Cayman’s Pirates Festival has lost its website, just days before the launch of the new longer festival.
The long-standing piratesweekfestival.com website, registered with web-hosting company GoDaddy, appears to have been bought and registered by a new owner.
Ventisha Conolly, events manager for the Ministry of Youth, Culture, Sports and Heritage, told the Compass Friday that there had been a “breakdown in communication with GoDaddy and us and, unfortunately, they were not as responsive as we had hoped”.
When the Compass checked the site on Thursday night, it was taken to a GoDaddy page on which the domain name appeared to be up for auction, where it had attracted a bid of £1,699 (CI$1,635). By Friday morning, the site said the domain name had been “taken”.
Conolly said the ministry was in the process of creating a new domain, and will officially launch the website on Thursday, 1 Sept.
The new domain, www.piratesfestcayman.com, “will fit more to the rebranding we are aiming for”, she said.
The festival for several decades, has been – as its original name suggests – a week-long event. Last month, officials announced that it is being transformed into a three-month affair.
This year, it begins on Saturday, 3 Sept., and ends on 26 Nov.
But despite losing the domain name and the event lasting for three months, the Pirates Week name will live on, Conolly said.
“Ultimately, we will still keep the trademarked Pirates Week Festival and it will be used for the ‘official’ week that will happen in Grand Cayman each year,” she said.
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I own about 50 domains. Many with Godaddy.
I receive renewal reminders 90, 60 and 30 days before the expiration date and several more frantic ones closer to and even after this date.
So either someone wasn’t checking the emails or the reminders were going to an old or unchecked email address.
Let’s remember though that Godaddy bought Uniregistry from Frank Shilling. Uniregistry was awarded control of the “.ky” top level domain.
Perhaps they can be persuaded this domain was reregistered in bad faith and that the new owner would be cyber-squatting.