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How Many Domains Does Your School Own?
ADrexelStudent asks: "A debate has been brought up in recent months at my school, Drexel University, on the issue of whether the school should be allowed to own over 300 domain names. One domain, drexel.com, has been purchased from the students that owned the site, which was being used as a student forum. Another site, drexel.org, is under contest from the school against it's owner, a student. The university claims they didn't know the owner was a student and hence filed a lawsuit claiming trademark violation. Problem is the school doesn't own the trademark, a furniture company with no relation to Drexel does. Out of all the 300+ domains, only one outside the .edu TLD is being used, drexel.com, prompting the argument that this is an attempt by the university to silence student opinion on the Internet. My question for slashdot is how many schools out there purchase domains with no intent to use them, should student tuition be used in this manner, and what is your opinion of this practice?"
Whether or not they posess the trademark, a school will not be able to silence student's opinions by regaining control of drexel.org or whatever. There are simply too many places to put up a webserver and I have a feeling that the domain name matters less than the number of students contributing to the server.
I guess the question is, why isn't this drexel company stepping in and sorting everyone out?
Multiple companies can hold a trademark on the same name because the trademark system is broken into several fields. There are 66 trademarks that contain the name Drexel and at least 20 of those are the name Drexel by itself.
One of the biggest problems in domain name fights is when two people who both have a trademark on the name fight it out with each other. Then the regular rules of "give it to whoever has the TM" doesn't work.
You can look up trademarks at tess.uspto.org.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
It does seem rather repressive to take that many domains. It also adds to the problem of running out of domains, since the number of domains is limited (until people get past .com, .org, etc...). But the controls may be good for two reasons. First, then you can't have some student put up a porn site at namethisschool.net while the university's site is at namethisschool.edu or something. The confusion would be really bad, in regards to high schoolers researching colleges, or parents trying to learn what's happening at Johnny's school, and getting the URL wrong. Also, though it does seem like a waste of tuition, perhaps it is more of an investment. Later, when webspace is harder to find, the university could sell off some of those domains and use the money to hire teachers, fund scholarships, etc.
________
"And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion...." -- J.S. Mill
Let them buy what ever domains they want.
It isn't really that much money.
Let's focus on the bigger problem of creating
a more reasonable DNS naming scheme.
300+ domains? So what kind of domains are we talking about here? We've seen samples of a few -- do you have the full list?
IMHO, they should respect the way DNS was intended
to be used, and have ONE domain, drexel.edu. If they need to subdivide it, do it they way it
was freaking intended. Like:
www.drexel.edu
mail.drexel.edu
news.drexel.edu
www.drexel.edu/~username
etc... This is the way my university has always
worked, and there has never been a problem for anyone. And yes, this foolishness IS a waste
of university (students!) funds. Someone who is
a student there should write an editorial slamming them for being so stupid.
All IMHO, of course...
PK: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
In addition, they were going after sites which used player likenesses and images (i.e. Michael Vick) because under the NCAA rules, student-athletes are not permitted to endorse a product or service. VT was apparently concerned in that case about NCAA sanctions related to student run web pages which used player images and likenesses to promote their site.
My point, it's not always the case that the school is trying oppress free speech, but rather protecting the use of their marks and are worrying about other factors, like the NCAA situation.
Still here at VT, students are not permitted to use the school logos on their web pages (see this page ).
If they need subcategories, let them get subdomain names. All in the .edu range. Therefore, if lets say columbia wanted a specific domain for it's law program, it'd be law.columbia.edu.
.edu:
.edu with suprising accuracy, even if a few name variation attempts are needed.
.gov for that very purpose. If collegs are allowed to get other domain names, then the next domain name I want is neema.edu.
Reasons why they should stick to
1) It makes things less confusing. When you want to find your college on the web, you'll basically enter it's name and clip on
2) They're educational, not commercial. They're not an organization, really. That's like the government wanting all forms of they're domain, when they have
I go to USF in Tampa, Florida. USF stands for University of South Florida (yes the school with the terrorist instructor who became leader of the islamic jihad). Anyway, USF.edu is our website, but USF.com is Universal Studios Florida.
