I received an a-mail from a Mr. Vincent Isles of Daanbantayan. He says:
“I’m just an ordinary citizen from the fourth district.
“My problem with Mr. Lastimosa (or to the online poser who is acting as
Mr. Lastimosa) stemmed from my inability to register the names of Cebu
towns which he (or the poser) had registered at blogspot.com, forcing
me to buy my own domain for some promotional activities I wanted to do
for some of these towns (esp. Daanbantayan, from where I came).
“Two months ago I spent time tracking all the domains spammed in the
name of Mr. Lastimosa. The results are presented here:
http://leodontspam.pbwiki.com
“Please note esp. the blogs owned by user “Sugbu” at blogspot.com.
“Respectfully yours
Vincent S. Isles”
If you click the link http://leodontspam.pbwiki.com you will find that practically every name or word that is associated with Cebu has been registered as a domain by a Mr. Leo Lastimosa.
The object, apparently, is to “bump” Mr. Lastimosa’s name up search engine results whenever somebody searches “Cebu” or anything related to Cebu.
Try googling “pinamungajan cebu”, for instance, and you’ll find “Leo Lastimosa Pinamungajan” among the top five search results.
When you click “Leo Lastimosa Pinamungajan”, however, you’re redirected to a page which is not about Pinamungajan, or anything even remotely related to Pinamungajan, but to a blog (presumably belonging to Mr. Lastimosa) containing Mr. Lastimosa’s columns in The Freeman and his commentaries over dyAB.
I have to admit that if I were in the shoes of someone desperately seeking information about Pinamungajan, I’d feel I’d been taken for a ride. No wonder Mr. Isles calls it “spamming”. It’s no different from getting unwanted e-mail selling “penis enlargers” or “sex enhancement pills”. It’s shameless promotion (or, if this is Mr. Lastimosa’s handiwork, self-promotion) to an unsuspecting public.
Yes, it’s spamming, but it’s also squatting. I believe no one should register a domain name unless he has a reasonable claim to the name. So let’s call it “squamming”.
