Marketing On a .EDU Domain

wrttnwrd, an Internet marketer, opens a can of whup-ass on LinkAdage and the Pickering Institute, which have teamed up to rent blog space on a .edu domain for $50 a month. Technically legal maybe but undermining of the trust a .edu engenders.

Comments

All the education you need!

[billy901]

A legal loophole that exploits school should not be allowed. Not only do our tax dollars go to school so that they can have .edu domain names, but they are being exploited. On the other side, this will make a lot of money! I have to applaud the people who made this because they were smart and will make a lot of money. This will likely be a large blog, based on some stats I have of old blogs.

Re:All the education you need!

[edlinfan]

As far as I see it, advertising on an EDU is perfectly ethical if it is used to subsidize bandwidth (and NOT line the pockets of a greedy bureaucrat).

Not only do our tax dollars go to school so that they can have .edu domain names, but they are being exploited.

And when the schools introduce a method of reducing their need for your hard-earned money, you complain?

Re:All the education you need!

[TheRealMindChild]

A legal loophole that exploits school should not be allowed. Not only do our tax dollars go to school so that they can have .edu domain names, but they are being exploited. On the other side, this will make a lot of money!

So... life ISN'T fair?! Wait until I tell everyone!

Re:All the education you need!

[Seumas]

I don't see what the problem is. If it's okay to advertise mcdonald's on a child's report card, stuff his school full of taco bell, pizza hut, subway as well as pepsi and coke machines and pump "educational" television feeds with customized advertising to them in the class room, then what's wrong with a banner ad or something on a *.edu?

It's 2008. I think the idea that educational institutions are anything but commercial meat-grinders has expired.

Re:All the education you need!

[Belial6]

"It's 2008. I think the idea that educational institutions are anything but commercial meat-grinders has expired."

Honestly, most people have either not figured this out, or are in complete denial about this.

Re:All the education you need!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I used to think all of my wall mounted plaques made me far better than my fellow men, until I met a few guys who changed my mind.)

I once had a prof who told his classes that the only positive thing getting a Ph.D. would do for you was to make sure you'd never again be afraid to talk to another Ph.D. because you'd know they knew just as little as you did.

Re:All the education you need!

[Chaos1]

Where exactly do you live? I ask since I have not seen any of the examples you've give. I'd also be sure to kick some school board butt if they tried.

Re:All the education you need!

[Chaos1]

I originally posted this in the grandparent by accident... but where exactly do you live where this goes on? I have never seen anything like this on my child report card, nor have they ever been fed fast food outside of school trips. I'd be sure to kick some school board butt if they tried.

Re:All the education you need!

[Nullav]

And when the schools introduce a method of reducing their need for your hard-earned money, you complain?

Loudly, and until they take a cut in funding to make up for their new source of revenue. They can profit on it when they stop receiving funding for whatever they're using to make more money.

Re:All the education you need!

[JorDan Clock]

There are a few schools in my area (Southeast Michigan) that have fast food in their cafeteria. Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, etc.. It's far from universal, but it's becoming more prevalent as schools try to cut costs and increase revenue.

Re:All the education you need!

[krazytekn0]

If people were willing to pass the tax measures that schools ask for than schools wouldn't be resorting to these kinds of things. The problem is simple, voters don't want to pay for schools, schools have to prostitute themselves to commercial interests because they still have to pay their bills whether the voters want to or not.

Re:All the education you need!

[Anonymous Coward]

>mcdonald's on a child's report card
citation needed

Re:All the education you need!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It's 2008. I think the idea that educational institutions are anything but commercial meat-grinders has expired.

No, the idea is very much alive. The existence of these various outrages doesn't mean the idea is dead; it means we should fight against the new outrages that pop up.

Re:All the education you need!

[dwater]

It's 2008. I think the idea that educational institutions are anything but commercial meat-grinders has expired. You sound like the CEO of a well known UK-based ISP. All you missed out were the bollocks.

Re:All the education you need!

[geminidomino]

My high school was doing this 10 years ago. Hempstead, Long Island, NY

Re:All the education you need!

[boris111]

Not to be trite, but you'd think documentaries (mockumentaries) like SuperSize Me would bring attention to just how bad that really is. You'd think it would be on the decline. That's sad.

Re:All the education you need!

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is neutrality. Can you be neutral when you have a sponsor?

I have never trusted any .edu site more than any other domain.. but if someone does that this would be a kick in the nuts to them.

Re:All the education you need!

[WNight]

The problem is that they're government schools. They get your kids, and your tax money, no matter what. Basically, they just aren't accountable to any of the groups that the people feel should be their bosses, the parents as taxpayers, or the children as the receivers of the teaching. Instead, schools are indebted only to our system of handouts and meeting those arbitrary metrics.

I'd stop dealing with a private school that did this, but as a public school they get to double-dip, taking tax money *and* getting paid for pushing marketing on the kids, and the government keeps stuffing kids in with hardly any concern over the desires of the parents or students.

It's not the poorest schools that are doing this either. If this was some inner-city crack-shack that was doing this to afford rat traps, or school breakfasts, it might be forgivable. Instead it's always some fairly wealthy school (who wants to advertise to poor kids?) that's seeking ever more money.

You can tell how much a school really needs money by how closely its administration building (where the principal/dean is most of the time) matches the condition of the rest of the campus. If one is posh and the other not, the school (like many) has a lot of fat to cut in administrative areas before they really get close to needing money. If on the other hand administrators work in worse conditions than students, they probably do need the money.

It's a tax-based thing, I can't pick a school I trust and fund it - my taxes go to help the badly run schools that spend more on admin toys and pompous architecture than teaching as much as they help any other school. Because of that I do fight schools' tax grabs, like all other tax grabs, because I have absolutely no oversight over that money once they take it and I can be sure they aren't as careful with it as I would be, nor half as useful to students or society.

Re:All the education you need!

[nlfrederick]

The school I graduated from is actually quite the opposite. We never had any fast food in our actual cafeteria, and they have cut down on the number of days that they serve certain foods - like pizza and french fries. My University that I attend, however, has an A&W and a Pizza Hut in our Student Union Building and a Subway in our Student Recreation Center. But I think that is pretty much the norm for most public universities our size. We have probably right around 7500 students here, I'd estimate.

