A Wikipedia ripoff empire? |
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Introduction
At some stage, I ran across the wikipaedia.org domain. I noticed that it didn't seem to be owned by the Wikipedia Foundation. It seemed to be a third party site. But wait — there was Wikipedia content on that site. What's more, that site even claimed to be the German language Wikipedia! Confusing, no?
So I decided to check things out real quick. Famous last words...
The beef
My main findings/concerns are as follows:
Gripe #1
The wikipaedia.org, wikipaedia.com and wikipaedia.de domains are all currently controlled by Dr. Martin Schlabeck. According to the criteria of the ICANN UDRP (which expressly applies in case of the .org and .com domains), they have been registered in bad faith (see sections 2b, 4a and 4bIV, UDRP). Dr. Schlabeck knows the Wikipedia (because he has bootlegged content from it, see below) and knows that these three domain names are "confusingly similar" (UDRP section 4aI) to the existing Wikipedia domain names wikipedia.org, wikipedia.com and wikipedia.de.
Some of us don't like "wikipaedia" domain names and may thus consider this infringement unimportant. I don't. It is important to point out that the Wikipedia name derives from "encyclopedia", and encyclopedia is simply the modern/American form of the English word encyclopaedia. The words are both in use and synonymous. It is more than likely that many web users all over the world frequently enter wikipaedia domain names when looking for the Wikipedia.
As Wikipedians, we have an important claim to wikipaedia domain names and considering the scope and importance of our project, it is reasonable for us to control not only the wikipedia.org, wikipedia.com and wikipedia.net domains, plus the German wikipedia.de domain (which we do), but also the wikipaedia.org, wikipaedia.com and wikipaedia.net domains, plus the German wikipaedia.de domain (which we currently don't).
Side note:
At this point, I noticed that the wikipaedia.net domain was hitherto unregistered. I have now registered this domain name and would like to fully turn over it (donate it) to the Wikipedia Foundation. Can anyone advise on how to proceed? |
Coming back to the main issue at hand, I believe it to be evident that Dr. Schlabeck is cybersquatting the wikipaedia.org, wikipaedia.com and wikipaedia.de domains, for purposes of driving traffic to his site and impersonating us (see below).
I strongly propose we initiate proceedings to obtain control of the aforesaid three domains.
As for the wikipaedia.org and .com domains, it should a clear-cut case, under the ICANN UDRP.
As for the wikipaedia.de, the matter would have to be pursued through the German courts, which would necessitate the German branch of the Wikipedia Foundation sueing. That said, the case should be no less clear cut.
Given the further issues explained below, I doubt that anything but a formal and legal approach will be likely to make Dr. Schlabeck turn over these domains.
Gripe #2
Dr. Schlabeck has inappropriately copied a very large amount of content from the German Wikipedia (de.wikipedia.org) and incorporated that content (minor parts of which he has altered) into his own web site without giving proper credit, in violation of the GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License), and thus in violation of U.S., international and German copyright legislation.
For a good example of the extent of Dr. Schlabeck's infringement, compare for instance this German Wikipedia page: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_Medizin with this Schlabeck page: http://doctor-net.de/index.php/Hauptseite. Note all the linked pages, which mostly consist of copied content also.
Dr. Schlabeck's web site centers around the IP addresses 217.160.136.119 and 81.169.178.190. (It also uses 195.20.225.21, 212.227.119.67, 212.227.119.84 and possibly further IPs as well.) As for the domain names in use, Dr. Schlabeck not only uses the aforesaid wikipaedia domain names, but also literally hundreds of additional domain names, which all point to that same web site of his (see Gripe #5). This is a major GFDL copyright infringement issue. We need to strongly enforce our copyright in huge cases like this.
Gripe #3
On his site, Dr. Schlabeck even claims his site to be the German Wikipedia. See http://doctor-net.de/index.php/Wikipedia (in German). The precise words which state that claim are: "Die deutschsprachige Variante der Wikipedia ist unter http://de.DoctorNet.de verfügbar (...)" — suffice to say that doctornet.de is a Schlabeck domain).
Dr. Schlabeck's current claims of his site being the German Wikipedia need to be countered. (It is immaterial in this context whether he stated this because he misunderstands the difference between a WikiWiki and Wikipedia (which is a possibility). IMHO Dr. Schlabeck's claims as they currently stand are tantamount to imposturing.
Gripe #4
On Dr. Schlabeck's pages, there are various links to nonexistent(!) Wikipedia pages, such as http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiprojekt_Medizin (which redirects to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiprojekt_Medizin, a nonexistent page).
The actual web pages which the links among the bootlegged content apparently are supposed to link to, are pages of the German Wikipedia: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiprojekt_Medizin.
