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Is this a guidelines violation?


GeoGeeBee

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Doing a keyword search for ".com" turned up quite a few geocaches with .com in the title. A couple of them were pretty blatant! The description for one of them goes on and on about the history of the company, the name of the CEO, etc.
Including a few with geocaching.com in the titles! ;)

We need to remember the difference between a website and a business. Groundspeak Inc is a Business, Geocaching.com is just one of their websites.

 

For the Cache questioned in the OP, I doubt the guy's business and website have the same name.

Yeah, it's his business, alright, although its a bit unclear exactly what he sells there:
OUR NINTH YEAR IN BUSINESS SUPPORTING SPORTSMEN

NORTH CAROLINA'S #1 SPORTSMANS WEBSITE

I'm going to venture a guess that his business license has some other name on it besides the web address. That's the difference I'm talking about. No doubt that the website does represent his business, but there's a difference between being something and representing something. Your ad in the yellow pages is not your business, it only represents your business.

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SWEET!!

 

I was wondering how I was going to promote my new website. Now that I know it's OK to have caches with a website as their name, I can have a series of caches. I will just name them "www.bittsen.com 1" "www.bittsen.com 2" "www.bittsen.com 3" etc.

 

I will place 500 caches. All fim cannisters.

 

WHEW, there's one less thing I have to worry about.

 

Yes, I am being fecetious

 

How's that different than 80% of the caches in our area already?

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However, when they openly and freely admitted that it was placed with the primary purpose of bringing in new business (aka commercial) I have to wonder.

 

Geocaching.com is a listing site. To make a comparison, think of the yellow pages (not that anyone uses it anymore). The yellow pages probably has guidelines and restrictions for the content of the ads that appear in their book.

 

If I want to make a cache and put a bunch of religious items into it, it does not violate the guidelines unless the cache listing contains religious propoganda. They do not own or control the cache or the contents inside of it. They simply list the location and provide controlled content through their web page.

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SWEET!!

 

I was wondering how I was going to promote my new website. Now that I know it's OK to have caches with a website as their name, I can have a series of caches. I will just name them "www.bittsen.com 1" "www.bittsen.com 2" "www.bittsen.com 3" etc.

 

I will place 500 caches. All fim cannisters.

 

WHEW, there's one less thing I have to worry about.

 

Yes, I am being fecetious

 

How's that different than 80% of the caches in our area already?

 

They don't all say "www.bittsen.com"...

 

;)

 

YET

 

(but I get your point)

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Doing a keyword search for ".com" turned up quite a few geocaches with .com in the title. A couple of them were pretty blatant! The description for one of them goes on and on about the history of the company, the name of the CEO, etc.
Including a few with geocaching.com in the titles! ;)

We need to remember the difference between a website and a business. Groundspeak Inc is a Business, Geocaching.com is just one of their websites.

 

For the Cache questioned in the OP, I doubt the guy's business and website have the same name.

Yeah, it's his business, alright, although its a bit unclear exactly what he sells there:
OUR NINTH YEAR IN BUSINESS SUPPORTING SPORTSMEN

NORTH CAROLINA'S #1 SPORTSMANS WEBSITE

 

If that is NC's #1 sportsman's site, I would hate to see the runners up.

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LOL MrsB :mad:
Great catch!! Also, just a teensy bit of investigation finally reveals Bitten's true gender.

So you think...

Not all is as it appears.

Remember what they say about when you "assume"?

;)

Obviously, I was only referring to the personality that registered that domain. I am aware that there are others.

 

Yes, I know. Though sometimes a good way for a cyber-stalker to find someone, that registration information is not mine.

 

:(

Edited by bittsen
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LOL MrsB :mad:
Great catch!! Also, just a teensy bit of investigation finally reveals Bitten's true gender.

So you think...

Not all is as it appears.

Remember what they say about when you "assume"?

;)

Obviously, I was only referring to the personality that registered that domain. I am aware that there are others.

Yes, I know. Though sometimes a good way for a cyber-stalker to find someone, that registration information is not mine. :(

That's a shame. I was gonna compliment you on your nice house. :(
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LOL MrsB :mad:
Great catch!! Also, just a teensy bit of investigation finally reveals Bitten's true gender.

So you think...

Not all is as it appears.

Remember what they say about when you "assume"?

;)

Obviously, I was only referring to the personality that registered that domain. I am aware that there are others.

Yes, I know. Though sometimes a good way for a cyber-stalker to find someone, that registration information is not mine. :(

That's a shame. I was gonna compliment you on your nice house. :(

 

Took y'all that long to see that link slowly loading? Geez.

