(Back on the record at 10:11 a.m.)
Q Mr. Mishkoff, who are the -- who are WebFeats' main customers? Let's say for the year 2001, the year that just concluded, who were the main customers?
A My major -- my -- in the year 2001 let me divide this up into web business and other business. My main web customer is the Cellular One Group.
Q Excuse me for one second. When you say, "web customer," that means --
A That means developing and/or maintaining websites. I do other computer-related business under the name "WebFeats" that has absolutely nothing to do with the web.
Q Okay. So your main web customer is Cellular One Group?
A Right.
Q And then your other -- do you have any other prominent web customers?
A I have no other prominent customers. I only -- I have only two or three other customers, and they're all very small.
Q Can you tell me their names?
A There's a company called Effective Inventory Management.
Q And, for example, for them, you also create a website and --
A I created a website years ago. I now maintain it, and I add to it occasionally.
Q Okay. And another one?
A Another company called Cardiovascular Innovations.
Q And you do similar things for their website?
A Yes. And I'm in the process of creating a website for a company called Champagne DeMeric -- or "DeMeric" as they like to say.
Q Like French for "of America"?
A No. D-e-M-e-r-i-c. I believe it's a person's name. It's a French company. I don't -- my contact is American. I don't know that much about the French side of the company.
Q Okay. So that constitutes your web business, the hosting and the creating of the websites?
A Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's anybody else, and I can't -- off the top of my head, I can come up with no other customers that I have right now or that I had last year.
Q Okay. And the rest of your business is primarily of what nature?
A Database programming.
Q Do you have a list of -- does WebFeats own -- I'll use the word, "portfolio," but it's probably the wrong word. Does WebFeats own a collection of domain names?
A WebFeats owns -- well, I own probably, through the WebFeats name, ten or twelve domains, and that's a guess.
Q When you say, "I own," you're just -- you're making clear whose name shows up as the registrant?
A Well, I'm just not sure. They're probably all registered to WebFeats.
Q Okay. So to the best of your ability, can you name the domain names that WebFeats owns? And I understand that it may be actually you that owns them.
A Okay. Well, there's webfeats.com. I own mishkoff.com. That's probably under my name, rather than WebFeats. I own myszkowski.com, which I will have to spell. That's M-y-s-z-k-o-w-s-k-i.
Q Sorry. M-y --
A M-y-s-z-k-o-w-s-k-i.com.
Q Is that one of your --
A That's my ancestral family name.
Q Okay.
A I own BestUS -- b-e-s-t-u-s.com. And I'm sure there are a few more. Give me a minute here. I own Travelian, t-r-a-v-e-l-i-a-n.com. I feel like there are two or three more, and I can't think of them right now. I had one called Evenday, E-v-e-n-d-a-y. That has expired, and I'm not renewing it, but I probably still own it. I don't know what the technical definition is of owning the domain name. It probably shows up as being under my control.
Q Okay. When you -- again, I'm going to not be clear, but you maybe can walk me through it. When you look at documentation showing ownership of a domain name, it says, "Administrative Contact." Would that be you in all of these cases?
A I'm 99.9 percent sure that it would be. I can't imagine why it would be anybody else. I mean, without looking at the records in front of me, I hate to say definitely yes.
Q Okay. But typically, that's your understanding of what the administrative contact is? It's a person like you --
A Yeah. I can see no reason why I would have named anybody else as the administrative contact.
Q Okay. And so this list that you just gave me would be the list of domain names for which either you, personally, or WebFeats, the company, would be the administrative contact?
A No. Because you asked me which ones I owned, not which ones I was the administrative contact for.
Q Okay. So the list that you just gave me is the list that you consider you -- either you or WebFeats --
A Right. The technical term is I'm the registrant.
Q Okay.
A Which means I'm the entity that owns or controls the domain name. Oh, and I just remembered a few more. I own shopsatwillowbend.com and taubmansucks.com and several other names, with which you are familiar.
Q For the record, can we list them all because I --
A If I remember them, and I think I probably do. I've already named shopsatwillowbend.com and taubmansucks.com. There's also theshopsatwillowbendsucks.com, shopsatwillowbendsucks.com, willowbendmallsucks.com, willowbendsucks.com, I think. I'm not sure about that one. And then giffordkrassgrohsprinklesucks.com.
