Just guess…who would purchase the domains exactly the same as this domain with the slight change of extension (.org or .net). Who do you think would do that?
The registered owner of the two domains EXACTLY like this site (pet food consumer education), with different exchanges (.net and .org) is none other than the lobby organization for Big Pet Food – the Pet Food Institute (PFI).
This is how they do business.
The Pet Food Institute is hoping some unknowing consumer will type in .org or .net and then receive their version of the truth; “A Consumer’s Guide to Pet Food.” This guide includes advice against homemade pet food and advises against raw pet food, plus informs the unknowing that “Pet food is one of the most highly regulated of all food products.”
The domain name TruthaboutPetFood.net used to be owned by someone that heard me do a radio interview (Allan Handleman of WZTK) years ago. This person was involved in a network marketing pet food company and pet food consumers were directed to this pet food website when they typed in the ‘.net’. I’m not certain if the ‘.org’ was purchased by the same person at the same time. This person continued this website for years. I assume either this person allowed the domain ownership to expire OR the Pet Food Institute purchased the domain from them. (Any tech savvy folks out there want to investigate when PFI became owners of these domain names and let us know?) Regardless to when PFI took ownership of these domain names, it is clear their motive.
It is perfectly legal for the Pet Food Institute to purchase these domain names and try to steal some of the Internet traffic TruthaboutPetFood.com receives, but I have to ask…where is their integrity? Seriously, how low can you go?
I’ve witnessed the tactics of PFI first hand at AAFCO meetings. Now, pet food consumers can see for themselves how this Big Pet Food lobby group operates. Purchasing the .org and .net of the real ‘truth’ achieves little for PFI, that is with the exception of proving the true colors of this organization to a world of pet food consumers.
To all pet food consumers, please add to your list of questions you submit to your pet food manufacturer…Are you a member of Pet Food Institute? (The PFI does not make this information public.) When you have your response, ask yourself this question…Do I want to trust my pet’s life to a company that would endorse such morally questionable behavior?
To see this PFI’s work for yourself, visit TruthaboutPetFood.org or TruthaboutPetFood.net (though I personally don’t recommend the site).
Many thanks to the pet food consumer that typed in ‘.org’ instead of ‘.com’.
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author, Buyer Beware
Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
PetsumerReport.com
What’s in Your Pet’s Food?
Is your dog or cat eating risk ingredients? Chinese imports? Petsumer Report tells the ‘rest of the story’ on over 2500 cat foods, dog foods, and pet treats. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. www.PetsumerReport.com
2013 List
Susan’s List of trusted pet foods. Click Here
Have you read Buyer Beware? Click Here
Cooking for pets made easy, Dinner PAWsible
Find Healthy Pet Foods in Your Area Click Here
It is about to expire. You should buy it . Doesn’t surprise me in the least.
I totally agree…when it expires, buy it so that these companies can’t keep passing along false info!!
I totally agree you should buy it! Btw…your website is much more professional looking!
I am sure they are behind the hacking that was done to your site…they are vile
I was thinking the exact same thing! I hope everyone is sharing this info on their FB walls so their friends can see how low these big corps can sink. They fill the food with fillers and chemicals that are killing our dogs, import their ingredients from China and when you confront them they evade your questions. Buy local or from local small mom and pop stores. Enough of trusting them with my dogs lives.
I agree completely!!
Agree!
can you spell ‘SLEAZE’ ??? Beyond Slimy.
Lower than a Slugs belly.
I’m so sorry you had to come home to this.
it’s 5:00 somewhere. Relax, take a deep breath and try to just enjoy being home.
It just keeps getting better!!!!! un-real.
wow… actions speak louder than words… this is a clear attempt to silence and dilute your message…. and a pretty reprehensible, underhanded one, in my opinion. My opinion of the PFI (Pet Food Insitute) just sunk another notch. I find it interesting that they do not appear to own http://www.petfoodinstitute.com since this directs to a parked page instead of their website http://www.petfoodinstitute.org … yet they bought your .org and .nets … !
One of us should buy it… just saying. Turnabout is fair play
Wow.. doesn’t that speak volumes? They care more about deceiving people than worrying about their own site and getting their own message out. A new low for them….
Very good point! #annoying
Of course. They can’t have someone taking money from them by saying that raw or homemade pet food is good.
Somehow we need to stop the monopoly’s out there.
Sorry that you’re so surprised! I assumed (oh dear, yes that)that you had all the bases covered. I used to work for a real estate investor who always worked around all the possibilities: thetruthaboutpetfood, petfoodtruth, truthsaboutpetfood etc. It’s not to late to do it now. You’re doing a great job; keep up the great work!!
