Story about Enron “whistle-blower” includes domain name scuffle.
You never know where you’ll come across a story about domain names and their importance.
Last Friday, as I ate breakfast at the W Hotel in Silicon Valley, I read an article about Lynn Brewer. Brewer was formerly with Enron and now gives talks about ethics. The USA Today article describes Brewer as the “whistle-blower who wasn’t”. According to the article, Brewer was really a lower level employee at Enron who had little to do with uncovering wrong-doing at Enron. But what caught my eye was a reference to domain names:
In her book, Brewer says that she was dissatisfied with her job on the legal briefing team and with her colleagues, so she moved to Azurix, an Enron spinoff.
There, she says, she uncovered an example of what she calls corporate espionage carried out by the company’s CEO, Rebecca Mark, and her husband, Michael Jusbasche.
According to Brewer, Mark wanted to come up with a catchy Internet domain name that Azurix could use as an online trading platform for water, much as Enron had done in the field of natural gas. Azurix employees and executives brainstormed and came up with several potential website names, including Waterswap.com, Watervault.com and Water2Water.com.
In one case, Brewer says, it was decided on a Friday afternoon that Azurix should register a particular domain name. Part of Brewer’s job was to register the site. But on the following Monday morning, when she tried to do so, Brewer learned that Jusbasche had scooped up the domain name Friday evening. Brewer informed her boss, Mends.
In an interview, Mends says he explained to Brewer that on Friday evening, Mark mentioned the domain name to her husband and Azurix’s plans to register it. Jusbasche said the company shouldn’t wait all weekend before registering the name. Instead, he went ahead and registered it himself, through his own website, ChemicalDesk.com, to prevent an outside party from squatting on it.
Another former colleague of Brewer’s, Amanda Brock, who was known as Amanda Martin when she worked at Enron and Azurix, told USA TODAY the same thing.
Brewer saw it differently. She writes in her book that she viewed the domain-name registrations as evidence of an “ongoing criminal enterprise” in which Enron would have to pay Jusbasche for the domain names. In her public appearances, including the NYSE speech, Brewer cites the event as an example of “espionage.”
When USA TODAY asked her for any evidence that Jusbasche had been paid off to turn over control of the domain names, Brewer’s story evolved. In one interview, she said Diane Bazelides, head of communications at Azurix, had told her that Jusbasche had been paid. USA TODAY contacted Bazelides, who denied ever making such a statement. In a follow-up interview, Brewer said it wasn’t Bazelides who’d made the assertion, but someone in the accounting department whose name she couldn’t recall.
Corporate espionage? I helped my wife’s company get an important domain name by backordering it for them. Had I not done that, someone else would have snapped up the domain when it expired. It wasn’t espionage; it was smart business.
But this case highlights the point that company’s need to have processes and procedures in place to register and manage domain names.
DomainerPro says
I agree that they should have registered the domain names immediately, rather than waiting until Monday. The internet does not work Monday to Friday only. But the names should have been registered in Azurix’ name, with Mark or some other designated employee as the contact. As you point out, companies should have written procedures for these things.
Dan says
“”You never know where you’ll come across a story about domain names and their importance.””
Exactly…I read the same story about the same time on Friday.
Peace!
Dan
Claude Gelinas says
This might be a tad off-topic but I always feel somewhat uneasy when I read about people attempting to slap a “dot com” after anything related to “selling water”.
H2O being the source of life on Earth, selling it seems opportunistic, at best and downright sinister, at worst.
Water shouldn’t be traded — it should be preserved, treated and made freely available.
In France, with la Société nationale des eaux, the wealthy are growing “insanely rich” while access to water (not to mention affordability) is at an all time low.
Following the trend of general sleaze going on at Enron, it makes sense that they fancied about trading water… and probably end up selling it.
Oh well, just my 2 cents ; )