Q Okay. You are the registrant on all of those?
A That's correct.
Q Who, if not you -- or just let me rephrase that. For each of the ones that we went through, who would be the administrative contact?
A It must be me. I believe that it's me.
Q Including on the ones that we added on at the end?
A Yes. And as I say, I believe I have several more domains. "Several" meaning one or two, perhaps three. I just can't think of them right now. But that list just sounds a little bit too short for me.
Q Do you register these domain names all through a single registrar?
A Yes. I register them through what used to be Network Solutions, or NSI. They have recently been purchased by VeriSign. I'm not sure which name -- if they still use the Network Solutions name or if it is VeriSign.
Q Do you own any .org, .net, dot anything else?
A I don't believe so.
Q For all the ones that we just went through, do you maintain the website -- and by "maintain," I mean, did you create the website on each of these domain names?
A Yes, I did. Not all of them have websites.
Q Can you tell me which ones do and which ones don't? Like webfeats.com -- I made a list. So let's just go through the way I remember it. Does webfeats.com have a website?
A Yes, it does.
Q And that's something -- it's a website that you designed?
A Yes, it is.
Q And you maintain it -- keep it current or whatever?
A That's correct.
Q Mishkoff.com, did you design it?
A Yes, I did.
Q And you maintain it?
A That's right.
Q And myszkowski.com, did you design it?
A That actually points to mishkoff.com. It's a separate domain name, but it points to the mishkoff.com website. There is no separate site.
Q And bestus.com?
A There's what I call a one-page place holder there. There is no site.
Q It's the "website under construction" sign?
A No. I think I have a link to my girlfriend's shirt business.
Q Okay. Travelian.com?
A That also has a one-page place holder, I believe. And I'm not sure if that is also a link to my girlfriend's shirt business, or if that says, you know, "website under construction." I don't remember.
Q Okay. How about evenday.com?
A Again, it's either a -- it's some kind of place holder, which -- when I say, "a place holder," it's one page that either says there's nothing here yet, or it has a link to my girlfriend's website.
Q What about shopsatwillowbend.com?
A That has been removed from the internet by an injunction, as you know.
Q Right. Were you the web designer for it before it was removed?
A Yes.
Q Was anybody else involved in the web design or maintenance of it?
A No.
Q What about taubmansucks.com? Were you the web designer for that?
A Absolutely.
Q And when I say, "web designer," I also mean maintained it.
A Correct. Entirely one hundred percent by myself.
Q Okay. So nobody else contributed to that?
A Well, I post letters that -- I posted letters that I had received from people. I did not create those letters, but I incorporated them into the website.
Q Right. And all I'm asking is did you design the website and maintain it?
A Yes.
Q I guess if there's material on there, that could be a separate issue.
A Right.
Q And what about theshopsatwillowbendsucks.com? Did you design and maintain it?
A Those -- the other names that have Willow Bend in it all point to taubmansucks. There's only one website, which I call the "taubmansucks" site, which could be named as any of the others, but they have no separate existence. Those five -- four names that have Willow Bend in them all point to the taubmansucks website. It's all one website.
Q And what about the giffordkrassgrohsprinklesucks.com?
A That's entirely my work.
Q And is there any other contributing person?
A No, other than, as I said before, people have written me letters. So the material is not entirely original, but I've done all the work on creating and maintaining the website.
Q Do any of these websites contain any advertising?
A No, they do not.
Q Well, some of them point to Bizshirt -- or Shirtbiz or something?
A Some of them -- several of them have links to shirtbiz.com, which is my girlfriend's site.
Q So when you click on the site, you end up with an ad on your computer screen?
A When you click on -- could you rephrase that question? I'm not sure what you mean.
Q I'm just trying to understand what you get or what you see. For some of these you said that it links to your girlfriend's site. Her site is -- do you remember the site exactly?
A Her site is shirtbiz.com.
Q So is it one of these immediate jumps when you click on travelian.com, you don't see travelian? You see shirtbiz.com?
