Things That Make You Say, Hmmm….

Social media has had a profound impact on the way that we humans interact, creating entire cyber communities where people cross each other’s paths, friend one another and, hopefully, maintain some sort of civil discourse in their relationships.

By nature, I’ve always been skeptical about any online interaction as I prefer face to face meetings in order to get to know people better. By no means am I a body language expert, but there is something you can tell about a person by looking at their eyes (the window of their soul).

Granted, we cannot possibly meet every online contact in person. In the US alone, I’m sure that I’ve crossed paths with people from every state, capitol district and territory as well as people in Canada, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.  Someday I’ll actually renew my passport and head across the Atlantic, perhaps surprising some folks at an SEO meeting in Dublin, London or other city.

When I do establish an online friendship with someone, I like to think of myself as being loyal to this person whom I consider to be part of my inner circle. I like to think that these people feel the same way as I find them to be some of the most cooperative, friendly, and pleasurable folks you want to deal with.

Among this small group of people I can certainly say that Vlad Zablotskyy, a Russian immigrant residing in New Jersey, is someone I have found to be reliable, trustworthy and a friendly individual, a person I’m sure I would feel comfortable around if we were in the same room.

Unfortunately, Vlad has been going through some trials this past year, tests of character and reputation at the hands of a vindictive and sad individual. I won’t name this person, but he did go through the trouble to register two domain names — www.vladzablotskyy.net and www.vladzablotskyy.org — for reasons no one knows for sure.

By the way, Vlad owns the .com version of the domain name and there isn’t any good reason why .net and .org should be snapped up by someone else, unless this person’s intent isn’t good.

The trouble for Vlad seems to have gotten its start about a year ago when Vlad made some comments on his business blog concerning the business practices of this person who took these comments personally and decided to sue him.  At the height of the controversy last Spring, many bloggers joined forces to defend Vlad whose very livelihood was being threatened.

Thankfully, he was able to get the suit dismissed, at no small cost to himself, but I’ve since learned that other troubles may be brewing due to the domain registering steps taken by this person.

This leads me to two comments about this individual’s actions, both of which are cause for concern:

• Registering someone else’s name smacks of cybersquatting or domain squatting which is an illegal practice especially when the person’s intent is to bring some sort of harm.  I cannot imagine that Vlad’s adversary has his goodwill in mind and I hope a judge would quickly rule against this person. Minimally, in the court of public opinion, domain squatting is wrong.

• The other area concern of mine is what I call the creep factor. I don’t know about you, but when I heard about what had recently transpired, I immediately thought of the word stalking. It is one thing to have a beef about someone, but there is something entirely odd when you cannot or will not leave a grievance behind. Instead, Vlad’s adversary has decided to keep pushing the issue which I find to be entirely weird, even creepy.

Certainly, I hope this matter is resolved quickly and that Vlad’s adversary decides to move on instead of dredging up past wrongs (perceived or otherwise). Of course, I can’t say for sure that Vlad has kept his nose clean throughout this incident — that’s another issue — but I can say that the registering of these domains is a cause for alarm, something that does absolutely nothing to help this person build his own case against Vlad.

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