Press Secretary Sean Spicer is ?? ??? ??having a bad week on the internet.
First, the news hit about Spicer's public Venmo account, then Mashablereported that Spicer WHOIS page reveals a whole bunch of public data about him.
Using that data we discovered that Spicer registered the domain RateTheReporter.comin February of 2015, using his personal Yahoo address.
At the time the site was registered, Spicer was the chief strategist and communications director for the Republican National Committee.
Although the site is empty, it sounds like a slew of other premiere ratings site out there on the net, like RateMyProfessor.com.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable WHOIS is a database that documents the owners of domain names. Spicer's personal website, which was recently taken down, has its data publicly visible, which revealed his personal Yahoo email address. That email address was registered to 16 different domains, including the site RateTheReporter.com.
While Spicer's intentions in registering the site are unclear, it's safe to assume that the site could be used for people in PR and communications to rate reporters on their experience working with them, or not with them, as it were—a potentially dangerous scenario, given the responsibility of the press is to report the facts, not "alternative facts," and not the dialogue a PR person wants to push.
Ratings sites (like RateMyProfessor.com) are typically public and anonymous, allowing anyone who dislikes or disagrees with the person they're rating to give them a negative review.
Although the site doesn't have history on Archive.org, a website that archives websites on the internet, it's still troubling that Spicer would register the site, given the rocky relationship the Trump administration (as well as the RNC, Spicer's employer at the time of the site's registration) has had with the press since the campaign trail. And then, of course, there's the fact that the Trump administration spent its first full day in power lying to and complaining about the press. Most recently, President Donald Trump claimed that the "the very, very dishonest press" doesn't want to report on terrorist attacks.
And to think, all of this could have been avoided if Spicer just dished out $7.99 a year to hide his WHOIS data.
Sean Spicer did not immediately return a request for comment to Mashable.
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