A No. I'm not sure that -- travelian may not be a good example. Let's take Bestus.
Q Let's do Bestus.
A Which I'm certain -- I know it would come up with a screen which would say something about her business with a link that then you could click on, and if you select that link, then you go to her site.
Q I'm just going to pull it up on my computer for a second. So when you click -- when you get onto www.bestus.com, you see -- it looks like a logo or a drawing of a shirt, and it says the word underneath, and it looks like a link, "hartleyofdallas" --
MR. LEVY: Ms. Greenberg, I have some problem with what's going on here. You are looking at a computer on the internet that Mr. Mishkoff is not looking at. Now, if you had a document here, which we could put in the record somehow, so the record would be following what's going on, I would be more comfortable. But you're basically describing what you see on your computer on the internet. I don't know if you're asking him to confirm that that's what --
MS. GREENBERG: I'm going to in a minute. I'm just going to be very brief. There's not much on here. If he feels uncomfortable doing that, he can, but I bet he can verify that that's what he set it up to do.
Q All you see is a picture of a shirt, the word "hartleyofdallas," which appears to be the link you're referring to, and the words, "The best custom-made shirts in the United States (or anywhere else)." That's all that my computer is showing. Is that consistent with what you understand bestus.com to feature on its site?
A Yes, it is.
Q And when you describe these other sites, you sought travelian.com and --
A I'm less certain of that.
Q Okay. Okay. So the link would be the blue "hartleyofdallas." When you click on it, then you get to the bizshirt or shirtbiz?
A Correct.
Q Okay. Does WebFeats own property? Does it own its own computers or anything that's considered property of the business?
A I own computers. I don't know. I mean, WebFeats is a d/b/a. I don't know how to answer any question about what WebFeats owns. I own computers.
Q Okay. And the computers that you own are all located at your home address?
A That's correct.
Q Did I ask you for that address?
A Yes, you did.
Q Windhaven Lane?
A That's right.
Q Because WebFeats is a sole-proprietorship, it doesn't -- am I correct in understanding it does not file a separate income tax?
A That's correct.
Q It would all be filed under Hank Mishcoff -- or Henry Mishkoff; is that correct?
A That's correct.
Q That is correct?
A Yes. That's correct.
Q Does WebFeats list itself in the phone book?
A That's a good question, and I don't know. I don't think I would have paid for a listing. If I get a free listing in the Yellow Pages for a business phone, then it would be in there.
Q Do you maintain a separate phone line in your home for the WebFeats business?
A Yes, I do.
Q What is that phone number?
A (972) 931-5421.
Q And the name that that number is listed under, do you know?
A I'm not sure. I would have -- I'm not sure. It's either me or WebFeats.
Q Other than having that number serviced in your company's name or your name -- you're not sure which -- do you have any knowledge of whether or not you actually pay to have, let's say, a listing in the Yellow Pages?
A I am -- I am fairly certain that I -- I'm certain that I do not. I may have once, but I don't even -- I don't think I ever have, and I know I do not currently.
Q Does WebFeats, or do you on behalf of WebFeats, advertise its services anywhere?
A No. I believe that I ran an ad the day I went into business. I do not think I have run an ad since then of any kind.
Q Other than its own website -- its own website, I guess I would consider an ad. I don't know -- would you consider it an ad?
A No, I would not.
Q How does WebFeats attract business or customers?
A I don't -- I don't aggressively -- I don't pursue customers for WebFeats. WebFeats attracts customers by word-of-mouth. As we've discovered, WebFeats has very few customers.
Q Who are the main customers that you perform database programming services for?
A One of them is Wyndham Jade. Wyndham is spelled W-y-n-d-h-a-m, Jade, J-a-d-e; two words, Wyndham Jade. They are my main customer for database work. I have done web work for them also in the past and may in the future. But currently I'm doing only database work for them. And I have a new customer, TXU, which is the electric utility here in Dallas. I'm just starting a database project for them.
Q And that's the full side of database customers?
A At this time, right.
Q Pardon me?