While I am expressly in favour of universal linkability on the World Wide Web, in this particular case, in the context of Dr. Schlabeck's other transgressions, this state of affairs (as regards the defunct links) is set to further user confusion, display us in a bad light and further obscure the difference between us and him.
Gripe #5
This particular issue is not directly of concern to us as Wikipedians. However, it does help to put Dr. Schlabeck's activities and ethics in perspective and it may be of concern to us as ordinary decent netizens and members of the general public (and may concern members of the German public in particular):
Starting with the links on Dr. Schlabeck's web site, I tried to establish on which all places Dr. Schlabeck has posted the illicitly reproduced content. It proved to be a gargantuan task:
I soon found that hundreds, possibly over a thousand domain names are involved, and they all point to the same content (largely ripped from us). The whole thing appears to be really just this one Schlabeck owned web site, only that Dr. Schlabeck has registered hundreds and hundreds of domain names for it. I have given the IP addresses to this Schlabeck web site above — though in case of shared hosting, some or all of these IPs may be for other web sites as well. The extent of this is truly mind boggling.
When I started, I expected at most a handful of domain names. I confirmed Schlabeck ownership for each of these with whois (at www.denic.de/en/whois in case of the .de domains, because .de whois by design isn't terribly communicative otherwise), and I put them into this list (please read on below): |
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| domain: | last change (.de):
created on (other): | IP address: | behaviour: |
| wikipaedia.org | 08-Mar-04 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=wikipaedia; maybe rather cynically, that site displays an article about pediatrics, which might be a thinly veiled attempt to avert a lawsuit from us |
| wikipaedia.com | 08-Mar-04 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=wikipaedia; maybe rather cynically, that site displays an article about pediatrics, which might be a thinly veiled attempt to avert a lawsuit from us |
| wikipaedia.de | 09-Mar-04 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://wikipaedia.de), but shows same page content as http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=wikipaedia |
| medsafe.de | 30-Sep-03 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=medsafe |
| doctor-net.de | 2004-04-24 | 81.169.178.190 | opens as itself (http://doctor-net.de/) |
| doctornet.de | 2002-10-14 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to https://ssl.kundenserver.de/safeaccess.de/cms/index.php?adresse=doctornet |
| doctornet.at | 2004-04-26 | 81.169.178.190 | placeholder website only |
| www-forum.de | 2004-05-19 | 81.169.178.190 | opens as itself (http://www-forum.de/) |
| selbst-hilfe.com | 18-Oct-2001 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to https://ssl.kundenserver.de/safeaccess.de/cms/index.php?adresse=selbst-hilfe |
| neurologie-praxis.de | 2004-01-14 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to https://ssl.kundenserver.de/safeaccess.de/cms/index.php?adresse=neurologie-praxis |
| chirurgieklinik.de | 2004-01-20 | 81.169.178.190 | opens as itself (http://chirurgieklinik.de/) |
| safeaccess.de | 2002-09-04 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to https://ssl.kundenserver.de/safeaccess.de/cms/index.php?adresse=safeaccess |
| online-betreuung.de | 2004-02-06 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=online-betreuung |
| onlinebetreuung.de | 2004-02-06 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=onlinebetreuung |
| aerzte-netz.de | 2004-01-14 | 81.169.178.190 | opens as itself (http://aerzte-netz.de/) |
| arztkliniksuche.de | 2004-05-17 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to https://ssl.kundenserver.de/safeaccess.de/cms/index.php?adresse=arztkliniksuche |
| safechat.de | 2004-01-20 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to https://ssl.kundenserver.de/safeaccess.de/cms/index.php?adresse=safechat and opens a pop-up web chat client window. |
| not-fall.de | 2003-09-12 | 212.227.119.67 | opens as itself (http://not-fall.de/) and brings up a pop-up advertisement |
| poins.de | 10.10.2003 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=poins |
| schlabeck.de | 21.07.2004 | 195.20.225.21 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php/Psychiatrie |
| psychiatrica.de | 14.01.2004 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php/Psychiatrie |
| patientennetz.de | 20.01.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://patientennetz.de/) |
| angehoerigenforum.de | 20.01.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://angehoerigenforum.de/) |
| gehirnjogging-online.de | 14.01.2004 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to https://ssl.kundenserver.de/safeaccess.de/cms/index.php?adresse=gehirnjogging-online |
| depressionstest.de | 19.05.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://depressionstest.de/) |
| demenztest.de | 19.05.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://demenztest.de/) |
| pat-man.net | 11-dec-2002 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=pat-man |
| therapie-aktuell.de | 20.01.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://therapie-aktuell.de/) |
| gerontomedizin.de | 23.10.2003 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=gerontomedizin |
| psychotherapie-heute.de | 03.12.2001 | 212.227.119.84 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=psycho.therapie-online and opens a popup |
