September 17, 1999

Scandal erupted today. Soap Crafters registered the domain name majesticmountainsage.com. Now, most normal people, upon seeing the domain name majesticmountainsage.com are going to think it goes to Majestic Mountain Sage. Right? Well, it goes to MMS' competitor Soap Crafters now.I think that's really sleazy. I won't be purchasing any products from Soap Crafters. I would encourage other folks to do the same. MMS -- the real MMS -- provides lots of services to soapers like us, with their lye calculator and converters and free recipes. To have their competitor register a domain name with MMS' name is, to use some other soapers' words, just plain dirty pool. If you want MMS' business, then provide a service they don't -- don't steal their company's name and point it to yourself!

An interesting side effect of this is watching the soapmaking community rally. Everything I've seen in regards to this particular issue is along the lines of "Soap Crafters is in the wrong to do this and I won't be purchasing supplies from them... I'll be supporting MMS." I think Tina and Dirk of MMS can rest assured that they have many friends in the soapmaking community. And Pam of Soap Crafters may well be aware by this point that she has done irreparable damage to her company's reputation.

Of course we don't know the whole story. For all I know, Pam was trying to park the domain so someone *else* couldn't hijack it. But since Tina and Dirk posted publicly that their lawyers were on the case, that doesn't seem to be very likely to me.

Personally, I think it's pretty sad that a -- from what I hear -- fairly successful soap company had to stoop low enough to steal another company's name, in order to make a few bucks.