We should sue them, I bet they have deep pockets and could help me lower tuition costs.
[/Homer] In case you couldn't TELL I was being SARCASTIC [End Homer\]
--Joey
I must admit that 2/300+ domains being [noticeably] used sounds a bit extravagant. I note however that in your post the case for at some domains is that the university simply buys them, rather than forcing the student owners to surrender them. In those cases at least it is the students making the decisions. However the underlying attitude of the university in garnering a useless monopoly does not seem to be a good one, and I think that it takes away from the dynamic essence of a university community that should be what all institutions strive for.
"Should the school be allowed to own over 300 domain names
Why not? Why does the school need to follow any different rules than any other entity? If CmdrTaco had 300 domains, would we care?"
Because, in a world of limited domain names, we should care if any "entity" owns a bunch of names not being used. There are a limited number of meaningful, easy-to-remember names out there.
"how many schools out there purchase domains with no intent to use them
Why does it matter how many others do it? What bearing does it have on your school?"
Wow, I feel like I'm trying to explain Afghan politics to George W. Bush. Okay, moron, listen up, and try to follow along. I'll use small words.
What happens at one school is generally of interest to students at another school. Sometimes this is simply for the same reason that people are interested in the world around them (Wow! What a concept!) and sometimes it's because what happens at one school now might well be happening at other schools next year. Imagine that.
"And finally, should student tuition be used in this manner?
How presumptuous to think you have any say in how your tuition is spent. You don't wonder aloud what McDonald's does with your cash after you buy a Happy Meal, do you? And if you don't like it, you don't give them the money."
Presumptuous? Go fuck yourself. First of all, yes, I do sometimes wonder where my consumer dollars go -- and if people didn't talk about it, I'd have no way of finding out and deciding if I wanted to spend my money there or not. Second, the connection between a school and a student is much more intimate than the connection between McDonald's and someone ordering a Happy Meal -- or at least it should be; I wonder where (or if) you went to college that you don't understand that.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Sounds like one of the students is about to get the ole' Drexel Shaft.
Higher education doesn't run just off tuition. Most larger universities take in millions of dollars a year from the State and Federal Gov't. Some in the form of grants. Others straight up dollars into the budget.
As a tax payer I want to know how MY MONEY is being spent. If a tax payer funded organization is wasting thousands of dollars on leagal and domain fees, then I'm pissed. The tax payers of the state entrusted money to see that standard of education was met. And as it stands I can't even fathom a good reason to waste that much money.
Then again, I think the entire higher education system is worse at wasting money then the federal gov't.
You should be lucky they even allow you to graduate. The last time I protested about the curriculum a certain administrative person pulled me into his office and threatened that "any teacher who didn't want me in his/her class could come to him and make it happen". I read that as, "we can prevent you from graduating if we don't like you".
Why sue a student, who has no money, when you could just threaten to take away his/her degree. I bet the person would cough it up real quick. It works for our shady University. Apparently "for the students" has different meaning in Wisconsin.
If you're not sure whether the University sensors student speech, read the school newspaper sometime. I hear people bitch about things they hate hear, yet I open the newspaper to see people regurgitating the same point of view as the school. Student run newspaper? To laugh!
Wait, first you argue we have no right to know how the money we spend with a company is used, then you argue that if we don't like the way the money is used we shouldn't spend it there. The two views are incompatible.
There are places I won't spend my money because of the way it may be used (Domino's Pizza for example). The discussion of how companies use our money is one of the few powers captilism gives the masses; vote with your feet and you can make the company think again. If this were to be disallowed, then there would be nothing to keep corporations in check.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
First, then you can't have some student put up a porn site at namethisschool.net while the university's site is at namethisschool.edu or something.