Re:All the education you need!

[krazytekn0]

I don't know about your locale, But my mother spent 12 years of her life in school oversight as a volunteer school board president. The board cared about the STUDENTS and had to make difficult decisions with very little support from the community. People just didn't care to be involved, they wouldn't pass the taxes to pay for a new school when we were having to run a three track school year (basically three separate "schools" using the same facilities). I spent nearly my entire young life going to school board meetings that were open to the public and seeing the same 10 - 15 parents in there for OVER 10 YEARS. And these were not the same parents that complained that the school "doesn't listen" and has no "oversight". Sorry but you actually have to get off your butt and get involved to have an effect.

If the schools in your area are not accountable to the parents (that care enough to get involved and actually GO to the board meetings) then I feel sorry for you. But the school district I live in is supremely supported by volunteers and community involvement. We have commercial food service in the school, I don't like it and when my son is going to school I will take care of his lunch. BUT... We have commercial lunches because the community refused to pass appropriation for more food service workers, yet still expects an inexpensive lunch to be provided for the students. If that isn't the absolute epitome of "community oversight" than tell me what is? Is taxing you without allowing you to vote on it better? Not to mention that most of the people that work at public schools could go somewhere else and do the same exact job and get paid a lot more money (not just teachers, drivers, administrators, mechanics, maintenance people... EVERYONE.)

This is in no way a double dip. If anything the public is trying to double dip. "Don't push cost of living taxes on me but I expect my kid to get lunch for free too." The reason any governmental body works a certain way in a democratic society is the people. There's no getting around it. If people cared enough they would take action. Sadly people don't care about their childrens' educations enough, and the few that do send their kids to private schools. Private schools are not better because they cost money, private schools tend to be better because the parents give a shit.

Re:All the education you need!

[krazytekn0]

just one more follow-up...

The school district I live in is over 400 square miles and one of the largest by population in my state. And I have seen multiple instances where 1 single parent has caused enormous changes to the way the district is run. The only difference between that parent and the thousands of other parents in the district is willingness to do something. To be the "people" in "We the people". So when you represent yourself as so appalled at how terrible the public schools are run all I have to say is what have you tried to do about it other than vote against money that the school is asking for? Oh and before we get into how important and busy everyone is the person I was talking about was truly a single parent with 3 children and a more-than-full time job. And then my mother who volunteered for so many years had 4 children and a full-time job.

"all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" keep doing nothing... it's been working so well for our children for the last 30 years.

Re:All the education you need!

[RockDoctor]

"It's 2008. I think the idea that educational institutions are anything but commercial meat-grinders has expired."

Honestly, most people have either not figured this out, or are in complete denial about this.

Might I suggest that you watch the (animated) video of "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd. Turn the sound off if you don't like the music, but the imagery of the (animated) video is pretty unambiguous. The lyrics don't leave large amounts of work for your imagination either.

That was about 1980, and I recall it being quite upsetting for my school teachers at the time - they couldn't disagree with it's premise, but to have it put so bluntly and unsubtly was a shock.

Things have gone downhill since then.
 
(There might be live/stage versions of the song's video too - I don't know and I don't care enough about anyone's music to find out how to find out.)

Re:All the education you need!

[WNight]

You totally ignored my comments about judging the needs of the school. You just blindly berate me for not forking out, without knowing where I am, what schools I could be talking about, or what my complaints with them would be.

Many schools I believe are serious when they say need money. I try to help these. Others have spent too much on decoration for me to believe them when they beg for money.

Regardless, I try to donate money to schools directly instead of helping them perpetuate this tax-grab. When I'm taxed to support schools I lose the power to influence them. I'd rather that the school understand that their money comes from me, not the government. That way they'll serve my wishes, not try to meet some wacky federal curriculum that will soon enough bar the teaching of evolution.

You assume these schools would do what, with the money I'm withholding? Cure cancer? Provide lunches? Pay teachers? Those things I support. But where on my taxes can I indicate what I'm willing to fund?

(That said, taxes are just a travesty. I've funded the murder of an Iraqi, who did nothing but live in a country whose unelected leader pissed off Bush. By our own definition, I and every other taxpayer in the USA/Canada/etc should be charged for terrorism - for providing financial support to a terrorist organization. If I can't choose the "Don't murder people with my money" box, I'm not surprised I can't check "Don't waste this on stupid school policies" either.)

Re:All the education you need!

[krazytekn0]

so you've never been actively involved in oversight of a public school? Which is your right. I'm not berating you for "not forking out" I'm berating you for the attitude 'I have no way of oversight' when you obviously have never been to a school board meeting to participate in the oversight that the VOLUNTEER school board is waiting for from the community. You want a check box on your taxes or an online form... sorry but this isn't facebook, it's the real world, you have to do real world things to get real world results. It's a lot easier to complain on /. than it is to be a responsible citizen. I don't care about your money nearly as much as your hypocrisy to say blindly that you have no way of effecting change in your local public schools exposes the fact that you simply haven't tried. One determined citizen can make a world of change but those people try first. Spending 10 minutes in a voting booth every year or two doesn't make a responsible citizen in a representative government. And since you have cited nothing but "money that [you're] withholding" as opposed to actually trying to change the way the school is run.

What is so horrible about the way the school in your area is run? Are there any concrete examples that you have without going out and researching it now? I don't think so, because you would have brought that up already, you haven't made one single remark about how in actuality your local district is run. Do you even know who the board members are and what they care about? Who did you vote for in the last school board election and have they been effective?

Or is all your bitching just a case of your prejudice against all governmental bodies coming out? And you don't actually care about educating the next generation enough to be their voice and protector. Do you just want to feel smart on /. and whine about the "government" that you have "no control" over?

And please let's not try to back track now It's already apparent that you don't go to board meetings and you don't know anything that you haven't seen in the newspaper about how the local schools are doing. I hope to heaven that you don't have a child attending those schools though. Parents like you make the rest of us have to work a lot harder to get the children a good solid education.

I'm not claiming to be perfect or have perfect grasp of all or even of this issue. But I know my school board and I have the superintendents phone number. My son will be starting school in 3.5 years and I want to make sure he gets a good education when he does. It's my responsibility.

