Swiss Tax Authority Forced To Buy Bahamas Domain Name After URL Typo (techcrunch.com) 29
The Swiss canton ("state") of Basel-Stadt fixed a tax flyer typo by buying the incorrect domain and setting up a redirect, avoiding a $100,000 reprint cost. TechCrunch reports: As Swiss news outlet SRF reports, the Basel tax administration printed fliers that were supposed to include a URL to file taxes online. However, the Swiss country code top-level domain (ccTLD) of ".ch" was omitted, leaving just the Basel-Stadt suffix of ".bs" -- which just happens to be the ccTLD of the Bahamas.
A spokesperson for Basel-Stadt's department of finance told SRF that it would cost the equivalent of around $100,000 to print and send out a batch of new flyers, so it was a no-brainer to fork out $1,000 to administer the new domain instead.
A spokesperson for Basel-Stadt's department of finance told SRF that it would cost the equivalent of around $100,000 to print and send out a batch of new flyers, so it was a no-brainer to fork out $1,000 to administer the new domain instead.
Re .bs top-level domain name (Score:5, Funny)
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Let me spell it out for you: it's perfectly possible for both sides to be assholes.
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That story is just too good ... (Score:1)
Lucky for them (Score:3)
They were lucky the domain was resolvable (TLD) and that they were able to buy it.
A friend of mine made a typo printing flyers with his 800 phone number on them and wasn't that lucky. At least he had email and web site URL on the flyers as well and those were correct.
He is kind of "Speedy Gonzales" and often makes typo in sysadmin stuff so I always tell him to take a breath and look twice before clicking "enter". It's not like it was some kind of race but he often seem to think so.
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I forgot t mention, the flyers were already sent by snail mail when he realized his mistake. So, lucky too they apparently found out about the mistake before sending the flyers. I think his cost was something like 5000$ or something.
Re: Lucky for them (Score:5, Funny)
"He is kind of "Speedy Gonzales" and often makes typo in sysadmin stuff so I always tell him to take a breath"
Post 2:
"I forgot to mention [...]"
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Re: Lucky for them (Score:2)
Re: Lucky for them (Score:2)
Flyers?? (Score:2)
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What mail? (Score:3)
What country do you live in? Up here in northern Europe, I haven't received a letter in years. Bank statements and bills have been digital for 25 years now. My mailbox is always empty. If we put a certain sticker on our mailboxes it's not legal to put fliers or advertisements in them. The companies respect the law.
Our national postal service stopped delivering mail daily because it had no purpose. They deliver every other weekday now. They're considering stopping deliveries of mail to households altogether
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IF (and only if) you choose to have "electronic billing". Which I don't. If you want to have a physical bank (with human beings), then you must never accept the Bank's ideas for "cost reducing" ideas. Your cost reduction is other people's redundancy.
Wasn't that clear in the 1980s?
I'm perfectly aware of their bribes. I choose to not accept them.
Been there. Done
Re:Flyers?? (Score:4, Informative)
I thought we had stopped wasting paper on this stuff?
The "flyer" is not commercial advertisement, it's an official information letter sent to inform taxpayers about changes in the upcoming online tax filings procedure.
Basically Switzerland has been moving towards online tax filings for many years now but login to tax services was at the canton level (read "state"), with every canton having their own infrastructure. Now they have implemented a national solution [admin.ch] and they are informing taxpayers of the change.
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The only surprise ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Selling sub-domains like .... tesla.chargers.bs or elonmusk.bs to people of a certain persuasion should recoup that cost PDQ.
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They didn't buy .bs. Their real site was sometaxbullshit.bs.ch but they accidentally published the flyer with just the sometaxbullshit.bs URL so they bought a registration for that domain from the Bahamas. Their site [register.bs] says $500 per domain, no idea why the Swiss had to pay $1000. You could resell your first domain (if you registered chargers.bs) but the second one would require a second registration.
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Buying one domain (with sub-domaining) is a very different thing from buying the TLD registry. Which is what TFS implied.
Tattoo (Score:5, Funny)
Enough with the clickbait (Score:5, Insightful)
How, exactly was this a forced action?
They made an unforced mistake. They opted for the lower-cost solution, but easily could have not purchased the domain name, and instead re-printed the flyers (or, for less money, overprinted them).
Slashdot editors: Enough with the clickbait.
Re:Enough with the clickbait (Score:5, Insightful)
How, exactly was this a forced action?
They made an unforced mistake. They opted for the lower-cost solution, but easily could have not purchased the domain name, and instead re-printed the flyers (or, for less money, overprinted them).
Slashdot editors: Enough with the clickbait.
Not securing the wrong domain name would have meant someone else with nefarious intent could have purchased it instead to pose as the official one. Since the domain is meant to file taxes, which include filing various documents like salary, bank statements etc... you can see how it can become an issue.
Two typos in the hostname (Score:2)
What the hell? (Score:2)