What is Ocdumps.com

I was looking through our visitor log to see who had been visiting us here at TheLiberalOC.com and I found a web domain name that looked curious. 

We had had dozens of daily visits from a domain called www.Ocdumps.com I clicked on the link and ended up here.

I went back to our records and looked more closely and found that the domain is registered to The County of Orange and the visits were coming from the County’s IP address. 

I went back to Ocdumps.com and clicked through the links and was taken to a variety of for-profit sites that help people access marriage and birth certificates as well as help in filing for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy? Well that is something the County knows a little bit about.

But what I didn’t understand is why the County IP address is listed under an apparently commercial domain name? Why not just show the domain as what it is ocgov.com? Why would the county want to conceal the actual domain name of their IP address?

So I sent an email to the County Media Relations person Pat Markley.

From: Christopher Prevatt [mailto:CLP@ChrisPrevatt.com]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 5:23 PM
To: Markley, Pat
Cc: clp@ChrisPrevatt.com
Subject: Media Inquiry

Dear Pat,

I have come across an internet website named “ocdumps.com” that appears to be linked to the IP address for the County of Orange.

Can you please check with CEO/IT as to whether the County of Orange has a relationship with this commercial website?

If there is a relationship, what is it and why does it exist? Further, if that relationship has a cost or revenue impact upon the County what is that impact?

Thank you.

Chris Prevatt
TheLiberalOC.com

Here is what she told me…

Hi Chris,

I checked with CEO/IT and this IP address links to the County’s Integrated Waste Management Department.  They also told me that they purchase rights to several URLs to make it easier for people to find information about County services, for example www.ocvotes.com.  Often, the public does not know the formal name of a County agency or program, so this helps connect them to the information and it provides better customer service.

The cost for each of these URLs is approximately $7 – $15 per year.

Pat Markley
CEO Community/Media Relations

I was at work when I got her response on my phone so I typed in the ocdumps.com address on my work computer and sure enough the Integrated Waste Management Department webpage http://www.oclandfills.com/ came up.

That’s weird? So I typed the address in on my phone to see what came up.

The website called ocdumps.com was there on my screen. So I sent a quick reply to Pat.

From: Christopher Prevatt [mailto:CLP@ChrisPrevatt.com]
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 4:11 PM
To: Markley, Pat
Subject: RE: Media Inquiry

Pat this is really interesting. Out of curiosity I typed into my browser on the county network and sure enough, up popped the IWMD website. One problem though, I get something completely different when I type the web address from home or even on my Q. Check it out  from a computer off our network and I think you’ll see what I mean.

Chris Prevatt
Sent from my Motorola Q SmartPhone

Here’s what she had to say.

From: Markley, Pat [mailto:Pat.Markley@ocgov.com]
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 4:13 PM
To: Christopher Prevatt
Subject: RE: Media Inquiry

I think this could be a cache issue with Google – probably an old link
for this URL that is no longer valid. 

Pat Markley
CEO Community/Media Relations

That’s interesting. The website ocdumps.com has been modified since I made my initial inquiry to display links to IWMD information.  Someone had to do that and the url had to be active for that to happen. The Google thing is simply nonsense, but Markley was probably just repeating what she was told.

So I’m still left with my initial nagging question…

Why doesn’t the county just show their true domain name rather than hide behind ocdumps.com or ocvotes.com?  And one new one, why is the County helping people find out how to file bankruptcy?

As the webpage suggested, with Ocdumps.com I found something interesting.