Is this what is known as domain hoarding? I know you said its legal, but I might be wrong-I thought this wasn’t legal? Unethical for sure!
Nicole, Why do you think this is unethical? Wouldn’t you want as many hits as you could get for YOUR business. Unfortunately, Truth About Pet Food didn’t think to do this herself. But she knows now and will hopefully cover more bases.
Susan, your passion and willingness to share is inspiring. However, your simple answer is too simple.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Protection_Act
I find it rather sickening they used GO DADDY, especially in light of the Go Daddy owner shooting elephants on safari.
Can you say hypocritical?
From what I found it looks as if the .org and .net domain names were purchased by PFI 4 months after you purchased yours in October 2006. .org and .net expire in Feb. and Dec. of this year. I don’t know what “renew prohibited” means in terms of ownership of a domain name.
Well Susan, I think we need to beat them at their own game and purchase the domain name for:
http://www.petfoodreport2.com
What do you think?
Yes! Always be one step ahead!
it is people like this who give sharks a bad name.
take the advice of Susa and go grab all the near domains you can – it doesn’t cost much per year, but you will find your mission is safer and more people find you. We pay for about five domains, and could go wild but that seems to be enough for us. You are way higher profile and have many more people who’d like to silence you. Just the other day one of my customers was mentioning that he had been to your site and it was shut down that day…
I am not surprised. They are deceiving. Can only hope consumers educate their selves. Don’t be fooled.
There is well established federal case law that if you want, you can sue in federal court to gain ownership of ALL “Truthaboutpetfood.” domain names. Even if the current owners do NOTHING with the names. As long as you show prior ownership of the domain as an individual or as the owner of the corporation that owns “TruthAboutPetFood.com”. Just make sure that you claim corporate ownership of “TruthAboutPetFood.com” as well as all spelling and phonetic variations such as “truthaboutpetfood.com” and you must point out directly in any legal filings that the internet domain name conversion to an IP address is case insensitive. The bottom line is that they may not impersonate, defame, damage or impersonate you or make any attempt to fool the public into any false beliefs. Ask any copyright or intellectual property lawyer. Do you want to take up a collection ?
Dagnabit! And I just made an offer to buy petfoodinstitute.com — I offered one whole dollar for it too. Aaw, phooey!
I believe Larry is right. (Though, it’s been a while since I dealt in any way with this particular issue.) Looking into copyright law is definitely a worthwhile endeavor.
They probably have the sites set to automatic renewal, if we were to get a collection going it might be pointless…
However, there’s always the option of buying up something *they* might use…
Like petfoodinstitutesucks.com
It works in politics, anyway…
It saddens me that “big” pet food companies do not want what is best for our pets and are only out to make a buck the cheapest way they can. When I think of all the beloved pets I have had in my life that I just bought what was cheapest for the largest amount and dumped it in the bowl for them..my heart aches. My precious dog, Lucy gets only the best I can find with her allergies. I love this site and have actually changed family members minds about what they are feeding their pets by what I have learned from Susan. Keep up the terrific work you do!
You can tell the PFI what you think of their attempts to deceive unsuspecting consumers with these similar domain names as TAPF. Go to their “The Pet Food Report” website, we all know the domain, http://www.truthaboutpetfood.org, click on the “Send an email” prompt, and tell them how you feel about what they’ve done with these domain names. Be professional with your comments but here is a chance to voice how you feel. This is what I just sent.
“Pet Food Institute, many consumers already know of your continual efforts to block accountability in your products but now, giving your Pet Food Report almost identical domain names as Truth About Pet Food’s, to dupe unsuspecting consumers into thinking they are getting the real facts that ARE found at truthaboutpetfood.com, that’s fraudulence. This is sad, hang your head sad. Consumers just want to know exactly what they are buying to feed their pets. We want to be informed with the truth, the.whole.truth. That’s not an unreasonable request.”
Good for you Joni!
Thank you, Mollie. I wish though that the PFI could have gotten my message but it came back to me (I tried twice) as undeliverable because their mailbox was full; full, I hope, of messages that conveyed the same sentiment as mine.
Well that just STINKS!
Speaking of STINK, I was looking to buy raw organic green TRIPE to add to the (excuse the expression), RAW diet I make for and feed to my healthy animals.
I found it on reelrawdog.com and they were so helpful to me, I sent them YOUR link to check out/sign “the pledge”. They said they would.
