MumsOnline - We're a thorn in Nestle's side

**sabian** · 17-02-2010, 10:00 AM

History:
Just like everything in life, a name can say so much. So, in January of 2004, after much deliberation we settled on Mumsonline.net as our 'online baby name'. Unfortunately, the .com version was already taken by an Ex-Pat in Spain who was not developing the site at all so we approached her for the domain name which she refused to sell us.

Flash forward a year, this woman let the domain name expire and I promptly put in what is called a "back order" domain purchase. For those who are unaware, when a domain name expires it goes into several 'phases' before it is available to the public to purchase again. Since these phases are random in their length, we could not know when the site became available again and what a backorder domain purchase does is, it sits patiently waiting for it to be available and it snaps it up. Much akin to an eBay snipe bid.

Bad luck for MumsOnline.net - a domain holding company got to the domain first and we lost the opportunity to get it. What these holding companies do is bulk purchase 1000's, if not millions, of domain names and redirects them to adverts and also puts the domain for sale. For sale at a hugely inflated price. In this instance, they wanted $2500 for the .com version of our site. Since we do not make enough money off of advertising to even cover the costs of the upkeep of the site, I couldn't even begin to think about paying 2500% of the normal domain price just to have the .com. With nothing else to do, I left the backorder purchase in place hoping that this holding company would one day realise that they weren't going to get the money they were asking for the domain and let it expire too.

2 years later, and in Nov '09 I get an email from the backorder process saying that the status on the .com had changed. My elation was short lived when I logged into the service and realised that the status change wasn't due to our successful bid, it was due to a purchase of the domain for the $2500 asking price. Any update to the purchase of a domain takes several days to update so I had no idea who purchased the domain name, but was fairly confident that if someone paid $2500 for it, we'd never stand a chance to get the domain for ourselves.

Sure enough, 2 days later, the status updated and showed who purchased the domain. The new owner? None other than Nestle.

Over the years, members of our community have voiced their concern over the practices of Nestle and some going as far as protesting/boycotting Nestle products. Word must have finally reached the Nestle headquarters and they purchased the .com version of MumsOnline in, what I can only imagine, a bid to limit damage to their brand due to the concerted efforts of our community. (that's being optimistic - the pessimist in me says it was down to slur us by purchasing the .com and making anyone who searched for us would see them).

The end result? Anyone typing in mumsonline . com (separated because I refuse to give them a backlink) will be automatically redirected to nestle . com. So, whilst I'm disappointed a multi-national conglomerate took away our ability to have our 'branding' completed by owning the .com name - I am also extremely honoured and humbled that our little band of merry parents had/have enough of a voice to make a near untouchable company like Nestle spend a few thousand dollars just to purchase a domain name.

So, this thread is both a short history entry in the life and times of MumsOnline.net - a close knit community who in its short life has seen its fair share of controversy, and also a hugely heart felt thank you to you - our members - for your support and friendship over the years!

Now, who should we pick on next so on our 12th birthday I can make another one of these posts!