Unsolicited E-mails Sent to Alumni
May 14, 2009
Recently, it has come to our attention that Cedarville alumni have been receiving unsolicited e-mails from contact-at-cedarvillealumni.com. These e-mails are signed by Daniel Ice '04 and encourage the reader to visit a website associated with a domain name that abuses the CEDARVILLE trademark. We have learned that this domain name is registered to Mark S. Miller, '92. Mr. Miller is an attorney of record for Dr. David Hoffeditz in the lawsuit filed against Cedarville University and three Cedarville employees. Cedarville first learned about this website from two local reporters who said they had been contacted by the website’s creator.
This posting is to update you on how we as a University are responding to the false and misleading information that continues to be spread about Cedarville. We want to assure you that the accusations found at the offending website are fundamentally false. Indeed, the abusive website is merely a repackaging of old, discredited material. Tellingly, the e-mail claims that the website cedarvillealumni.com has been endorsed by the entire Coalition of the Concerned. This is not true. One individual whose name appeared on the list wrote: "I for one do not want my name nor the Coalition to be listed as supporting this site. Hopefully, this will be immediately corrected."
How is the University responding?
First, on April 23, the University sent an e-mail to alumni via our Alumni eNews service. The e-mail made alumni aware that, although this website is associated with a domain name that is confusingly similar to our CEDARVILLE mark, it is not affiliated with Cedarville University.
Second, when we learned that unsolicited e-mails were also being sent to our alumni, we notified alumni whose e-mails were included in our online alumni directory, a likely source of email addresses for the spam campaign, and encouraged them to review the visibility settings of their directory listing. We posted this same message on the alumni website on May 7. Our policy remains, as posted on our website, that directory information is not authorized for use in general solicitations.
Third, on May 12, the University requested that the domain name cedarvillealumni.com (and six similar domain name registrations all registered in the name of Mr. Miller) be transferred to Cedarville. The contract that Mr. Miller entered into when he registered these seven domain names allows for such transfer requests to be submitted to an alternative dispute resolution panel. Any individual who registers a domain name agrees to this policy at the time they register the domain name. Each of the seven disputed domain names consists in part of the CEDARVILLE mark and each is being used to either disrupt the day to day business of the University, or in the case of the majority of the domain names, has been associated with pay-per-click advertising pages which promote competing higher educational services. It is our hope that in submitting this request to an alternative dispute resolution panel, we will be able to resolve this matter in a prompt and principled manner which will protect our valuable brand from abuse.
Finally, as Cedarville continues to respond to the lawsuit filed by former faculty member David Hoffeditz, we may continue to face opposition to the decisions we are now being forced to make. As a reminder, responses to a number of the allegations aimed at the University can be found at www.cedarville.edu/message.
Thank you for your continued prayers and support as together we walk through this time of refining in our community.