A That's correct. Well, I have -- there's a company called Wyntrak, W-y-n-t-r-a-k, that used to be affiliated with Wyndham Jade. They're owned by the same person, and I still tend to lump them together. And I do very infrequent work for Wyntrak, but I do consider them to be a client.
Q Can you tell me approximately how -- well, how does -- I'm going to strike that. How does WebFeats charge for its services? And by "WebFeats," I guess I should add that I understand that you are WebFeats.
A Right.
Q So how do you charge for your services at the same time?
A I typically bill by the hour at the rate of a hundred dollars an hour. That's pretty consistent for my web work and my database work. Occasionally, I will price a project by the job. But when I do that, I try to estimate it based on my time based on a hundred dollars per hour.
Q Approximately how many hours a week -- well, maybe that's not a fair way to do it if you're a consultant. Approximately how many hours last year, if you can tell me, did WebFeats bill?
A Well, I was -- if you recall, last year for half a year, I was an employee --
Q Okay.
A -- of Synctive. That was for the first half of the year. And for the last half of the year I literally have no idea.
Q Do you have any idea about how much you work in terms of billable hours for this business a week?
A That varies so widely it would be speculation. I mean, that could be anywhere from zero to sixty.
Q Have you prepared your taxes for the year 2001 yet?
A No, I have not.
Q Do you have any idea approximately where you stand on that in terms of your income from this business?
A No, I don't.
Q Do you think it's more than $100,000 a year?
A I have had years where I have earned more than $100,000. I have had years where I have earned considerably less than $100,000.
Q Do you ever sub-contract any of the WebFeats work out?
A Yes, I do.
Q Who do you use for sub-contractors?
A Typically that would be artwork because I'm not much of an artist. Right now I have a sub-contractor developing the Champagne DeMeric site. Well, I actually have two sub-contractors working on that site. One is doing the layout of the physical site, and one is doing some video conversion for me. Those are the kinds of things that I don't know how to do myself very well. I don't know anything about the video conversion. And if I do contract work out, it's typically art work.
Q And then for the sub-contractors, you pay them separately?
A Correct.
Q Bill them out for your services performed?
A That's correct.
Q You bill them out? How does it work? If you hire somebody to do artwork, they do it, and they provide you an invoice, and you pay them, or do you turn the invoice over to the client?
A No. They invoice me, and I pay it. They don't interact with the client directly in a financial sense.
Q Has WebFeats, or you personally, ever transferred or assigned or gotten rid of any domain names?
A Yes.
Q Can you identify those for me?
A The two that I remember -- and I'll think about this as I'm talking to see if there are more. One was familyonline.com.
Q Family, F-a-m-i-l-y?
A Right, familyonline.com. And the other one was multiweb.com. Those are the only two that I can think of that I've owned.
Q If you took all the websites that we talked about previously that we listed and added these two to it, would that be all the websites you or WebFeats have ever owned or been the registrant for?
A Well, as I said, I believe I have a couple more that I haven't listed just because I don't remember them.
MR. LEVY: Ms. Greenberg, could I -- I mean, I don't want to be disruptive, but you've referred to these as being websites that he owns. Do you mean domain names, or do you mean --
MS. GREENBERG: Yes, I do.
MR. LEVY: Okay.
MS. GREENBERG: I think he understood that. But we listed them. Whatever we called them when we listed them. Then we added two more just now.
A Right.
Q Have there ever been any other domain names that at one point you've had but aren't on this list now?
A Let me think of that for a minute. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but give me a minute. It's entirely possible that I may have had one or two other domain names that I just let lapse. I cannot think of any right now. As I said, for example, at evenday.com domain, I own it right now, and I'm letting it lapse.
Q Okay.
A There may have been others that have lapsed previously. I don't remember.
Q Okay. And these are the only two, to your knowledge, that you've ever actually proactively assigned away or transferred in some way? And I mean that to distinguish from a lapsing by not renewing or whatever.
A Those are the only two I can think of, and I think that I would remember. So my answer is that that is probably a complete list.
Q Okay. Can you tell me what familyonline.com was when you knew about it?
A I registered the domain familyonline.com with the intention of setting up a genealogy website, but I never did. There was never a website at that domain name. I may have had a place holder up there. I don't remember.
