Daily Archives: February 10, 2013

Back in May of 2008, when Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), a group of the Libertarian congressmans supporters noticed that he had never secured RonPaul.com or RonPaul.org and decided to buy them and launch a fan site supporting his political endeavors. Five years and two failed presidential bids later, Paul wants the domains for himself.

The group behind the sites announced Friday that Paul had filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization, a global governing body that is an agency of the United Nations to expropriate the two domain names from his supporters without compensation.

Previously, the group had offered to give Paul the RonPaul.org domain as a free gift as long as they could keep RonPaul.com for their use. When he rejected that offer, they proposed to sell Paul both domains along with the 170,000 person email list for $250,000, an offer he also rejected.

The group summed up their frustration, referencing Pauls controversial tweet from earlier this week as evidence that something is amiss:

What in the world is going on? Earlier this week we were hit in the face by Ron Pauls entirely out-of-character anti-Chris Kyle tweet, and now Ron Paul, the Internet grassroots candidate, who was at the right place at the right time to lead the rEVOLution, attacks his own grassroots supporters through an agency of the United Nations to deport them from their own domain names after 5 years of nothing but unlimited, unconditional support on our part?

Back in 2007 we put our lives on hold for you, Ron, and we invested close to 10,000 hours of tears, sweat and hard work into this site at great personal sacrifice. We helped raise millions of dollars for you, we spread your message of liberty as far and wide as we possibly could, and we went out of our way to defend you against the unjustified attacks by your opponents. Now that your campaigns are over and you no longer need us, you want to take it all away and send us off to a UN tribunal?

Pauls attempt to disenfranchise his most loyal supporters would be disturbing enough. But what really puts his actions over the top is that hes reaching out to the United Nations for help, an organization he has spent much of his political career demonizing as a foreign body dead-set on taking away Americans freedoms.

(h/t Gawker)

Read more:
Ron Paul Wants RonPaul.com So Badly That He’s Asking The UN For Help

Ron Paul supporters are angry and confused about a complaint Paul filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization, an agency of the U.N., in attempt to regain control of RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org.

In a blog post on Friday, the sites owners wrote that after hearing Paul say on a radio show that he wished he owned the domain name, they offered to sell him RonPaul.com and their 170,000 supporter mailing list for $250,000, with RonPaul.org included as a free gift.

Instead of responding to our offer, making a counter offer, or even accepting our FREE gift of RonPaul.org,Ron Paul went to the United Nationsand is trying to use its legal process related to domain name disputes to actively deport us from our domain names without compensation, the blog post said.

The post continued with a message of disappointment:

Back in 2007 we put our lives on hold for you, Ron, and we invested close to 10,000 hours of tears, sweat and hard work into this site at great personal sacrifice. We helped raise millions of dollars for you, we spread your message of liberty as far and wide as we possibly could, and we went out of our way to defend you against the unjustified attacks by your opponents. Now that your campaigns are over and you no longer need us, you want to take it all away and send us off to a UN tribunal?

Thats not cool! We want our old pre-retirement Ron Paul back!

Here is the original post:
Ron Paul sues supporters for control of RonPaul.com

Ron Paul is feuding with his rabid fan own rabid fan base over the ownership of RonPaul.com. Paul wants it, but his fans own it. They're willing to sell it to him... for a price Paul doesn't agree with. So now he's taken the dispute all the way to the United Nations.

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Paul was interviewed by Conservative radio show host Alex Jones at the beginning of January and said he wished he had control of RonPaul.com. It's not an uncommon wish. Everyone wants to own theirname.com. The site was registered by his fans years ago, though it's unclear who exactly owns the domain. Ownership have protected their identity from public searches. Regardless, Paul supporters have used the site as an organizational tool to help the popular libertarian since.

RELATED: Quoting Ayn Rand on Capitol Hill Is a Paul Family Tradition

The proprietors of RonPaul.com say they reached out to the retired politicainand offered him RonPaul.org as a free gift, but if he "insisted" on owning RonPaul.com then they would sell it to him. There was a catch, though. It would be part of a "liberty package" with the site's 170,000 person mailing list for... wait for it... $250,000. They think the price is totally worth it:

RELATED: Ron Paul Signals He's Running for President

The value we put on the deal was $250k; we are getting our mailing list appraised right now but we are confident it iseasily worth more than $250k all by itself. Claims that we tried to sell Ron Paul his name for $250k or even $800k are completely untrue, and there is little doubt that our mailing list would have enabled Ron Paul toraise several million dollarsfor the liberty movement this year. It would have been a win/win/win situation for everyone involved.

But Paul did not respond to their generous offer. Instead, he went to the United Nations'World Intellectual Property Organization to file a 13 page complaint asking for control of both domains. Oops! Paul's opting for legal action is notable because he's spoken out against the U.N. in the past. They generally aren't very popular among libertarians. They aren't so bad now that he wants control of his own name's website.

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Read this article:
Ron Paul Is Feuding with His Fans