Gore - Dot - Not: VP Surfs for a Website -- 03/26/1999

Gore - Dot - Not: VP Surfs for a Website

26 March, 1999

By Justin Torres
CNS Senior Staff Writer

(CNS) – "Where do you want to go today?" asks the TV ad touting the avalanche of information available on the Internet. You can go anywhere, it seems–as long as you don't want to go to the official Al Gore for President web site.

Al Gore's Internet site, tentatively scheduled to go online Thursday, has been delayed "for a few days" while the Gore campaign works out where the site will be located and what features it will contain, a spokesperson told CNS.

Meanwhile, the administrator of www.gore2000.com says traffic at her site has never been better.

The site, owned by Market Visions Interactive (MVI), an Internet company in Kansas City, Mo., sells Al Gore for President campaign buttons, tee shirts, and lapel pins. "It's been a great seller for us–we've had over 40,000 unique hits a month," said Sharon Young, the site's administrator.

Young said MVI has received what she called a flood of emails from people interested in volunteering to work for the Gore campaign since the site went online in August 1997.

MVI–which is not connected to Gore's presidential bid –offered the site name to the campaign for free, in exchange for an exclusive online marketing deal for Gore merchandise. But Young told CNS that the campaign refused. Young added the campaign told her they preferred to use two other companies instead. MVI then offered to sell the site to the campaign, but was told that the asking price was too high, as the campaign was "on a shoestring budget," said Young.

"I can't believe an Internet-savvy guy like Al Gore wouldn't recognize the value of the name gore2000.com," Young added. "I mean, they don't think twice about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for TV ads, or to pay the salaries of the lawyers they have calling me."

MVI also owns the Internet address www.algore.com, which points back to the merchandising site.

Another address, www.gore2000.net, is owned by Gordon Sanderson, a business student in Baytown, Tex. Sanderson, who said he is a Gore supporter, told CNS that he's willing to sell his address to anyone who wants it. "Hey, it's capitalism at work," said Sanderson, who's asking $30,000 for the address.

Sanderson said the Gore campaign has not contacted him.

After internal discussions, the Gore campaign has decided to temporarily delay the launch of the official Gore website. "We're looking at using a couple of other addresses that we've retained," said Gore campaign spokesman Roger Salazar. A CNS search of the InterNIC website, which serves as a national clearinghouse for Internet domain names, shows that GORENETWORK has been reserved by the campaign, along with the suffixes "org," "net," and "com", the most popular on the Internet.

Campaign officials said that when the website is launched, one of the features will be a question and answer section where Gore hopes to respond to at least one question a day. Other expected features include interactive options such as a bulletin board and chat room.

"We want to utilize as many options as possible to get our message out, and the Internet has grown exponentially in the past few years," Salazar told CNS.

Gore has been the target of criticism since taking credit earlier this month for having created the Internet, which came into being while Gore was attending law school. Gore attributed the remark, which was made during a CNN interview, to being tired during his appearance on the cable channel.

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