IU property listed as address on Web sites that confused candidates

The Republican and Democratic candidates for the upcoming Fort Wayne mayoral contest were recently surprised when they found Internet addresses named after the candidates were already registered by an outside person. Further raising confusion, the registrant provided information in the domain sign-up that brought the investigation right to the IU campus. \nRepublican Matt Kelty and Democrat Nelson Peters were unable to purchase www.keltyformayor.com, www.petersformayor.com, www.mattkeltyformayor.com and www.nelsonpeters.com, because someone had already claimed them.\nNot only did the mystery person frustrate both parties in this northern Indiana city, but he also left a trail of dead ends. The information given as the domain holder's street address led to 506 N. Indiana Ave., Bloomington, which is a house on IU's campus that the University rents out to students.\nIU Director of Media Relations Larry MacIntyre said as of Tuesday afternoon the University was not aware of the situation but said the man should not put down the address since he was not a tenant. MacIntyre said since no one has reported any harm, the University will not investigate the situation. He said IU is not involved whatsoever in the situation. \nNelson Peters' campaign manager Ozzie Mitson said his office has spoken with the man who registered the Web site addresses and said the man agreed to turn over the domain names. Mitson said the man was a Democrat working outside the state of Indiana.\n"We spoke with the gentleman that registered the name," Mitson said. "He meant no ill will by it and will give it back to us free of charge."\nSidney Stamm, a graduate student and computer security researcher for IU, said to set up a domain, one goes to a registrar's site for example, godaddy.com or yahoo.com, and pay them money for "ownership" over a domain, with most providers agreeing that when a domain has an owner, it is no longer for sale for at least one year.\n"If I buy sidstamm.com for a year, which I did, nobody else can buy it until the year is up, and only if I do not renew it," Stamm said in an e-mail interview. "It is kind of like renting an apartment."\nProfessor of informatics Erik Stolterman said when Web sites were first coming under ownership, people were buying up domains with famous names or companies. They would later sell back the domain to the person or company name used for a profit.\n"Say McDonald's did not own McDonalds.com," Stolterman said. "You could buy it up and sell it back to them if they wanted it. Some people probably made a good amount of money doing this." \nKelty currently uses www.mattkelty.com and Peters will be using www.nelsonpeters.com when he receives ownership.