Creatine Marketing & California Prop 8

This certainly has been a big week for the United States LGBT community. I can't begin to count how much productivity I've lost captivated with following the landmark SCOTUS Prop 8 and DOMA rulings. Same-sex marriage is once again legal in California, and Sacramento alone issued 19 same-sex marriage licenses today alone, and even Modern Family is taking a look at getting hitched in the post DOMA cheer. Now there are many better educated discussions on the topic, and I have no intention trying to duplicate that evaluation and commentary, but I do have a point to make, and though it is probably not the more important points of the topic, I think it is interesting nonetheless. What I want to discuss isn't about looking forward at what the future will hold, but looking back at what was done along the way. The question is what does Creatine Marketing have to do with this? The answer is prop8.org.

As we all know in 2008, the California public brought proposition 8 to voter ballot, and was likely the most controversial issue on the ballot at the time. As with today, debate raged, and phrases like 'prop 8' were trending, and who came along to take advantage of that? None other than our friends at Creatine Marketing. Back in 2008, Jeff Pulvino and Shane Barker were running a US Loan Auditors precursor real estate scam called, Prop8 Associates, complete with their all too familiar affiliate marketing option. 

Of course no one believes that this founded-during-California-Prop-8-campaign company just happened to share the same name as one of the most popular search terms of the time. The Pulvino/Barker dynamic duo were trying to cash in on the buzz with misleading marketing tactics. At the same time, I suppose you can't really fault this type of tactic if it worked, but it just seems in poor taste to take advantage of the issue.

Now we've mentioned before a number of businesses run by the Pulvino/Barker duo, including this blog's namesake, Creatine Marketing, and like most of these businesses, Prop8 Associates LLC is no more. Why then is the domain prop8.org now registered to Creatine Marketing (aka Next Level Ideas)?

It would appear that Creatine Marketing is still tying to make a profit on the gay rights debate. For the last several years, this domain has been used as a parking page with an offer to sell to the highest bidder. Using parked domains to make money is nothing new. What I question is why this was kept all this time, and the content currently on the site. Prop8.org now contains a very basic Wordpress site stating its would be value, a starting bidding price of $75,000, many middle of the road blog articles on gay equal rights topics, and a boast of a #3 rank on Google.

I find this despicable. This is not an abandoned and forgotten domain, it was actively renewed not 3 months ago listing Creatine Marketing's less than one year old address at 3840 Rosin Court according to their WHOIS registration. This is an intentional attempt to profit on an issue of targeted discrimination against millions of Californians, and just one more example of what these con artists are willing to do to make a few bucks. This is what makes a con artist. No morals, and the active sense and willingness to exploit the trends of the time, whether it be desperate home-owners, the social media marketing craze, or even the pain the LGBT community.