Q Do you remember how long you owned it for and when, if you could, in time that was?
A No, I don't. I would say four or five years ago. And that's a guess more than an estimate. And I don't know how long I owned it for. Probably a year, but those are guesses.
Q Did you say four or five years ago?
A I believe so.
Q Did you ever take any steps to create a website for it?
A No, I did not.
Q Did you ever take any steps to find an interested person to buy it from you?
A No, I did not.
Q Who did you assign it to? Did you assign it --
A I sold it. Someone contacted me and asked me if they could buy it, and I sold it to them.
Q Who was that?
A It was a -- I don't remember the name of the company. They had other sites -- they had a site called kidsonline. I think that was a victim of the .com problems. I think it's gone.
Q So they contacted you sometime during the four-or-five-years-ago period?
A Right.
Q You had it for about a year. So whenever that was at, this approximate year you had it, you were contacted by this other company?
A Yes. And I'm trying to think. I may be able to tell you when I sold it because I remember what I was doing at the time. Let me think. I'm thinking that was the end of 1998 when I sold it. But that's -- I'd like that to be just an approximate time. That could be wrong, but that's when I believe I sold that name, which means I would have owned it for most, or all, of 1998.
Q Can you tell me how they found you and what the offer to buy -- give me the circumstances of that sale.
A I have no idea how they found me. They offered me $5,000. I told them I'd think about it. He said, if I give you $5,500 -- I'll give you $5,500 if you'll do it right now without thinking about it, and I said okay.
Q Was this by telephone?
A It was probably by both e-mail and telephone. I don't -- I know we discussed it over the telephone. There may have been e-mail messages as well. I really -- all I can remember for certain are the telephone conversations.
Q Then the other one was multiweb.com?
A Right, multiweb.
Q Multiweb. What was the circumstance of when you owned it, what you did with it and what happened to it?
A I'm not sure when. That would be in the same time period, I think. I'm just really not sure without my records. And I'm not even sure I can do it with my records. But that was a business that I had. I started a -- it was an attempt to sell websites on a multi-level basis. It was an MLM company, multi level company.
Q MLM?
A MLM, Multi Level Marketing.
Q Okay.
A To sell websites. This would have been, I'm thinking, in '96. Hang on one second.
(Witness changes his tape.)
A It would have been -- it was very early on, '95, '96, but I'm just guessing. And I did have a website there for, perhaps, year; perhaps, more. And the business just never made any money, it never went anywhere.
Q What -- excuse me for not knowing exactly what a multi-level marketing business does, but what did this business actually do?
A Multi level -- the best known example is Amway. You -- the idea is you sell a product to people then who sell products to other people. Some people call it network marketing for that reason. And I was selling inexpensive one-page websites with the idea that people who bought my sites would then go sell inexpensive one-page websites to other people. I know it doesn't --
Q Do I understand you to say that the company would buy a domain name and you would make a website for it, and then somebody would buy that from you?
A No. It would all be under the Multiweb domain. These would not be under separate domain names. These were little one-page personal, or business, websites. The idea was something that I could throw together very quickly because I wasn't charging very much for them, and I don't remember what I was charging for them. And I probably sold two or three total.
Q I'm sorry you sold what?
A I may have sold two or three of these, if that.
Q Well, when somebody bought these one-page websites, did they not get a domain name?
A They did not get a domain name.
Q That means that you maintained yourself as the registrant? Is that what that means?
A No. It meant that they were -- they were a sub-domain -- not even a sub-domain. They were part of the Multiweb domain.
Q Do you know how many domain names Multiweb owned?
A Multiweb -- well, Multiweb was me. It was another d/b/a, and Multiweb just operated that one domain.
Q And the most, to your recollection, ever sold was two or three websites?
A Yeah. That is probably being optimistic.
Q What were those websites -- explain to me how you sell a website but not a domain name.
A Well, it could be multiweb.com/juliegreenberg.
Q Okay.
A Multiweb.com/paullevy. You could do that literally infinitely. You could have an infinite number of websites. In this case it was a one-page websites -- so web pages -- under a domain.
MR. LEVY: Can we go off the record?
(Off the record at 10:48 a.m.)