| therapie-online.com | 2001-10-18 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=therapie-online |
| schmerzklinik-privat.de | 17.05.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://schmerzklinik-privat.de/) |
| wwwpraxis.de | 03.07.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | placeholder website only |
| klinikpraxis.de | 20.01.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://klinikpraxis.de/) |
| fach-aerzte.de | 10.10.2003 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=fach-aerzte |
| neurologie-ambulanz.de | 20.01.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://neurologie-ambulanz.de/) |
| nervenarzt-gemeinschaftspraxis.de | 20.01.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://nervenarzt-gemeinschaftspraxis.de/) |
| safe-shopping.de | 10.10.2003 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=safe-shopping |
| quali-cert.de | 10.10.2003 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=quali-cert |
| depressions-selbsthilfe.de | 10.10.2003 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=depressions-selbsthilfe |
| selbsthilfe-community.de | 20.01.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://selbsthilfe-community.de/) |
| demenz-selbsthilfe.de | 10.10.2003 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=demenz-selbsthilfe |
| borrelliose-selbsthilfe.de | 10.10.2003 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=borrelliose-selbsthilfe |
| schuettel-laehmung.de | 10.10.2003 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=schuettel-laehmung |
| anorexie-selbsthilfe.de | 10.10.2003 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=anorexie-selbsthilfe |
| psychotherapeutonline.de | 18.07.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | placeholder website only |
| gesuend-er.de | 14.01.2004 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to http://doctor-net.de/index.php?ext=gesuend-er |
| aerzte-recht.de | 20.01.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://aerzte-recht.de/) |
| klinikrecht.de | 20.01.2004 | 81.169.178.190 | opens up as itself (http://klinikrecht.de/) |
| beratungs-stellen.de | 17.05.2004 | 217.160.136.119 | redirects to https://ssl.kundenserver.de/safeaccess.de/cms/index.php?adresse=beratungs-stellen |
Realizing the number of redundant domains out there, I started googling, to see if there were even more. There were.
On a simple search string of "Schlabeck", Google returned 16 or 70 unique results (i.e. results where all duplicate domain names/URLs that are pointing to the same content had been eliminated). The number of unique Google results shown depends on how you navigate Google — our trusty search engine's navigation panels got slightly confused at this point, and the reason why will become very clear now:
On a search including all the duplicates, there were about 3,490 search results overall.
Seeing that only 16 or 70 of the results were unique (and most of them part of the web site we're on to here), it's clear that the rest of the 3,490 results returned belong to our aforesaid favourite suspect's site.
I found in the Google search results that about a third of these non-unique pages were new domain names, again, all for the same Schlabeck web site.
I didn't of course realize this at once. I first started making notes of the additional domain names. I did not confirm with whois actual Schlabeck ownership of the domain names listed below this point — however, they did come up as results of the aforesaid Google search query and showed their association with the Schlabeck domain doctornet.de (and thus with the very same said Schlabeck web site) in the Google results (please read on below): |
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psychotherapie-praxen.de
verhaltens-medizin.de
adipositasselbsthilfe.de
neurologie-ambulanz.de
stoffwechsel-ambulanz.de
vagusnervstimulation.de
radiologie-praxisgemeinschaft.de
arzt-kommunikation.de
verhaltensmedizinische-klinik.de
rueckenambulanz.de
beautychirurg.de
aerzte-fuehrer.de
vagus-stimulation.de
vagusstimulation.de
alten-centrum.de
euronetklinik.de
alten-zentrum.de
shopping-netz.de
psychotherapiezentrale.de
sucht-selbsthilfe.de
psychotherapie-zentrale.de
zentral-nerv.de
alopezieklinik.de
orthopaedieladen.de
facharztklinik.de
psychiatriecenter.de
gicht-sprechstunde.de
fach-kliniken.de
orthopaedie-bestellung.de
facharzt-klinik.de
hausarztpraxen.de
medi-mall.de
kranken-pfleger.de
versorgungs-centrum.de
seniorenpsychiatrie.de
familien-ambulanz.de
fach-klinik.de
familienklinik.de
patienten-management.de
zahnarzt-privatversicherung.de
zahnarzt-zusatzversicherung.de
zahnarztzusatzversicherung.de
medizinischeszentrum.com
nerven-center.de
kardiologieambulanz.de
euronet-clinic.de
hormon-fachklinik.de
osteoporose-ambulanz.de
nervenarzt-praxisgemeinschaft.de
med-safe.com
arztpraxis-netz.de
fach-arzt.de
facharzt-praxen.de
fachaerztepraxis.de
zusatz-privatversicherung.de
privat-zahnarztversicherung.de
geriatriecenter.de
schlaf-centrum.de
kliniktest.de
aerzteratgeber.de
privatkranken-versicherung.de
zusatzprivatversicherung.de
kranken-tagegeldversicherung.de
gesundheits-fuehrer.de
privat-zahnversicherung.de
ambulantesversorgungszentrum.de
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Considering that from the "mere" 350 Google results I covered, I got the aforesaid lists of a total of 115 domain names, I am led to believe that there may be as many as 1,150(!) of these redundant Schlabeck-owned domains. (If I got 115 domain names out of 350 results (10% of the total), then it is very possible that there may be up to 1,150 domain names in the full 3,490 Google search results (100%).)