Re:All the education you need!

[WNight]

You're trolling. Spending more time setting up strawmen "do you just want to feel smart" "who did you vote for" "are there any concrete examples you have (NOW)" rather than actually responding to my point. Tax vs Donation.

You bitched about people fighting schools on tax - I tried to explain why. You are right there are ways to influence schools (PTA meeting, etc) but my point is that they are all less effective the more money a school gets from taxes.

My examples of an unresponsive school date mainly from the last time I was forcibly involved with a school, when I attended.

The school had a habit of spending "leftover" funds on unneeded things, with the excuse that "there's not enough left to get anything that would help students". We provided examples of things that could be done with that money, and of just saving it till next year by putting a down-payment on something. They didn't even bother refuting our points, just went ahead and wasted the money.

One the other hand, an alternate school I attended was incredibly frugal. I donated $5 while attending and the teacher bought multiple (used) textbooks with it. He'd even asked which subjects I cared about most to make sure he got books I'd support.

Large amounts (the Alternate's entire yearly budget, likely) were wasted by the mainstream school, because their budget was paid from taxes. They knew they'd get it again next year, with no regard for its use this year. Whereas the alternate, having to make due with donations that it wouldn't get again unless it used them well, provided value to the students and the person providing the donation.

I've seen the same behavior since, in schools and other charities. If the money is guaranteed they'll waste it at year-end to make sure they get it again next year (WTF!?) and if the money is tight they'll woo the community much more attentively.

When I responded to you I was explaining why I fight taxes, not schools. You then started mudslinging and assuming I'm totally apathetic. You need to pay more careful attention to where I'm going with this.

All else being equal, a school(/anything) cares more about my opinions when they have to ask for my money.

That's it.

Because of that I'm down on taxes to support schools and up on community involvement. Taxes are just money and even in proper supply often end in rundown and unloved schools full of violent prisoners. On the other hand even the poorest communities can have respect for their schools, teachers, and students. If we tax people we assure the basic funding, but deal the schools an almost fatal blow of apathy. Now that schools are tax-funded, everyone thinks it's taken care of and doesn't go to PTA meetings.

Similar things are hands-off with similar disastrous results. The army is being paid with tax money. You quite literally pay a share of the money spent torturing people in Guantanamo. The government refuses to listen to the people who say they don't support torture. If our army were a charity, giving to it would be a war crime and/or terrorist support. But because it's a government entity we can't even refuse to support it.

I support the army, and I support schools - I think we need the function of both to be fulfilled. But I'm not liking the service or respect I'm getting from these institutions. I believe they'd both be much better if funding was not guaranteed. (Trust-fund children often end up spoiled, so to do institutions.)

When you're a taxpayer you're a wallet, preferably without a voice.

But, you already wrote that off as "whining about the government I have no control over". I can see that you desperately want my support and activism if it's exactly aligned with yours, but want me to fuck off if I've got different priorities. I'm terribly sorry that my inability to choose the actions I fund is bothering you. I'll just slink off and support all those tax grabs then.

Re:All the education you need!

[krazytekn0]

My examples of an unresponsive school date mainly from the last time I was forcibly involved with a school, when I attended. Either a. you were only involved in education when forced, or b. That was the only time the school was unresponsive to your concerns. Therefore either; aa. You have not been involved without being forced OR bb. The school listens to you now.

When you're a taxpayer you're a wallet, preferably without a voice. If you had ever cared to try and voice your opinions to the board you would know that this simply isn't true with regard to school districts at large.

And then there's your idea that I'm telling you to pay whatever "tax grabs". That's not what I've been saying at all. I want your activism however it's aligned, I never gave you an agenda, I just said that if you care enough to complain you should care enough to get involved. Whether your desires are that the school spends less money or builds a space ship, or plants a hemp garden doesn't matter to me at this point. What matters to me is that instead of insulting people that are trying to be frugal by selling advertising to bring in enough money, you could be offering alternative solutions at your local school board meetings.

Oh and let's talk about your double standard! Your "alternate" school was doing great things by being frugal, but these public schools are doing something evil when they try to find an alternative revenue stream to taxation? Look back about 50-60 years (or more if you'd like) the amount of money that goes to schools has not kept pace with inflation (not talking about college here). Your generation pays less for education than the generation before it. Public schools have to be much more frugal now than ever. The average class size has been going up for 30 years. Teachers' salaries (adjusted for inflation) have been going down for that entire period of time. So... extrapolating a little bit teachers get paid less to do more work, schools still don't have enough money without selling advertising. Man I'm sure glad public schools don't have to be frugal! More and more kids have single parents or two parents with full time jobs. Putting strain on schools now to not only educate children but to parent them as well. The federal government mandates programs to provide poor students with free or reduced cost lunch, but does not fund this in any way. The district I live in a few years ago got a donation of some outdated computer equipment. We didn't have enough busses to get all the kids home (there were several bus routes that kids had to wait at school until one of the busses had dropped 1 load of kids off.) The school found another school in the state that needed some computers and they traded computers for 2 buses. Those bastards to waste our tax money by not spending it on those two buses!

Re:All the education you need!

[WNight]

a: You're a troll. b: You merely act like it.

When you're a taxpayer you're a wallet, preferably without a voice. If you had ever cared to try and voice your opinions to the board you would know that this simply isn't true with regard to school districts at large. This is hardly related. I'm sure the school board would listen to my concerns if I went to a PTA meeting. They'd probably individually care even. But the organization as a whole isn't going to be half as responsive as if I was writing them a cheque.

Your "alternate" school was doing great things by being frugal, but these public schools are doing something evil when they try to find an alternative revenue stream to taxation? My example of the schools was to show responsiveness to concerns. That's hardly the same as advertising to the students. You're conflating again.

The regular school was funded through tax money, the alternate was funded mainly by donation. The regular school cared very little about our feelings on waste - not enough to even justify their actions. Not surprising, considering they already had the money.

The alternate on the other hand was very responsive to concerns because they still had to get the money. That is what made them frugal.

Advertising to students is something that most students and parents I've talked to or heard have been against. Advertising is pretty much, by definition, the last thing I'd want to subject children to.

