PM shuts down satirical website

18 March 2006 in Internet, Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | 4 comments

In another triumph of tolerance and freedom of expression, the Prime Minister’s office ordered the shutdown of a spoof John Howard website which featured an “apology” speech for the Iraq war.

Australian futurist and social commentator Richard Neville created johnhowardpm.org on Monday and received 10,500 visits within 24 hours. It was closed down by domain registrar Melbourne IT on Tuesday, but Neville was only told yesterday that this was “on the advice from the Australian Government”.

Mr Neville says the parody was an act of satire, and now has a PDF copy of the speech on his website.

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4 comments

  1. Garth T Kidd’s avatar

    Garth T Kidd on 22 March 2006 at 2:50 pm

    … which reminds me: shouldn’t someone refer Melbourne IT to the ACCC on their price-gouging for Australian domain names? It bewilders me that they charge AUD$140 for two years when one can get matching service on a .com address from GoDaddy for a tenth of the price.

  2. Stilgherrian’s avatar

    Stilgherrian on 23 March 2006 at 7:37 pm

    Melbourne IT has now admitted “this was handled badly”:http://www.stilgherrian.com/politics/wrapping_up_takedown/. My “wrap-up”:http://www.stilgherrian.com/politics/wrapping_up_takedown/ covers some other legal and political aspects of this issue.

  3. Stilgherrian’s avatar

    Stilgherrian on 23 March 2006 at 7:44 pm

    Garth, you shouldn’t be bewildered. It’s just how the market works when your business gets a head start as a monopoly.

    Most people don’t think to shop around. Even if they do, “Melbourne IT’s website looks professional and trustworthy”:http://www.melbourneit.com.au, so people think they’re getting something extra for the price. But of course they’re not.

    Perception is everything.

    [Disclosure: My business "Prussia.Net":http://www.prussia.net is a reseller of domain name registration services by "Enetica":http://www.enetica.com.au.]

  4. Stilgherrian’s avatar

    Stilgherrian on 02 December 2006 at 7:33 am

    I’ve closed comments on this post because it’s being hit by the spammers.

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