Whew! They would think I’d lost my marbles if they went to .org-org-org!
Real STINKY piece of green TRIPE, Kirt.
People need to get this out in anyway possible this shows how sneaky, corrupt and how far they will go to try and deceive us the consumers. I wonder if you can sue them? Keep up the good work!!!
Did you register your domain name prior to Feb 1, 2007? If you did, you should have seen that those were already taken.
I’m on your side, keep up the good fight!
I’m with Terry, I’d bet my car it’s those same sleazy folks who hacked your site.
I forget how the expression goes … but something along the lines of imitation is the greatest form of flattery. They’re obviously threatened by what you’re doing and so in a weird way, this is a compliment to the work that you’re doing. I do plan to write to them letting them know how important I think raw feeding is.
Susan, when was your website first created. All the extensions were created for a good reason that hasn’t worked out in practice. Now a company is taking a risk by not getting all the extensions for their brands. Then there are the perverts who take common misspellings of children’s websites to expose them to garbage. Lovely world we live in.
Really does not surprise me-Have seen this done in the past. Just goes to show they will stoop to any level to spread their toxic way of thinking. There will be some people that may think it is the real deal but most will catch on fast enough.
They prefer to use these tactics instead of truely looking into what people are saying now about the foods these people back. Much easier to be sly then step up to the plate and do something about what needs to be changed.
In the long run this will come back to them and they will be exposed for the people they are.
It’s not difficult to smell rancid head cheese when you’re close to the source… Bravo!!! Handlers of odious vermin beware… the Canine Crusader is wise to your dirty tricks.
It looks like they were both purchased Feb. 1, 2007. The. org is about to expire on Feb. 1, 2013 but I’m sure they have it on auto-renew so you wouldn’t be able to snag it. (I run a 501c3 cat rescue but I also design websites).
This is disgusting!! Unbelievable how low some people will
go to try and undermine others especially when the
almighty dollar is involved.
I expected them to lie and be underhanded. I didn’t expect sleazy.
I’m going to tell everybody I know about this. Starting with my Facebook and all my egroups! If everyone here does the same, this will backfire.
Also, somebody re-sent ALL of the Truth About Pet Food issues to my email account. Everyday there was at least 20 to 30. I couldn’t tell the new ones from the old ones. So I had to delete them all. I just went to Susan’s website to read the current ones. Also I joined Susan again under a new email account.
GRRRRRRR *SSHOLES
Perhaps we could all take a few minutes to write a note to them via their “contact us” button. I wrote to say their unethical, misleading behavior would not go unnoticed. Shaming is not just a picture game for pets!!
Dear Susan, Please try to keep fighting for all of our dear beloved pets! We are all behind you. There must be some way to stop these people from holding your website name! Unethical is the real answer. They should be stopped…
This is pretty standard practice actually…domains are so cheap. I wonder if they’re intentionally making their website look like something a 14-year old designed as part of the ruse so it looks less official and more folksy or believable.
Hmm, I wonder how you might play their game and gain some ground…like I said, domains are pretty cheap…
Actually, I just made an offer for http://www.petfoodinstitute.com for $1, because it is offered for sale — minimum offer, though: $1,000.00. Drat.
Check out this faq on their ingredients page:
“What are by-products?
Answer
By-products, simply put, are the parts of animals people do not normally eat. For example, if a chicken were raised for its white meat then the remaining meat would be considered a by-product. The by-products used in pet food are an important source of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids. Like all pet food ingredients, by-products from animals or grains are safe, nutritious and approved for use in pet food by federal and state government agencies.”
Good gravy! [pun intended]
Sneaky bastards (pardon my French) trying and probably succeeding at misleading the public into thinking it is your website.
Hilarious that PFI has “their site” all brightly colored with links and text seeming to make it look/have the feeling of being “home made”. As if they were nobody.
Susan, where was that FDA report on phenobarbitol levels found in pet food, that you mentioned the link of? I want to use it when I craft my retort to one of the FAQs found on truthaboutpetfood.org (as follows):
“I read that there might be rendered cats and dogs in my pet food. Is this true?
Answer
Absolutely not. The FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, which regulates pet food, has developed a test to detect dog and cat DNA in the protein of pet food. FDA tested dog food products and found absolutely no DNA from dogs or cats (FDA Veterinarian Newsletter 2002 Volume XVI, No III).