You make a good case for the sorry state of public schools. But that doesn't justify them acting against the wishes of their financial supporters and students.

As for the computers, good for them - in this case. But if the computers were given to them because parents wanted their children to use them, I'd be annoyed if they traded them away for buses.

Re:All the education you need!

[krazytekn0]

Look... 1. Do you know the difference between the school board and the PTA... It's a rather large difference. 2. YOU ARE WRITING THEM A CHECK AND THEY KNOW IT. 3. You've never voiced your concerns as an adult to your school district. You said so yourself. 4. Do you understand the definition of frugal? It has nothing to do with "responsive to concerns" 5.Fine, you don't want them advertising... at least HELP find a way around it. Or would you rather they just gave up hiring good teachers and keeping the schools clean, buying fuel for the buses? Schools aren't like the federal government, they have to pay for things with real money. 6. In my district (I have no idea about others around the country) a ballot measure was required to allow the schools to use advertising dollars. It passed how is this "against the wishes" of the community? 7. The computers were donated because Raytheon wanted a tax write off. Our district already had a fully stocked computer lab. In addition this deal was put before the community in a Town Hall meeting. The people in the community who gave a shit and showed up had a say in whether/how the deal went down.

Serious question here: are you actually suggesting that the schools just quit paying their bills that the advertising allows them to pay? Because YOU obviously don't want to provide that money through your property taxes.

Oh and seriously quit saying PTA... The PTA doesn't make any of the decisions that you claim to be concerned about, the school board does. Your ignorance is truly wearing me out. Respond if you'd like, but I won't be reading it.

Re:All the education you need!

[krazytekn0]

One last thing before I leave this thread... Why do you feel the need for name calling... we were having a relatively civil discussion (heated yes, but not juvenile as you have now made it)

Re:All the education you need!

[WNight]

When, oh mouthy one, did I claim that the PTA was the school board? However, I think it's reasonable to expect to find some representatives of the school board at PTA meetings. Perhaps this isn't the best place to petition them, but I didn't say it was.

However, your hostile attitude and inability to admit that you're wrong is ample demonstration of why I called you a troll.

Your sarcastic comments, rude lists, implying insult to your mother's honor, calling me ignorant and juvenile, and then writing a "I'm storming out now, so you needn't bother saying anything" post are a few examples from this thread.

You're continually putting words in my mouth, and trying to trap me into - what? An admission that I don't get involved with schools much? Wow. Why didn't you just ask?

I'm not trying to prove that schools are always wasteful, merely that I have seen them this way and it would influence how I'd be willing to fund them.

Frugal means thrifty. He was thrifty because he didn't have a guaranteed source of money. Needing to get money at every turn made him frugal. Was this really so hard to figure out that you needed to imply, rudely yet again, that I didn't know what the word meant?

Trust in .EDU domains

[Mrs. Grundy]

Last time I was at an .edu domain all I saw was photos of perfectly diverse students hanging out on perfectly manicured lawns. Not really something that engendered trust. Why would anyone have any trust in a blog just because the author is associated with a University? All sorts of Universities have faculty and students associated with them who can say anything they like on their "edu" blogs just like the .com blogs. One might think that bloggers associated with universities may be smarter or better writers, but I doubt experience would confirm this.

Re:Trust in .EDU domains

[wrttnwrd]

That's what drives me nuts about this. We're a fairly sophisticated audience. The average web user sees a .edu and thinks "Oh, information!". I see this every day, trust me.

Re:Trust in .EDU domains

[Anonymous Coward]

I always imagine that those diverse students louging about on the university lawn on a brilliant day in late spring are engrossed in a discussion of Proust, seamlessly following a discourse on the political economies of east African nations. Until an apple happens to fall on one of their heads, whereupon a succession of quick insights will lead to a working hypothesis of the Grand Unified Field Theory.

Re:Trust in .EDU domains

[binaryspiral]

That's what drives me nuts about this. We're a fairly sophisticated audience. The average web user sees a .edu and thinks "Oh, information!".

I see this every day, trust me. Funny, when I see a .edu tld, I see student loans... :(

Re:Trust in .EDU domains

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, normally, I would trust a site if I recognize the institution that it's from, but that calls into questions sites like the following: http://fuck-the-skull-of-jesus.mit.edu/

Re:Trust in .EDU domains

[hcmtnbiker]

That's exactly what I say. Let them taint the .edu TLD, because it SHOULDN'T be trusted. Just because a source has the .edu tacked onto the end of it doesn't mean anything besides that the author has access to a school network. Stop making things more then what they are, .edu is just a TLD for schools to have so you don't have to go "hmm... was that dartmouth.com, dartmouth.org, dartmouth.net???"

Re:Trust in .EDU domains

[PopeRatzo]

Can you imagine? An internet marketer is worried about "trust"?

Really? who looks at .edu?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Very few link clickers look at and parse URLs and very few really know the difference between .edu, .net, .com etc.

And anyone savvy enough to know the difference should also be sceptical enough to not get suckered.

Re:Really? who looks at .edu?

[Galactic Dominator]

The question of whether a user knows the difference between .edu, .com etc is not the point(although I would disagree in that most users would trust an .edu result over .com those that are capable of using a search engine anyways).

The reason this is a worthy news story is that search engines value inbound links coming from a .edu over equivalent .com page/site. It would be much easier to game the system by building up PR and trust for the .edu domain and then either selling high-weight links off it, or use it benefit your own company's site(s) and the organic keyword specific to them.

My boss forwarded me the announcement this morning but I declined as to me it's begging google to blacklist you.

Here's a bit from the email...

Many webmasters are paying a lot of money for a single page or link on an EDU domain. So could you imaging what you could do with an EDU Blog that you control and write posts to whenever you want for only $50 per month? Any webmaster that knows a bit about web marketing could turn one of these EDU blogs into a marketing powerhouse and money maker very easily. That's why your comment is irrelevant...to some extent the people that utilize these services don't care about their reader or what they trust or don't. They care about what the search engines trust.

Re:Really? who looks at .edu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which, of course, can be spelled 'sceptical' or 'skeptical'.

