Battling Convention Centre web sites

Yesterday one of my Google Alerts had a link to http://www.niagaraconventionciviccentre.com/attractions.php that mentioned Clifton Hill. I was intrigued, so I visited the link. At first glance, it appeared to be legit and I wondered why there weren’t more attractions listed.

Then I noticed that all of the attractions were owned by the same company. I browsed the site, and the other restaurants and hotels were also all owned by Niagara 21st Group (or whatever that company may have split into).

The real convention centre web site is at http://www.fallsconventions.com/

I generally try to avoid commentary on the site, but I have to say that I don’t like this. A major operator in the city has registered a domain that may trick people into thinking it is the real convention centre web site. I think it looks bad on them, and could actually hurt potential users of the convention centre if the site does confuse them.

13 thoughts on “Battling Convention Centre web sites

  1. This looks pretty underhanded if you ask me. Very much reminiscent of the bad habits Niagara businesses got into in the 90s when everyone was competing with their own thinly veiled mostly-uselss “web portals.”

  2. I have to agree, that’s a pretty shifty thing to do. If I had anything to do with the Convention Centre I’d be issuing some kind of take down notice. It strikes me as a pretty cut-and-dry trademark issue, not to mention that the image of the Centre has obviously been taken and cropped right from the real site. That’s a copyright issue if I’ve ever seen one.

    Graham, I don’t know if you know who’s responsible for the Centre’s real site but I’d suggest bringing it to their attention. I’m sure they’d be interested to find out about their “competitor” site.

  3. Very sleazy. They even put floor plans in to make it look legit.
    I hope the NCCC and the city, as the actual owners of the NCCC, can take some action against these unscrupulous scumbags.

  4. I could be completely wrong here, but whenever I see cross promotions on a website (ie. Floor plans, facility images and meeting facilities) I immediately think that there is an agreement in place to use these links? The only thing that would make me disagree with my thinking is that there is no direct link back to the original NFCC website? Remember the cost for this Convention Center was split three ways among the federal and provincial governments and a group of local tourism operators, maybe they were one?

  5. definitely a lot, if it goes the same way as the Topple Tower ride, it may not open until next year or september at the earliest, but sources say July.

    1. I don’t think they’ll take it down unless there is more publicity about it, or unless the convention centre themselves ask them to take it down.

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