Multiply Indonesia Takes Influential Blogger’s URL

Multiply is now using the the web address indonesia.multiply.com, which originally belongs to an Indonesian blogger. Donny Verdian, the previous owner of the address did not have any intention to turn this matter into a dispute. However, it became a hot topic discussed over social platforms like Facebook and Twitter among Indonesians.

Originally the indonesia.multiply.com address was owned by Donny Verdian who left it untouched for almost two years. But since last April the address was suddenly taken over by Multiply Indonesia.

Donny expressed his confusion on his blog about the takeover because he did not receive any notice from Multiply. Various comments about this arose from other Indonesian bloggers too. However, since Donny does not intend to prolong the problem regarding this sudden URL domain takeover, he wrote the following statement in his most recent blog post.

“Physically, the account inhabits in a server belonged to Multiply Corp. which I access for free. So, when Multiply is going to use it again and resulting me lost the access right, well fine, I should give it away.”

In a statement on his blog, Multiply Indonesia explained that they had sent advance notice in accordance with their Terms of Service. After that, they also sent an email to Donny with a screen-captured internal message that was sent to his Multiply account in early April.

But it did not mean that Donny had received the email at that time. His latest blog post was not intended to show that he had been communicating with Multiply. Rather, it is to confirm that he does not intend to demand the return of the site address. The blog post was published a few hours before Multiply Indonesia sent an email to Donny, putting the statement Multiply Indonesia was communicating with Donny questionable.

When we contacted Donny regarding this issue, he reiterated that he did not want to prolong this matter. At the same time, he did not want his statement to be twisted as if he had been communicating with Multiply previously. He also stated on Twitter that he wants to end this matter peacefully.

This case was highlighted and commented on by many bloggers in Indonesia because they question the extent to which a social networking company could take over their services from users. As Donny Verdian is pretty well-respected bloggers in Indonesia, this topic naturally became a hot discussion.

There are still some questions and comments posted by the blogger community, demanding Multiply Indonesia to respond to this case. Maybe there will be further complications, or maybe both parties would consider the case closed. But for other social network users, it is a good indication that one should be more careful when using web services. What seems yours might not be actually be yours.

Multiply Indonesia has just set foot in Indonesia and intends to attract more users in the country with their social commerce service.