Re:Really? who looks at .edu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which, of course, can be spelled 'sceptical' or 'skeptical'.

Not if the municipality you live in has a sewer system

Interesting to say the least...

[RasputinAXP]

It seems that pi.edu is not a CHEA accredited institution. It claims founding in 1994 and accreditation by the Association of Christian Schools and Colleges (ACSC) which is not on the nationally recognized accreditation list. This means it's not supposed to be valid for them to receive a .edu TLD for their institution. They've only had it since 2006, and their technical contact uses a hotmail address according to the .edu whois on whois.educause.net.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Re:Interesting to say the least...

[OverlordQ]

Not to mention somebody tried to eBay the school last year.

Re:Interesting to say the least...

[fropenn]

CHEA does not accredit individual schools - CHEA works at the next level to ensure the quality of accreditors who in turn perform the accreditation of individual schools.
http://www.chea.org/pdf/chea_glance_2006.pdf

There are many, many .edu domains that do not represent accredited institutions. The problem is that you could get a .edu domain without consideration of your accreditation status before 2001 - in 2001 everyone with a .edu domain was "grandfathered" and allowed to keep that domain even if they were not accredited. I'm not sure what the rules are on transferring a .edu domain, but that might be another possible way to obtain a .edu domain without being accredited.
http://www.educause.edu/edudomain/eligibility.asp

Some tips on determining whether or not a .edu domain represents an accredited school are described in this site:
http://www.chea.org/degreemills/default.htm

Well then.

[The Ancients]

If you knew a large group of people with common interests who don't like seeing the internet being misused in such a way, many of whom have access to big fat pipes, and plenty of time on their hands and nothing better to do, you could flood the site with traffic for a few days to send your message across.

Dunno where you'd ever find a group of people like that though...especially ones who have scant regard for the law in instances such as this...

Re:Well then.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you knew a large group of people with common interests who don't like seeing the internet being misused in such a way, many of whom have access to big fat pipes, and plenty of time on their hands and nothing better to do, you could flood the site with ad views for a few days to send your message across.

Re:Well then.

[WNight]

Yes, with what are apparently fake ad views because they happen at 10/second from the same host. Any ad provider is going to recognize those as not being legitimate views and not pay out. And that's if they're paid for impressions, not clicks.

If there were too many fake views that it was hard for the ad company to pay out it might not be profitable to continue... If you've got a botnet, maybe it'd be worth pulling it off of the RIAA for a day or two. :)

About the site

[FredFredrickson]

The site is located at: http://blogs.pi.edu/ and if you visit the parent site: http://pi.edu/ it looks less like a school and looks more like one of those over-the-internet places... but with very little actual information. It makes me wonder if they obtained the EDU status by some technicality to begin with... there's no evidence this "school" has any students.

It looks they use that same blog software on their home page, I'd say it's pretty obvious this whole set-up was with selling blogs in mind. Think about it: "pi.edu" that's prime internet real-estate.

Re:About the site

[Anonymous Coward]

... it looks less like a school and looks more like one of those over-the-internet places... lol.

They say they actually have a PhD program, but the contact email is pickeringusa@hotmail.com. lollolLOL.

Re:About the site

[FredFredrickson]

Additionally, if you check some of the "latest" blog posts for some of their clients, it seems this is ONLY being used for ugly spam-ish marketing...

This is basically the next venue that causes EVERY google search to show those damn spam pages every time- because *surprise* these are .EDU pages- they weigh more for Google and other search engines. This isn't about trust in the EDU name. This is about capitalizing on our trust that what an EDU has to deserves priority in our search engines because the barrier to entry almost guaruntees anti-spam in the EDU category.

Some sample posts:

http://domainparking.pi.edu/2008/04/15/domain-parking-education/

Coming soon will be educational posts about monetizing domain names using advanced web 2.0 services like WhyPark.com. http://news.pi.edu/2008/04/15/stranger-safety-lesson-plans/

Join Now for FREE at www.SSNews.org, get regular security alerts and find many stranger safety lesson plans. http://sonderman.pi.edu/2008/04/15/distance-learning-degrees-better-than-their-reputation/

On my About page I've told you I'm of a somewhat contrarian spirit, so to put my money where my mouth is, here's my take on distance learning degrees - which are not too unexpectedly generally frowned upon (and how! and how!) within the august halls of conventional academe.

Re:About the site

[vladsinger]

Ha! The "About Pickering Institute" link on the main page has been Rick Rolled.
=p

Most of the site "content" seems to be boilerplate 2nd rate higher education description - clearly just a construct for the advertising purposes.

Re:About the site

[nacturation]

Think about it: "pi.edu" that's prime internet real-estate. I don't know... it all seems a bit irrational to me.

Re:About the site

[FredFredrickson]

If you try to "register" for this school, it's $100 registration charge. They have a form for credit cards, but it's not secured, and if you put in an invalid card (or invalid data anywhere on the form) it accepts it and says "Thank You"

The whole thing's a scam.

Since when does .EDU infer trust?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, maybe I missed it, but when did .edu domains start inferring trust? While I'm fully aware the registrant of a .edu domain needs to be an accredited educational institution, I do not believe that I would take the blog posts of a user posting on a site with a .EDU extension over anything else.... Or should I?

Re:Since when does .EDU infer trust?

[Dachannien]

Somehow, it seems strangely on-topic in this thread to be overly pedantic about the difference between "infer" and "imply".

So, to answer your question: never, but not for the reason you think.

Re:Since when does .EDU infer trust?

[R3N3G4D3]

I heard goatse is moving to a .gov domain

Re:Since when does .EDU infer trust?

[alshithead]

"I heard goatse is moving to a .gov domain"

I thought goatse started as .gov domain. Wasn't it the IRS main page? Hmmm...appropriate to have this discussion today too.

May not be a huge problem but...

[ulash]

I do not think that there is a significant part of the population who thinks whatever shows up in a .EDU page has to be 100% accurate. The beforementioned prefectly manicured lawns is an example of that as well as the homepage of any college student hosted under the said domain which may contain any falsehoods that student may see fit to put on there. As long as the contents of the page does not violate the Terms of Use by the hosting institution the student is free to post anything he or she wants. This however does not mean selling space is a good idea without any harm. Even though people who may come across an article on a .edu page knows that the contents may not be "true" there is still an implicit assumption that an institution of education would have -some- control over what is posted. I think this is reflected even in the PageRank ranking .edu pages higher. If the new service has much more lax restrictions on the content then I think this would cause more noticable problems.

