Caught: Beverly Kidd - napping

June 4, 6:22 AMPhoenix Television ExaminerScott Davis

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Turns out, it was all her fault. Kidd was napping, so to speak.

KTVK (Channel 3) news anchor Beverly Kidd now admits losing her personal web site due to non-payment. Not that she's a deadbeat-- she simply forgot to renew the registration on time.

"I was going to take care of it after vacay," she wrote, "but someone scooped it up".

As Examiner.com reported earlier this week, Kidd returned from vacation to find her site- www.beverlykidd.com- no longer contained her blogs, videos or photos. Now visitors to the site see links to real estate and vacation deals. She'd become a victim of a form of "cybersquatting" called domain lurking. In setting up any web site, owners must purchase the name through an internet registrar. This is known as registering a domain name. Such registrations expire after a fixed period, usually one or two years. At that time the doman may be renewed by the owner or purchased by another party. Kidd's domain registration lapsed May 30 while she was out of town and an astute squatter-in-waiting snatched it up.

Some cybersquatters end up in court for cases like this depending on how the site is used. If the squatter attempts to sell the site back to Kidd, it could be considered illegal. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act gives web site owners recourse from bad faith registrations, although such court actions can be costly, lengthy and fruitless.

Gayle Bass, the "Click Chick" from KTAR radio, had words of advice. "What happened to Beverly should be a reminder to all TV and radio folks," she said. Bass has a master's degree in multimedia journalism and spends much of her workday online. She said short of suing, Kidd can either let it go or plead for mercy to reclaim her domain. "My friend, Kris Mason, a local comedian, says he lost his Web site to some Russian squatters who wait for sites like his and Beverly's to expire. Luckily, he convinced another Kris Mason to give him her domain name. But businesses and individuals really need to watch their registrations."

I asked Kidd what she planned to do. "I don't know," she wrote.

Well, Bev, www.kiddnapping.com is available. Hey, it's a start!