To put to rest this urban legend, members of the Pet Food Institute (PFI) — which make 98% of the cat and dog food in the U.S. marketplace — established as a condition of membership that companies cannot use these materials. All PFI members have certified that they do not use any materials derived from dogs or cats in their products.”
It’s true, the FDA did not detect the presence of canine or feline DNA, but…the FDA developed the test on the assumption that the origin of the pentobarbital was from euthanized dogs and cats. The trouble with their test was, it didn’t work. Not only did it fail to detect cat or dog DNA, it didn’t detect horse DNA either (the only other animal, the FDA suggested, could have been the possible source of the deadly poison because horses are euthanized using pentobarbital). The conclusion was they could not determine any species responsible for the pentobarbital contaminated dog food. In the article the FDA states that “the PCR results on the species of origin in the various dog food samples do not support a single point source of protein for the origin of the pentobarbital.” And that “While the results of this study narrow the search for the source of pentobarbital, it does not define the source (i.e., species) responsible for the contamination.” http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/NewsEvents/FDAVeterinarianNewsletter/ucm093929.htm
Stuff ‘n nonsense… PFI members “certifying” that they do not use certain materials… that carries no weight with me.
We should be glad that the domain registrations are public, so we can email the domain owners to register our disgust and disapproval – we can also protest to GoDaddy, the domain registrar – it may not be illegal, but it’s a very questionable practice. Publicizing this underhanded tactic may end up hurting them more than it’s helping them… gonna post about it on FB right now.
This is just horrible. The “Regulation” tab on their website is such a joke! I just feel sorry for unsuspecting pet owners. What a shame.
Love this tidbit from their site:
Question
When a pet food label says it contains “beef” or “chicken” how much of the food is beef or chicken?
Answer
The ingredients in pet food are listed in descending order by weight from largest to smallest. For example, if chicken is the first ingredient on the label then the pet food contains more chicken than any other ingredient.
Do they not know that the weight of chicken is in its normal state, water included, while other ingredients are dry/water removed? Of course if they did,owners would realize that the chicken is probably the third of fourth ingredient…
Hardly an original thought on their part to steal your name. They can’t defend their products on their own merits, so they have to try to slide in on your name. So glad someone stumbled upon this and told you.
Susan, is there any way you can add your name to your domain, so that searches will bring up your site first?
I agree with the previous poster, you should buy the .org domain that expires in February, and the other one that expires in December. Dirty business. Mainstream media time.
Very unethical but, clearly, you scare the knickers off these folks! What a compliment to YOUR integrity and research into pet food issues!!
The only way they can beat you and the truth is to cheat. May they get what they give–threefold.
I clicked on the link just to see what “information” they had. This question that I’ve copied and pasted from the site just really upsets me, the way they truly minimize the “byproduct” issue just blows me away. They are able to claim that dark meat is byproduct if all they want from the chicken is white meat. What a load of crap!!! Who is going to raise chickens just for the white meat??? Soooo slimy, these folks.
Question
What are by-products?
Answer
By-products, simply put, are the parts of animals people do not normally eat.For example, if a chicken were raised for its white meat then the remaining meat would be considered a by-product. The by-products used in pet food are an important source of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids. Like all pet food ingredients, by-products from animals or grains are safe, nutritious and approved for use in pet food by federal and state government agencies.
Not surprising and not fair (but I would expect that).
Went to petfoodreport.com and went to see what they said about by-products:
“The by-products used in pet food are an important source of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids. Like all pet food ingredients, by-products from animals or grains are safe, nutritious and approved for use in pet food by federal and state government agencies.”
I went to their site. We can e-mail them and tell them what we think. That is as low as you can get, to steal a domain name. Guess they could not come up with their own name. Better to disguise to since they are such lowlifes!
Hopefully, people are intelligent enough to realize that these two sites are redirecting them to a completely different site. They should be really ashamed of themselves.
YES buy them up, Susan!!!
Maybe it’s time to start a fund raiser for buying these names when they become available. Nothing about pfc’s or big ag foods surprises me anymore.
If YOU have owned the domain name BEFORE they did, you *can* successfully petition to have them released to you under both trademark and unfair competition regulations. I *urge* you to pursue that matter! There are MANY legal precedents for it, and they do NOT have a strong argument against it.
Why am I not surprised? I thought I was being paranoid when your blog host kept dropping you. This is shameful to the max! I will continue to support you and Mollie, no matter what.
Bless you Alissa.
You, too, Mollie. Keep fighting the good fight!
Ha!!! You said to guess and before I clicked, I guessed. And I guessed right!!! Pure sleaze for sure. I’m of the same opinion as the others. Buy ‘em! I’ll donate if you want to start a collection.