Re:May not be a huge problem but...

[WNight]

Not because it's more likely "true", but because it's more likely what you're looking for, be it a blog, pics of drunk students passed out on the floor, or whatever. It's not that you "trust" them (.edu domains), just that you "trust" they're less likely to be wasting your time.

Of course, nobody really does, because the purpose of TLDs has been totally ignored (essentially) and doesn't serve its original purpose. goatse wasn't on Christmas Island, after all...

I'd be surprised if Google actually weighted .edu domains higher. If there is a bonus it's likely just from having the same domain as other people who aren't spammers, having non-spammers link to you, etc.

With your own lonely spam blog on your own lonely domain the .edu isn't going to be helping much.

Funny, zero comments on blogs.pi.edu..

[nobodyman]

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Somehow I have a feeling that my comments won't see the light of day.

Is the "Pickering Institute" for real?

[Animats]

Does the "Pickering Institute" even exist? Their home page is a WordPress blog. They have no contact information other than an e-mail address.

Their domain registration has an address of "2 Cityplace Drive, Suite 200, St. Louis, MO", which is also the address of Bin95.com, which does industrial equipment maintenance training.

Re:Is the "Pickering Institute" for real?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the point - it's pi.com, of course their info is supposed to send you in endless circles...

Re:Is the "Pickering Institute" for real?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the "Pickering Institute" even exist? Their home page is a WordPress blog. They have no contact information other than an e-mail address.

Obviously not...

Re:Is the "Pickering Institute" for real?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have got to be shitting me. I used to work for Mircosoft in their St. Louis office. Their office is at #3 City Place Drive, Suite 1100. Creve Coeur, MO 63141

Funny. It took me a double take when showed me that address. I don't remember the Pickering Institute but it has been a couple years since I was in the St. Louis as I moved to Seattle in 2003.

"undermining of the trust a .edu engenders."

[Anonymous Coward]

Undermining misplaced trust is a good thing. Anyone naive enough to trust a site because of its TLD needs... education. Or an ass kicking.

Re:"undermining of the trust a .edu engenders."

[ddelrio1986]

Maybe that's why they're visiting a .edu site...for education.

Hypocrisy, slashdot.org is thy name

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'all got some big brass ones to post an article like this... aren't .org domains supposed to be for non-profit organizations, et al?

Anyone else notice that slashdot.com redirects to slashdot.org, and not the other way around, as it should?

Hey, I've got no problem with Slashdot being a for-profit venture: I'm rooting for you, honest I am. But, for the sake of all that's nerdy, how about a little less hypocrisy and a little more honesty in advertising?

Yes, I know: "I must be new here".

Let the modbombing begin!

Re:Hypocrisy, slashdot.org is thy name

[Anonymous Coward]

Your information is outdated. According to Internic (http://www.internic.net/faqs/org-transition.html), .org was originally intended "for organizations that weren't commercial entities, educational institutions, network providers, or governmental agencies. In recent years registration in .org has become open and unrestricted (it will stay that way under its new operator.)"

Re:Hypocrisy, slashdot.org is thy name

[dreamchaser]

Quite correct, but when Slashdot went commercial .org's were still expected to be non-commerical. The call of hypocrisy is valid.

Just mining nature's bounty

[dvase]

From their Mission & Vision statement:

Pickering Institute provides an education which is an integral part of our society forming the foundation of democracy, equal opportunity, and the wise use of our precious natural resources. Does an EDU domain fall in the precious natural resources category?

The rules are not static

[EmbeddedJanitor]

So currently Google uses the .edu to pump up page rank. So what! When anyone tries to game the system it is easy enough for Google to just change this part of their page ranking algorithm to compensate (eg. don't add the .edu + modifier if the page is a blog). People have been gaming the system forever and Google have been combating the gaming too.

Re:The rules are not static

[Galactic Dominator]

Yeah, it really easy to change google algo now isn't it? I mean what it only took them 4 years to come with an answer to google bombs? There is far more involved than a simple algo change.

People have been gaming the system forever and Google have been combating the gaming too. That's kinda the whole point now isn't it? Except this to some extent is virgin territory for google --edu's are part of the foundational base of PR. The tone of your post would seem to indicate you believe google has done a decent job keeping up with the gamers of the system. I guess that's a subjective topic, but google's main motivation is to disallow PR being a bought and sold commodity, and if you're judging on that basis alone google is a miserable failure at enforcement.

Re:The rules are not static

[satoshi1]

How do you combat if something is a blog? Perhaps if it detects MovableType or WordPress, perhaps, but what if it is written in standard HTML? I kept an online journal in HTML before I learned of MovableType. Would you suggest that Google hire people to look at .edus to see if they have blogs on them? And then the person must figure out if the blog is actually related to the school or if they are just farming out the space/bandwidth for extra income.

Re:The rules are not static

[satoshi1]

That should read: How do you detect if something is a blog?

Re:The rules are not static

[GeorgeMcBay]

In this specific case, all Google has to do is look for domain==pi.edu, if true, reduce page rankings. Granted, this wouldn't scale if they were fighting against wide open abuse of edu domains, but that isn't happening now and is unlikely to happen due to the rules for getting an .edu (which this case shows can be circumvented, but doing so is still enough of a pain that it isn't something that is going to become widespread).

Re:The rules are not static

[Baricom]

Look for date-stamped text with text that always corresponds to the date, sinks further into the page, and eventually disappears onto other pages. Generate a readability score for a selection of pages; a blog is more likely to have a lower readability level. Look for forms that appear to be comment boxes. Look for metadata that indicates trackback and pingback support.

None of these methods are foolproof, but they don't need to be; they just need to be enough to help tilt the existing ranking algorithm one way or the other.

Re:The rules are not static

[the_womble]

It is not proven (IMHO not even that likely) that Google simply gives extra authority/link juice to .edu domains. What is probably happening is that a lot of .edu sites have characteristics, that Google likes - i.e. lots of content and lots of incoming links.

