City council candidate explains decision to snag opponent’s expired website domain

(from left to right) Keven Lewis, Linda Leeuwrik, Jeremy Marley and Stacy Satterfield | Facebook POCATELLO – Some in the community have expressed confusion about why they don’t arrive at an incumbent city council member’s campaign website when they search it or click on a link. This is because city council member, Council President Linda Leeuwrik, does not own the website anymore. Since August 18, the website domain linda4pocatello.com has redirected internet users to kevenforpocatello.com, the campaign website of city council candidate Keven Lewis. The candidate released a statement on Monday, explaining his campaign’s decision to purchase the domain after he found out it was inactive and available for purchase. “This moment highlights exactly why I’m running. Pocatello needs leadership that’s proactive, not reactive. We need someone who keeps the basics covered — whether that’s renewing a $10 domain name or showing up for the real issues like housing, infrastructure, and transparency,” reads Lewis’ statement. As of Friday, Leeuwrik still has linda4pocatello.com linked on her official Facebook page. Leeuwrik provided a written statement for EastIdahoNews.com. “The only reason Keven Lewis would purchase my domain name is to play dirty, to try to gain advantage by confusing, misleading, and tricking my supporters and voters. If they type in what was my website address, they are now taken to his website in an attempt to trick them into supporting him,” Leeuwrik wrote. Lewis spoke with EastIdahoNews.com to expand on his statement, explaining his intentions with purchasing the domain. “My big thing is, I didn’t do this maliciously. I did this as someone running a campaign,” Lewis said. “We talk a lot about, don’t tell me what you’re gonna do, show me, and this is very much a show me issue. … How can we trust somebody if they’re not on their P’s and Q’s about their own campaign?” Jeremy Marley, who is running against Leeuwrik, Lewis and Stacy Satterfield for city council seat 5, made a post on Facebook about the domain purchase on Sept. 5, asking, “Linda Leeuwrik are you running or not?” Marley later made another post, calling the move “petty games.” Satterfield provided a written comment to EastIdahoNews.com, saying, “It is unfortunate that Linda allowed her website to lapse and it is unfortunate that Keven took advantage of her error. Pocatello needs leadership that is responsible and kind.” Marley also spoke with EastIdahoNews.com to expand on his position, also calling the move “unethical.” He thought it was “deceptive” to purchase and reroute the domain to Lewis’ campaign website, calling it “playing dirty up front.” He also laid out what he thought Lewis should have done instead. “The appropriate thing to do in a situation like that, really would have been to, even if he purchased the domain, to reach out to her and let her know,” Marley said. Lewis said that he released his Monday statement because he wanted to clear up any confusion surrounding the situation, clarifying that he purchased the domain for only $12, adding that she could have set the website to auto renew. “That’s a huge oversight on her part. She didn’t need donor dollars to buy her website,” Lewis said. Lewis feels that Leeuwrik not removing the link from her Facebook page shows that she isn’t taking responsibility for losing her domain. “It just speaks volumes to me that she is unwilling to take responsibility for her own failures,” Lewis said. “She doesn’t take the voters in Pocatello seriously, and she doesn’t take her job seriously.” In her statement, Leeuwrik expressed her disappointment with Lewis for “playing dirty.” “It is my belief candidates with integrity run clean, positive races based on their own merits—the unique combination of skills, experience, ideas, and knowledge they have to offer. I have run all of my campaigns this way, without resorting to cheap tricks or attacks. Playing dirty may be legal, but is it ethical?” Leeuwrik said. Lewis also spoke to the security risk posed by a politician not renewing their domain, explaining that if a criminal had purchased ‘linda4pocatello.com,’ they could have made the website look how it previously did, and used the donation portal to steal people’s private information. “(It put) Pocatello residents and her own supporters at risk of fraud,” Lewis said. “(She) should be saying, ‘hey, thanks for only redirecting it to your website, and not being a criminal who could have harmed the residents of Pocatello.’” Leeuwrik called this “unconscionable fearmongering.” She writes, “First of all, people let domain names expire all the time when no longer needed or useful; it is absurd to suggest that one has to pay for them forever. And secondly, the only way to donate through my website was to use PayPal, which does not allow access to or collection of donor credit card information by domain name and/or website owners. Furthermore, a website’s content does not become the property of the new owner of an expired domain name.” EastIdahoNews.com asked Leeuwrik why she hasn’t removed the link to ‘linda4pocatello.com’ in her Facebook page, and has not received a reply to that question. “It is shameful that Mr. Lewis would scare my supporters into believing their online donations to my campaign are unsafe and their data is unsecured,” Leeuwrik said. Marley, who prefaced his statements by saying he’s pursuing a master’s degree in cybersecurity from the University of Phoenix, thinks that scenario Lewis brought up is “entirely probable,” but doesn’t think Lewis should have used the domain to route to his website. “What’s just happened is we turned a local election where people are supposed to be civil with each other, and somebody found a gap in civility and dug the knife in as deep as they can without actually ever really proving a point,” Marley said. Leeuwrik told EastIdahoNews.com over text that she’s working on establishing a new campaign website. She ended her written statement by saying, “I strongly encourage voters to look closely at all candidates. Study their platforms, for sure, but also their character.” Lewis said that he has not been contacted by Leeuwrik, but if she requested he return her website domain, he would be willing to. “I think that it just demonstrates a certain amount of pride on her part, because it seems as though she thinks that she just deserves to win the seat because she’s the incumbent. I’m sorry, this is an election year,” Lewis said.The post City council candidate explains decision to snag opponent’s expired website domain appeared first on East Idaho News.
Source: eastidahonews.com