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Monday, July 27, 2009

Purported Mizzou Web address sends Internet surfer to a more crimson destination

By Mark Fagan

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Someone’s twisting the Tiger’s tail.

The owner of www.Mizzou.us is using the address to direct visitors away from their expected online lair — a home page affiliated with the University of Missouri — and lure them instead into the official, virtual world of the Kansas Jayhawks: KU.edu.

Word of the switch reached the Mizzou Alumni Association (www.Mizzou.com) Monday afternoon, drawing a few expressions of surprise, disappointment and, perhaps, maybe a little envy. Even MU’s official university site is www.Mizzou.edu.

“Wow,” said Jayson Meyer, director of alumni affairs. “Somebody’s pretty smart.”

Then his mind started to run: While “.com” and “.edu” are popular in the United States, the “.us” ending could be considered logical for folks residing elsewhere.

Ooh oh.

“Someone who might be searching internationally might be searching and find something else — something we wouldn’t want them to see,” Meyer said.

Meyer acknowledged that locating the Web domain’s owner likely would prove difficult, and that blocking the connection to Kansas University’s own site might prove even more so.

“I can’t think of anything quite like this,” Meyer said. “It’s certainly a fun rivalry that we have between the two schools. This is another example of someone having some more fun.”

While the Journal-World was unsuccessful in its attempts to contact the site’s owner — who listed an address of a mailbox at a UPS Store in Columbia, Mo. — at least one person with a Jayhawk Boulevard office ruled out the entire 66045 zip code.

“This is not the work of KU,” said Jill Jess, associate director of university relations. “Of course, we all know the greater Jayhawk Nation can, at times, be a bit overzealous.”

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Comments

supermario15 (anonymous) says...

rofl awesome

July 27, 2009 at 7:28 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

E4KUJHawks (anonymous) says...

That's hillarious! That made my evening! Good Job to whoever pulled that one off!

July 27, 2009 at 7:39 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

Lone_salina_kufan (anonymous) says...

Kudos to the Mizzou dude for having a good sense of humor about it too!!!
Thats pretty funny.

July 27, 2009 at 7:46 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

ohioburg (anonymous) says...

Yeah, I got to give Meyer a nod for having a sense of humor. And then a head-butt.

July 27, 2009 at 8:34 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

kuwells (anonymous) says...

Freaking awesome! Someone better get on www.jayhawk.us before a Fizzou or Kitty Cat fan gets on it!

July 27, 2009 at 10:17 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

DalTXJayhawk (anonymous) says...

jayhawk.us is already taken. (April 2002). It is owned by Bruce Sloan, from Smithville MO. Hope he is friendly!! (He owns 26 other .us domains)

July 27, 2009 at 10:31 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

waywardJay (anonymous) says...

Kansas fans once again outsmart the lousy Mizzou base

July 27, 2009 at 11:09 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

phoenixforce (anonymous) says...

Everyone start mentioning Mizzou.us and linking to it. That'll help it move up on Google and maybe one day over take those dirty Missourahan on Google.

July 27, 2009 at 11:19 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

ttoulouse (anonymous) says...

Two thumbs up!

July 28, 2009 at 6:12 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

barchawk (anonymous) says...

Oops. Looks like we crashed the site.

Buy some more bandwidth, whoever you are!

July 28, 2009 at 8:11 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

austin5string (anonymous) says...

I'm not quite sure I get it.. I mean, if someone is sincerely, honestly, trying to visit a Mizzou site, is that really the kind of person we want on our site?

July 28, 2009 at 10:02 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

mandomax (anonymous) says...

well, the .us suffix will lead to international students searching for low cost, laid back, midwestern universities seeing Kansas instead of Missouri, and hopefully make the better decision. Also, whoever bought this domain name is probably thinking about eventually selling it to MU for a substantial profit, once they see how many students are clicking the .us site and ending up at ku.edu.

July 28, 2009 at 11:36 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

alm77 (anonymous) says...

In the meantime, they're beating KU in Facebook fans.... by like 500. Become a fan at www.facebook.com/KU

July 28, 2009 at 1:10 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

adamjhwkfan (anonymous) says...

Looks like the site didn't crash but Go Daddy dropped the owner. Not sure if that's legal or they just happened to run their ownership out.

July 28, 2009 at 5:05 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

honeyiscool (anonymous) says...

http://www.safetyschool.org

redirects to yale.edu

July 29, 2009 at 1:34 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

MizzouKC (anonymous) says...

The owner of the site got a cease and desist letter for using a trademarked name. He pulled it.

July 29, 2009 at 8:46 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

jsbee (anonymous) says...

This was from the Columbia newspaper:

"The site was put up for those Mizzou wannabes who couldn’t qualify scholastically," Fuller quipped. You'll recall, the fake Mizzou site lead to KU's homepage.

July 29, 2009 at 2:23 p.m. ( | suggest removal )