Court grants MacArthur Airport website domain

Islip Town has won the first round in a federal court battle with an unofficial Long Island MacArthur Airport website and will take over the site's domain - macarthurairport.com - until the suit is resolved.

Visitors to the unofficial site yesterday saw an error message. When the domain name transfer is complete, visitors will be redirected to the airport's official site, flylima.com, Islip Supervisor Phil Nolan said.

The unofficial site's operator, Black Sheep Television, posted a statement on blacksheeptelevision.com saying the airport domain name had been "seized . . . by the government."

It was unclear whether the company would try to host an airport site under a different domain name.

Black Sheep Television, a Hampton Bays marketing firm, sued in October to reverse an arbitrator's ruling that the town had common-law rights to macarthurairport.com and eight similar domain names the company had registered.

U.S. District Judge Leonard Wexler issued a preliminary injunction in the town's favor last Friday. He said Islip is "likely to succeed" in its counterclaim that Black Sheep Television had broken federal cybersquatting law, according to a court transcript.

"Users of the Black Sheep website will no doubt be misled into thinking that the site is the official site of the town's airport," Wexler said, adding that "the strong public interest . . . is served by ensuring the public receives accurate information and is not misled in the event of an emergency."

The town has moved to dismiss Black Sheep's lawsuit, which also seeks $1 million in damages. The company claims town officials stole proprietary business information during discussions on jointly operating the website. The town denies that.

Black Sheep launched its website in 2000. It offered airport parking and flight tracking information, and hosted ads for car rentals and hotels.

The airport, which serves nearly 2 million passengers a year, had no website of its own until last year.

Company owners Jacques Ditte and Jan Hanna wrote on their website: "We've provided a good faith airport information service that the Town of Islip failed to provide for 9 years, and at no cost to the tax payer . . . We are not even being compensated for a single dime, for this government seizure." In an interview, Ditte declined to disclose how much revenue the site generated.