I find myself link to .edu and .ac.uk sites a lot because that is where I find primary sources and otherwise authoritative sources. I doubt I would ever link to this particular .edu.

I doubt the fake edu domain in question will do any better with Google than any other search engine spammer site. The main effect is that some people who thoroughly deserve it are going to waste money.

Re:The rules are not static

[WNight]

By the short additions, and pattern of links, and back links. And they don't need to know it's a blog, just that more of its links are to and from non .edu sites so it's likely not .edu related. If they do give a bonus to .edu sites, I imagine it'd be easy to change into .edu connected sites.

In fact, I can't imagine Google doing something static like that. Not all schools are on .edu domains so hard coding it wouldn't have been effective or even worth while.

Re:The rules are not static

[Galactic Dominator]

I finally found some confirmation that this isn't possible thanks to /. today. http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4259137.html Here's the relevant snippent

There have been a lot of fads in search of late, such as Human Assisted Search and contextual search. Do those get folded into search as a whole? What are real trends in search and what are fluff?

So let me first tell you about Google. At Google we do not manually change results. For example, if we find for a particular query that result No. 4 should be result No. 1, we do not have the capability to manually change it. We made that decision not to put that capability in the algorithmâ"we have to go and actually change the algorithm. That is, we have to find what weakness in the algorithm caused that result and find a general solution to that, evaluate whether a general solution really works and if itâ(TM)s better, and then launch a general solution. That makes the process slower, but it puts a lot more discipline on us and makes it more unbiased.

There are several vanity .edu domains

[koavf]

For those who were not aware: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.edu#Other_uses I personally find it a bit sad, but what are you going to do with grandfathered domains? -JAK

Re:There are several vanity .edu domains

[mythosaz]

I work for a company with a grandfathered .edu domain - not on the Wikipedia link.

Sure, chw.edu is a hospital, and, as such, has student doctors, but it's not a school, as such. It's web presense is redirected to a .org site.

Probably should have changed the default wp passwd

[jdigital]

Woops...

:)

eh

[friedman101]

Although I can't buy a blog from them my school is more than happy to sell me a wide variety of t-shirts and caps on their .edu domain. At least blogs can be considered an academic pursuit.

Re:Trust?

[wrttnwrd]

I don't. You don't. But average web surfer does. It's not OK to take advantage of that.

Yes they are!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

They emailed me a diploma!

Scam

[mbulge]

More proof that not even the editors read the links. The "about" page of the .edu in question links to a Rickroll video, and the application for registration immediately asks for credit card info using poorly written English. I suspect people will be more likely to fall for this because of the edu domain, which is a shame.

Rickroll

[Sinkael]

If you click the About Pickering link in the latest blog post, you get Rickrolled.

Re:Rickroll

[jdigital]

as i said.. they should have changed their default password. duh.

oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

...so THAT'S how you spell "whup-ass"

p.s. I love that expression - anyone know where it came from?

p.p.s. oh yeah, "The Internet" might know: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Transwiki:Open_a_can_of_whoop_ass

Re:oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

oh yeah, "The Internet" might know: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Transwiki:Open_a_can_of_whoop_ass I pity this fool.

Re:Probably should have changed the default wp pas

[davebarnes]

Very disappointing remark as I don't see any nasty changes on the pi.edu site.

At least attempt to look legit

[drumguru]

Wow, absolutely amazing. Not only do they ask for credit card info on a page that doesn't use an SSL cert but at the very top of the page they say "Please Complete This Form For Our Convenient." I noticed they don't offer an English major though ;)

Not just Pickering, it's also the FI.edu!

[sonofabeach]

I thought this story was going to be about the Franklin Institute, whose front page (www.fi.edu) is ad-free and looks like a normal museum page. But then when you see a page like this one, you see Google AdSense across the top. It does wonders for their credibility...

Re:Probably should have changed the default wp pas

[jdigital]

the odd link is a rickroll now.

Pickering Institute

[PuckSR]

Ah...so this is what Col. Pickering did after he got done with Professor Higgins.

So this must be a finishing institute for young girls. They are taken out of the streets, as young "gutter-snipes" and taught their vowels. Their final exam is a royal ball where they must behave as "proper young ladies".

If the guests at the ball figure out you are from the gutter...then you fail.
If they don't...you pass
If they think you are Hungarian...you pass with honors.

Sorry...I couldn't resist.

Re:Almost as bad as ...

[Nullav]

As long as it's not for profit, I fail to see how selling ads goes against anything on a .org site. Then again, how many people really associate non-restricted TLDs with categories? How many non-commercial .com sites do you come visit every day? It seems like a lot of sites just use it because it sounds better than '*.that-other-tld'. Just imagine 'Slashdot.info'.

Blackboard - doubleclick

[damonlab]

Many universities make use of Blackboard software for the online portion of their courses. Blackboard gives its users a doubleclick cookie when logging in.

Re:Almost as bad as ...

[Heembo]

.org's are unrestricted domains. There are no rules governing behavior on .org - it's just like .com. Anyone can get their paws on a .org and use them for profit, legally.

Re:Probably should have changed the default wp pas

[Anonymous Coward]

the odd link is a rickroll now. They fixed the change, but I haven't tried to put the video back up yet.

Re:Almost as bad as ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've registered most any of domain names I have registered in hopes to one day be able to make a profit off of them. ALthough none of them are, or were, ever home to ads or sales, we kept the .com "just in case". Always felt that registering a .org and then becoming "for profit" would look dumb.

A terrorists wish come true....

[ArIck]

With courses like "Preparing for Terrorism" and such would be what every terrorist wants to learn from an accrediated university.... Dont go to those trianing camps, come to us and for a very low fee we would teach you everything you need to know to prepare for terrorism.

I am sure Osama would be the first one to register

Playing fields

[ThirdPrize]

They sell of their playing fields to developers so why not sell off their web space to someone.

"a can of whup-ass"? Sorry?

[Viol8]

Can someone translate that into english for those of us who don't speak fluent hillbilly?