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Some guidelines are about placement of a cache, others are about listing it on the Geocaching.com web site. Broadly speaking (exceptions apply), the placement guidelines are more important to the game as a whole, since a badly-placed cache can do a lot of harm to our image as cachers. On the other hand, the listing guidelines are (typically; again, exceptions apply) important to Groundspeak - because they potentially affect the business - but less so to other cachers.

 

If a cache is listed with a commercial name ("companyX.com"), and without permission from Groundspeak (which could have been granted here; that's not always mentioned on the page when it happens), that could be of interest to Groundspeak for a number of reasons:

- They might be missing a chance to get advertising revenue from company "X".

- Company "Y", who pays for their advertising on the site, might complain.

- Cacher "Z", who had a cache with a commercial name refused, might complain.

 

As cacher "S", I wouldn't worry about any of that; I'm not a Groundspeak shareholder and their relationship with their customers and advertisers is their concern. I would worry if I found a cache full of food which might attract animals, or one which was clearly on private property, but those are placement issues.

 

The distinction between the two types of guideline is important, because it mirrors the distinction between the game of geocaching and the Geocaching.com web site. If you look at the alternative listing sites, you will typically find that their placement guidelines are very very close to Groundspeak's, whereas the listing guidelines are often substantially different. (One explanation for that, is that the #1 reason for people to go off and start their own listing site is because Groundspeak's "evil reviewers" won't publish their caches.)

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Theoretically speaking... what's to stop a large business creating geocaches anyway? As we are reminded geocaching.com is a listing site.

 

If McFranchise Ltd, for example, have chains of restaurants all over the world, and were a globally recognised brand, what's to stop them setting up a competition for their customers to find and set McGeocaches?

 

Doesn't even have to be permanent, could be one of their temporary promo's. They create a listing site themselves eg. mcgeocache.com, or they could employ some people to go out and set McGeocaches for people to find and win prizes.

 

I know I'd probably get in on it if a major retail chain did something like this, and there's really nothing Groundspeak could do about it as long as they didn't try to associate with geocaching.com (ie. logo's, copyright etc...).

 

Stretching the idea a little further, McFranchise could even list their McGeocaches on both geocaching.com and mcgeocache.com - the only difference being that the mcgeocache.com listing is clearly commercial, but the geocaching.com listing has all the commercial aspect stripped out.

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Theoretically speaking... what's to stop a large business creating geocaches anyway? As we are reminded geocaching.com is a listing site.

 

If McFranchise Ltd, for example, have chains of restaurants all over the world, and were a globally recognised brand, what's to stop them setting up a competition for their customers to find and set McGeocaches?

 

Doesn't even have to be permanent, could be one of their temporary promo's. They create a listing site themselves eg. mcgeocache.com, or they could employ some people to go out and set McGeocaches for people to find and win prizes.

 

I know I'd probably get in on it if a major retail chain did something like this, and there's really nothing Groundspeak could do about it as long as they didn't try to associate with geocaching.com (ie. logo's, copyright etc...).

 

Stretching the idea a little further, McFranchise could even list their McGeocaches on both geocaching.com and mcgeocache.com - the only difference being that the mcgeocache.com listing is clearly commercial, but the geocaching.com listing has all the commercial aspect stripped out.

 

Caching Lore tells of a movie that once used geocaching as a promotion tool... It could happen, but if the unique icon is a pair of golden arches I'm gonna puke.

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Doing a keyword search for ".com" turned up quite a few geocaches with .com in the title. A couple of them were pretty blatant! The description for one of them goes on and on about the history of the company, the name of the CEO, etc.
Including a few with geocaching.com in the titles! :P

We need to remember the difference between a website and a business. Groundspeak Inc is a Business, Geocaching.com is just one of their websites.

 

For the Cache questioned in the OP, I doubt the guy's business and website have the same name.

Yeah, it's his business, alright, although its a bit unclear exactly what he sells there:
OUR NINTH YEAR IN BUSINESS SUPPORTING SPORTSMEN

NORTH CAROLINA'S #1 SPORTSMANS WEBSITE

I'm going to venture a guess that his business license has some other name on it besides the web address. That's the difference I'm talking about. No doubt that the website does represent his business, but there's a difference between being something and representing something. Your ad in the yellow pages is not your business, it only represents your business.

 

Yes, but how much difference is there between representing something and promoting something...? Since the guidelines address commercial promotion, that's the real question.

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