The users of BeWelcome.org – a non-profit hospitality exchange web site – were up in arms in the past 48 hours.
Tripping.com – a commercial web site with the same focus – apparently acquired the .com variant of the popular French non-profit, then pointed it to Tripping.com.
Complaints posted on the Tripping.com page on Facebook were promptly removed; an initial, panicked reaction of the community to gather legal advice produced some positive results.
As of today, BeWelcome.com no longer points to Tripping.com. Instead the following message is displayed:
“bewelcome.com is no longer available”
So far, there is no indication whether the complaints emailed to Tripping.com founder, Jen O’Neal, were the reason behind this retraction, but the BeWelcome community appears to be safe for now.