Nothing lasts forever; that doubles for internet domainsS. You have to refresh it regularly. About 800,000 won maryland motorists and the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration are learning that lesson the hard way, after discovering the website on their commemorative license plates now leads to an online casino based outside the Philippines.
These plates were originally intended to commemorate Maryland’s unique role in the War of 1812. These plates were submitted by the War Bicentennial Commission of 1812. The license plates were defaulted to Maryland residents starting in 2010 and only stopped working in 2016, according to WBALTV.
The commission established a non-profit organization, Star-Spangled 200 Inc., and its website address is listed at the bottom of the plaques. But instead of learning about American history, visitors are now redirected to globalinternational.info—a silly, purely Filipino gambling site.
Evil behavior News noticed the transition must have happened around last year:
Sometime last year, www.starspanled200.org stopped telling people how Marylander Francis Scott Key was inspired to write the national anthem “The Star Spangled Banner” after watching British ships bombard Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812 and then started redirecting to a website called Globeinternational.info, in which a bikini-clad woman blinked advertising “The best bet site in the Philippines, Deposit 100 Get 250.”
[…]Domain registration information shows that starspangled200.org has been re-registered and transferred a number of times over the past few years. It is unclear exactly when it ceased to be a website about American history. Internet Archive shows that as recently as December 2022, the website explained that “young America was embroiled in the War of 1812 and the Chesapeake Bay region bore the brunt of it.” However, a snapshot from today explains that “Extreme Tolerance Laws Govern Gaming” in the Philippines. “This is a result of the growing popularity of gambling by tourists and the recent massive construction of casino resorts.”
The MVA is working on a solution to a problem that affects approximately 798,000 Free State residents. They also want to make it clear that the Media Authority has nothing to do with the gambling site.