Even had I been insane enough to go through the full list of 3,490, I would not have been able to do so because Google does not actually serve more than 1,000 results for any query. (It tells you that it got more results, but it won't show anything beyond 1,000.)
| | Note that kundenserver.de and sslsites.de (as encountered in https://sslsites.de/DoctorNet.de/) appear to be domains of generic hosting/web services not belonging to Mr. Schlabeck. -- Mr. Schlabeck appears to be a customer of kundenserver.de and sslsites.de. |
regarding the IP addresses:
hitting http://217.160.136.119 redirects the user to: http://doctor-net.de/index.php/Hauptseite
hitting http://81.169.178.190 brings up a placeholder page like the one at doctornet.at
hitting http://212.227.119.67 or 212.227.119.84 throw a 500 error
hitting http://195.20.225.21 throws a 500 error
As we have seen and demonstrated, there are literally hundreds, possibly over a thousand Schlabeck owned domains, most of them in the .de namespace.
Assuming a yearly fee of 5 or 10 euro per each domain name (which is extremely cheap), Dr. Schlabeck would have to pay up to €5,750 or €11,500 (ca. $6,927 or $13,857) each year for his domain names alone.
Why would anyone do such a thing?
IMHO the only plausible answer is that Dr. Schlabeck derives revenue from his endeavors, either through the aforementioned Amazon partnership, some traffic-linked advertising and/or through membership fees (or from other sources). To have a whole group of jointly linked websites usually makes no sense except for purposes of artificially improving one's Google rank and thus capturing extra traffic and concomitant revenues.
Seeing that Dr. Schlabeck has these hundreds of domains (and utilizes illicitly obtained Wikipedia content, which says something about his trustworthiness), I have a hard time trying to believe that his endeavours are well-meaning.
Even — hypothetically — if Dr. Schlabeck's activities were well-intended: he is actively abusing the system, both in a technical and legal sense.
What do people think we should do?
Appendix — further info
Dr. Martin Schlabeck appears to be a junior psychiatrist at a hospital in Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany (www.psych.med.uni-erlangen.de) and gives his email address as info at selbst-hilfe dot com.
whois also shows an email address of info at medsafe dot de for him.
The registrar Dr. Schlabeck has registered the wikipaedia.org and wikipaedia.com domain with is PSI-USA, apparently a currently German-run US founded company.
Their registration and services agreement (which expressly incorporates the ICANN UDRP) is at: http://www.psi-usa.info/index.php?nat=en&link=terms/agreement.
I could not determine which registrar Dr. Schlabeck has registered the wikipaedia.de domain with, but in any case: his registration is subject to the rules put down by the German ccTLD central registry authority, denic.de. Denic.de does however not refer to the ICANN UDPR, but rather to the German court system. See this explanation: http://www.denic.de/en/faqs/recht_dispute/index.html#section_126
Some of the above Schlabeck domains appear to be defunct placeholder websites (as noted), they are however Schlabeck owned as well (as indicated).
Dr. Schlabeck's web site presents itself as a supposedly community-based medical patient/physician/health information site and forum. (Considering the number of domain names in use, I found comparatively little evidence of actual community participation.) Dr. Schlabeck's site contains potentially commission yielding advertising (Amazon). There also appears to be a subscription scheme going, whereby people or institutions can join an associated German Verein (association) for 60 or 5 (commissions) euros. Users at the site are encouraged to create an account, for which they are required to give their email address. On the site, it says that 1690 users had registered at the time of this writing. How many of them are paying members is unclear. The information on whether membership is free or for-fee is remarkably ambiguous.
On his site, Dr. Schlabeck makes extremely bold statements — he appears to claim that his site could singlehandedly solve the German health care crisis.
A patient-doctor chat service appears to be another central part of Dr. Schlabeck's web site (apart from the illicitly posted Wikipedia content) and Dr. Schlabeck is seeking to recruit further medical professionals to participate as well.
Users are repeatedly promised secure, wiretap-proof communication, which from a technical perspective appears at best to be an overoptimistic promise given the technology currently in use at the site.
Some googling revealed that Dr. Schlabeck has also given lectures about self-help on the Internet (i.e. possibly promoting his web site).
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