some guy is locked out of his car and all his mates are trying to open it for him, a passing woman says that because he's got central locking if you cut a tennis ball in half and put one section over the keyhole you can 'pop' the CL in to opening the car.

They all totally ignore her until one of his mates says,"You've got central locking right? Well if you cut a tennis ball in half......." :D :D :D

Man do I know how to kill the momentum of a thread or what..... :cry:

If you're that worried about reprisals, you could delete your posts.... i mean.. it has been done before :p ;)

:LOL:

Hmmm...Kink's getting a little too big for her thigh-length boots.. :D

Back OT now I think :)

Hmm, bottom line is that a site owned and controlled by an individual can easily be transferred, if the owner is made an offer he can't refuse.

I think the concept the ntlcommunity.com was registered as a spolier for the real community site is valid. I'm sure the lawyers would eventually have made mincemeat of any other argument if it had gone that far, and at that stage only the lawyers would have got anything from it. I for one had gone to that domain initially (since ntl choose not to clearly publish the real location of community).

As soon as the community debacle was public, there were a whole rash of new sites set up, including this one (ok the domain has been registered for sometime, and yes mistakenly, before this site was active, I had come to the page typing .co.uk, not .com).

By all means criticise the owner for his sell out. What is important now is to ensure that other sites independent of ntl do not get swallowed up by them when they too are a thorn in their side.

OK I'm going slightly off topic now but, the domain of anticap, albeit originally registered by an individual, part of the team is now in the ownership of the campaign according to our articels of association. Therefore it requires the organisation to agree to sell out, something which is unlikely. Even if there is agreement for the sell out, the original registrant has the right of first refusal on what to do with the domain if anticap gives up the rights to it.

OK anticap is critical of ntl (and would be too of other ISPs if they wanted to cross swords an apply a cap) but the domain name is not a spoiler in the same way as community was, or even this nthw.co.uk could be.

No offence meant but, I know you say you wont sell out, but waht real safeguards to this are there?

I have to say, I find all this talk about "selling out" most peculiar. for some reason, people seem to be assuming that NTL are different from any other big company.

For example, I notice the domain asdahomeshopping.com (and .co.uk, actually) is unregistered. Now if ASDA announced they were going to start a home shopping service, and I went out and bought these domains (using them for pages telling people to go and shop at Tesco instead), how long do you think it'd be before I heard from WalMart's lawyers?

NTL would have gotten the domain in court, if it had got that far. I don't see how Matty has "sold out" -- all he's done is saved himself the pain in the arse of legal preceedings, and as a bonus made a couple of quid. Would it make it more palettable to consider it an out of court settlement?

And would the matter be different if he had just handed NTL the domain for free, so as to avoid all the legal bother? If so, why?

Hell, for all we know, NTL have just reimbursed the registration fee Matty paid for the domain in the first place (£40 is it?)