I don't know if you meant this as a hypothetical or not, but it does happen. I work for the IS department at Canisius College and a few years ago someone bought canisius.com and set up a porn site there. It was pretty interesting trying to explain that to the people in publications and promotion.
"No, you don't want to put canisius.com on any of the literature. No, don't go there. Just trust me."
*scream*
--saint
The local university over here received complaints because someone was hosting a porn site under a domain name which was confusingly similar to the official one. In such cases, the easiest approach is to acquire the domain name, shutting down the porn site itself is much too complicated. Similar problems occur if some student organization or political party holds critical (i.e. very similar or officially looking) domain names. I can imagine quite a number of domain names pileing up in the course of time.
However, the problem is less drastic over here in Germany because most university DNS entries usually have a UNI- prefix in the second to last component. Anyone registring such a domain who does not represent a university should know that he is heading for trouble, and it is rather unlikely that random collisions occur.
that was a while ago. this is "news"?
EDU rules allow a 4-year university to have only one permanent .edu domain. You might know of a few universities that have more than one. Kansas State University is one of those. Somebody got the brilliant idea to move from ksu.edu to k-state.edu. (Whatever dumbass thought of that should be shot, but that's just my opinion.) They were allowed to have two for a transitional period. Fortunately the plan died (last I heard) and KSU will stick with ksu.edu. That's supposed to be the only time a university can have more than one .edu domain--for a transition period.
WhereI'm coming from: I spent the last 5 years (first as a student, then in IT and the Dean of Students Office) at a college that had a not very disimilar situation regarding a student run site that used{collegename}.com as its address; I am now in a Dean of Students Office at a college that has yet to be deviled with such a problem.
...well, given the way everyone else on the net treats domain names, it isn't surprising that they do. On the other hand, it does seem both silly and wasteful.
.edu site, or something seperate. The reason for this is simple--most people don't know how to browse the web, and just stil .com at the end of whatever they're looking for. ...if they're looking for a college site, and instead come up with porn, or--even worse--something hateful using the school's name, then the school is going to have to waste incriddible amounts of time/energy/money explaining that it isn't their site, and trying to make amends with andry people.
...tuition is rarely a money-maker for colleges; infact, at the (small, liberal arts) colleges I'm familar with, tuition doesn't even always cover the actual cost of a student being at the college. This is why colleges spend so much energy in raising money from alums and outside doners--it's the only way to keep things running. ...it's also the way to fund purchasing a .com site; just find some alums/trustees/donors who are on board, and have them donate a sum expressively for that purpose.
Should Drexel have 300+ domain names?
It does make a lot of sense for colleges to purchase their {collegename}.com site (if it is unowned), maintaining it as either a mirror of their
It doesn't matter that legally it isn't the College's responsibility--the College will lose the preception battle on this one, *particularly* if the offending site is about the college.
The answer is simple--buy the bloody site.
I don't feel that this resitricts the expression of students or anyone else; it's still easy to put up a site called {collegename}student.com or {collegename}sucks.com or whatever...
And I wouldn't worry about tuition dollars being used to make the purchase.
...Of course, any College that hasn't trademarked their name is also asking for a whole world of hurt.
Censorship is always a touchy issue, but a private school is in fact allowed to practice it. The first amendment is protecting us from the government imposing censorship. A private company is still able to warn employees: either you stop saying that or you will be fired. A school is still able to tell students that they can't print something in a school funded paper.
An example: Chelsea Clinton attended Stanford from 1997 to 2001. I hear that Stanford takes a strict view on enforcing privacy for its students, and in this case they apparently enforced a ban on stories about Chelsea. Well, a student columnist was fired for writing a story about the ban the University had put in place. Doesn't sound very fair does it? But it's within their rights.
You can always bring pressure on the school, and I assume such has happened in the past. But I don't agree with arguments that a school should not be allowed to buy up domain names in an attempt to keep the most obvious avenues of criticism closed.