It’s no longer a surprise what these organizations will do or how low they’ll go for more money. I wish there was some way to make this go viral.
These people obviously have a dire lack of integrity but they also lack even the smallest amount of imagination and ingenuity. Instead of continuing to pour low grade ingredients into pets why don’t they use their money to hire some brains and produce a really quality product? Many people want to feed their pets a healthy diet. Once these pet food producers are exposed for what they really are people are going to go looking for a good product for their pets.
Personally, I would rather go to my butcher and purchase quality organ meat for my dog rather than feed her the garbage the pet food industry produces.
And a good reason to purchase associated domain names is to capture traffic when people type in terms to search engines, most of which now integrate shortcuts to suggest sites… so that all these TAPF sites will get quickly accessed by readers. Also remember that these search engines categorize lists of suggested sites by number of hits (the most popular sites come up first), and have means to access the sites repetitively to accomplish that. There is no reason to expect that PFI (or another industry lobbying group) would not want to invest in that tactic… it’s common business sense.
I have never doubted that the hacking of this site was accomplished under the direction of a stakeholder in the agribusiness community. There is no reason for anyone else to do so.
Susan, this does not surprise me at all. They did the same thing to the gentleman who owns and founded doctorscorecard.com. Tried to slander him and his family, and even hired a private investigator to watch his comings and goings. The doctor/vet/petfood/pharmceutical/AVMA/AMA, etc. lobbies are all examples of how power, absolute power, corrupts. It is very sad, but not surprising at all to me.
Buy the petfoodinstitute.com domain name, put on it that the pfi owns the two domain variations of your website. True so not libelous. You could then do to them whatever they try to do to you because of it. Offer a trade plus the cost of the domain registration and any legal bills.
Forgot to add that googling any of thetruthaboutpetfood, the truthaboutpetfood and the truth about pet food brings up you site as the number one hit and has this description: “Guess who owns the domain names TruthaboutPetFood.net and TruthaboutPetFood.org? Guess who owns the domain names TruthaboutPetFood.net and …”
Ironic isn’t it.
I tried both sites and both of them come up “PAW” for Pets are Wonderful.
Yes, but at the very bottom it states “Developed and operated by the Pet Food Institute, http://www.petfoodinstitute.org.”
Of course. Because you get lots of traffic from pet owners they are probably planning to set up alternate sites to send people to them instead of you. BIG PET FOOD see you as a threat to their higher than ever profits, as they have increased price of pet food, like human food, so profits are higher now then ever. Most the big pet food corps are owned by Zionists and or members of Bilderberg group, who are working together to increase of 400% inflation of prices of gas, food, medical, household and all products to increase their wealth and weaken those who are poor or middle class. Producing lower quality, smaller products at higher prices is a great way to strangle Americans. And to make it easier to take away rights and freedoms of Americans and they are trampling the Constitution.
When ever you buy a domain, it is smart to buy all the domains from .info, .org, .com, .net, etc otherwise competitors or enemies like you have, will buy all the others and send the traffic to their sites to bypass your site.
These big industries have no concious and have no bar for lowest of the low. Why? Because corporations are not people, only people have a concious. Not surprising at all. Thanks for the heads up.
[[[ The ONLY site run by an independent, unpaid, voluntary consumer advocate, who is not affiliated with the Pet Food Institute or AAFCO, and who IS dedicated to pet food safety and welfare, with 20 years of personal experience, is Susan Thixton's the Truth About Pet Food.com. For more information please consult My Profile page.]]]
A distinguishing claim like that can be made because the author’s name and the reference to the number of years of experience and whatever else can be added.
This should be a disclaimer somewhere on the website so new readers will understand your mission if they’re comparing web searches. Check with web designers for “tricks” to make sure your site is always displayed before others.
Not only is their site UGLY but their spirit is UGLIER for attempting to mislead those who love and care for their pets. If the site domain names do become available please consider purchasing. Sometimes individuals will hold on to them and try to sell the names. Nevertheless, I’m sticking with the most professional, well-research, most caring site (yours) regardless of whether it’s .org, net, biz, etc.
This is why I usually grab the .net and .org domains when setting up a .com. It’s worth paying $10/year each to buy and park those two domains to avoid such an issue. The only effort put forth is to redirect them over to their respective .com sites. PFI’s tactics are reprehensible, to say the least. Thank you for getting the message out.
Psychopaths are all the same. Their tactics are all the same. They are so predictable.