Re:"a can of whup-ass"? Sorry?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone translate that into english for those of us who don't speak fluent hillbilly? It's what all the kids did to you growing up, Mr. Smartass. ;)

.edu trust ?

[dbcad7]

What is it that is supposed to be trusted ?

And now the domain has become an accreditation of sorts... must be a legit school, because they have .edu on their web site ? ... considering there are many other schools in the world.. .edu is poorly used, because you have to be accredited to US standards.. so it's basically a marketing ploy for US schools.

Point of Order:

[Hillgiant]

Let the modbombing begin!

If you are going to use reverse psychology to get your post modded up, you really should make the effort to log on.

Re:Almost as bad as ...

[Nullav]

I really could have phrased that post a lot better. In the first sentence, I wasn't really referring to any laws when I said that. It was more about it being in good taste to do so, since .org is usually associated with non-profit organizations.

Why this could be bad

[blanks]

The article was written well but they guy didn't touch on what people will be doing with these sub domain names that is bad as well as how the SEO industry works. So I'll try to touch on this a bit. .edu domain names are considered a cash cow in the SEO/link selling industry. On many of the link exchange and link selling sites if someone is selling links on .edu domains you can see the monthly costs for a link on one of these sites sell for sometimes hundreds of dollars. Thankfully .edu links are very rare, but sometimes people get access to posting links on these domains; don't ask me how but I'm guessing it happens through bad practices.

But why do people care so much about getting links on .edu domains? Well most search engines assume that anything connected with a .edu domain is very relevant to what ever topic you have on the domain, and links going out of the domain are very relevant as well to the subject matter. Normally .edu domains will get very high page rank (google ranking) and will show up very fast and get a top listing with very little content or back linking. This means seo, link sellers, and blog spammers will try to take advantage of this as quickly as possible. I checked some of the biggest link selling/blog spamming sites and thankfully a link to this blog site has not shown up, but I'm sure now it will very quickly.

Re:Almost as bad as ...

[CrazedWalrus]

...Or communities, e.g. Slashdot.org -- a for-profit.

Arguably, Taco probably wasn't gunning for profit when he registered the domain, but I never saw anything inherently distasteful about slashdot.org (the name, anyway) being the web address of a for-profit business.

I think a lot of the community sites, even for-profit ones, would be more appropriately .org domains, except that they're more concerned about the knee-jerk ".com" people tend to put after everything.

Re:Almost as bad as ...

[greedyturtle]

Didn't slashdot begin as a non-profit entity?

Re:Almost as bad as ...

[CrazedWalrus]

Yeah -- that's what I meant by my second paragraph. The point is that I never had the thought it should now redirect to Slashdot.com now that it's commercial. I think .org is still perfectly appropriate, because its basic function is to serve as a community site -- an ORGanization of people -- rather than simply sales or marketing.

Re:Almost as bad as ...

[LWATCDR]

Ummm.. This was such a big joke and it seemed to fly over everyone's head.
Slashdot was Slashdot.org long before they bought the .com domain. .org for better or worse is available to anyone that wants it.
I wish that .net was still limited to ISPs and hosting companies, org was limited to not for profits, and com for for profit sites but that just isn't the way that it is.

Amazing Response to a TLD

[LinkAdage]

Wow, it seems like I grabbed everyone's attention and stirred up a hornet's nest. I haven't had a project receive this much Buzz and hate mail since I started LinkAdage Auctions in 2003.

It's no secret that WWW.PI.EDU not a major university - no surprise there. However, they do have an online certification program. Before I came involved, PI.edu spoke with SEOs and link brokers who advised them to sell links and basically become a paid link farm to monetize the site.

Sure they would make money in the short run selling links, but creating a huge blog community offers them a much greater opportunity to capture a large web presence and traffic. Also, paid blogs are not against any of the search engine terms of service - no matter what the TLD.

With the blog community PI can achieve the high standards of an edu while at the same time improving their core product with revenues earned. Whether you agree or not with online certification programs, this is a different issue.

What I am helping PI.edu do is create a blog community with a strong educational slant. Our TOS requires us to be very strict as to the quality of our member blogs - and yes, the TOS will be enforced. Since we are charging very little per blog, it is not a big deal for us to refund and delete a garbage/link spam type blogs.

Blogs.pi.edu just launched yesterday and there was an unexpected surge in blog sign ups. Thus we have not filtered many blogs out yet. Also, many people bought sub-domain place holders and have not posted yet so we cannot make a judgment on quality of many blogs. Rest assured, blogs that are not up to standard will be given a warning, and deleted and refunded if they do not meet our TOS.

There are many paid blog communities out there; the only difference is our bloggers will have an EDU after their domain and all blogs will need to meet certain quality requirements. The grand plan is to build the blog community into a high traffic blog community - the fact that it is an EDU will help speed the process. But first we are taking baby steps and hopefully people will not continue to pass judgment based on a TDL or before we get a chance to get the site of the ground.

I also hope that the search engines will judge and rank each blog and the PI.EDU blog community on the quality of content rather than the fact that the domain TLD is EDU. Believe me, if I didnâ(TM)t do this project, someone else would be turning this site into an under the radar EDU link farm.

People are being naive if they don't know that many of the top universities have 100% commercial blogs and blog posts for sale by students and faculty alike. Many major universities also have entire sections of their domain for sale to those willing to pay the price. I guess they are under the radar because their size and the search engines have trouble sorting the wheat from the chafe. From what I seen, people that own these underground EDU pages seem to be getting a nice rankings boost.

The Blog.PI.EDU difference is that we are creating an open blog network, we have higher standards, and we are in plain view for all to see and grow. Sure, we may have some growing pains, and will not be perfect but what website is?

Re:Amazing Response to a TLD

[HardCase]

[cough][cough]DIPLOMA MILL[cough][cough]

Reply from PI.EDU

[wrttnwrd]

Got a reply in the comments on my blog. Scroll down - it's the long comment near the bottom. http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2008/04/linkadage-selling-edu-blog-space.htm

I've reported this to the authorities

[grouse]

They appear to be offering degrees in Missouri without certification from the state. I think the Missouri Department of Higher Education will take this seriously. It's a criminal offense.

I also reported the lack of accreditation to Educause, so I imagine their registration will disappear in due course.