Jim Robinson
or at least, that's not all of the story... if you followed what was happening, you'll know that they bullied the students who owned drexel.com out of the domain name, by threatening litigation.
one of the students who owned the name was mysteriously kicked out ! and so they finally settled, and sold the domain name, barely enough to pay their lawyer.
i knew the kids who owned the domain name, and there is more to this story, that they couldn't tell me.
it seems that drexel got angry when students who were displeased with the school and it's administration, discussed their dissatisfaction on the forum. i guess if someone types in drexel.com, they don't want you seeing anything about drexel's bad side. oh well.
i'm a student at drexel now, and finishing up my sentence there. i'd reccommend against anybody who is looking for colleges to even consider this place. they're just bastards, really. go somewhere else.
I partly agree. If they want to buy a bunch of drexel*.* domains they can do it. But if they were doing it to silence people's opinions on the university I would really have to question whether it would be a fit educational facility for my son.
how many schools out there purchase domains with no intent to use them Why does it matter how many others do it? What bearing does it have on your school?
See above.
And finally, should student tuition be used in this manner? How presumptuous to think you have any say in how your tuition is spent. You don't wonder aloud what McDonald's does with your cash after you buy a Happy Meal, do you? And if you don't like it, you don't give them the money.
I am not part of the McDonald's community for 4+ years. McDonald's will not solicit me for funds to build a new facility on campus. I do not go to Micky D's and get several thousand of dollars in debt to better myself and work towards a future.
I have the right, as a parent paying my child's tuition or as a student, to question where every cent goes. If the University is blowing $1000s to horde a bunch of frivolous domain names and that money could be spent on something even remotely useful I have a right to call foul on that decision. Being part of that experience is a good thing and will help a student when they leave for the "real world." You are seriously underselling a college education if all you think it means is paying some money and attending some classes.
I guess the real question is "Why do people post tempest-in-a-teapot stories to Slashdot?"
No. The real question is why do people who don't give a rip about the article waste their supposedly precious time and whine about the content.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
I went to Drexel from 96 to 99, but after I was in a near-fatal auto accident in March of 99 that caused me to be in the hospital for a month, and a wheelchair for two more, they decided it wasn't a valid reason for me to miss a term of class, and cancelled all of my financial aid. Gee, thanks!
Anyway, yeah, this is standard operating procedure for Drexel. They put me on probation for having an A record referencing a non-drexel domain pointing to my linux box (and turned off my ResNet access). I was wondering where Drexel.Com went...
A point of fact, however. Drexel Furniture -is- related to Drexel University. A. J. Drexel founded both. And Drexel Hill, PA was named such because AJ Drexel's family was from there. Etc, etc. Remember, Anthony J Drexel was a bigwig back then. Lotsa cash, power, etc.
-j (ujdisher@mcs account still lives, too!)
"To err is human, to forgive is simply not my policy." --root
Having gone to a community college and a private institution I have to say that this viewpoint is by far too narrow. Whether you want to believe it or not, there are enormous differences between the experience you have at a community college and a university but none of those differences support your simplistic capitalistic arguement. Still, I'll argue it from your standpoint.
You are not paying tuition for just classes. You are paying tuition for an investment in your future. I'm paying for good study areas, a safe campus, good equipment, quality classrooms.
I'm paying for the chance to make good contacts, join organizations and for the chance to be an active participant in the community if I so desire. In return, the college gets the opprotunity to receive donations from me once I'm an alumnus. The more personal the experience is for the student the better the chance that the college will continue to receive funding from them.
That need to instill a sense of community within the individual requires giving the student a voice in how their money is spent. And if that voice is loud enough, it behooves the university to take it into account when they make their budget.
Whether one takes complete advantage of what is being offered is up to the student. To take a spin off of your McDonalds analogy, just because I buy a happy meal does not mean I have to eat all of my fries or finish my coke. But by the same token, you have no right to limit another's experience just because you think the only entitlement you are paying for is some books and a few hours in a classroom.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie