BoingBoing reader Darren Rowse just pointed us to a shady site called World Blog Center, which touts itself as "prestigious virtual real estate location in which blogs from a variety of industry sectors are housed." I prefer to think of them as lying assholes, because they're claiming that BoingBoing is a "tenant," and exploiting the BoingBoing logo and name without our permission in their press releases, on their website, and — according to folks they've hit up for cash — in spam emailings soliciting paid membership.
On Darren's blog, a worldblogcenter.com spokesperson named Amja lied that BoingBoing gave them permission and asked to be a part of their dishonest scheme — we did not. Snip:
Every single company we have listed in our news section has taken up space, and we have the emails to prove it. The latest company is Business Week Online who came on board today.
At the time, BoingBoing was listed in their news section. We did not consent to this, by email or otherwise. We've asked them to remove our name from their press re-lie-leases (BoingBoing.net is the first word in 9 copies distributed through various online press release services), we've asked them to remove our name from their site. They have failed to do so.
On their website, they claim, "The World Blog Center is PRESTIGIOUS. It is EXCLUSIVE and you could say ELITIST… you can't simply BUY your way in." Well, for the record, BoingBoing didn't. Link to more on Darren's blog.
Update: Here's their domain registration info (Thanks, John Battelle!)
Domain Name: WORLDBLOGCENTER.COM
Registrar: GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: NS2.INTERMEDIA.NET
Name Server: NS3.INTERMEDIA.NET
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 11-mar-2006
Creation Date: 09-dec-2005
Expiration Date: 09-dec-2006
Reader Comment: Mongo says,
Check out their Twin Towers-reminiscent logo. So not only are the "people" (innocent until proven otherwise, right?) behind the site unethical, they are overtly exploitative. Someone call Scumbags Anonymous for these losers!
Reader Comment: littlestar_43 reminds us,
They're really ripping off milliondollarhomepage.com.
