Destiny Church moves to shut critic's website

The Destiny Church has threatened legal action against the owner of the destinychurch.co.nz website, who says it is an information site "to help people to think for themselves".

Church legal operations manager Raymond Greenfield said the domain name was confusingly similar to its own destinychurch.org.nz.

The site carries articles posted by "John Smith" attacking the church's anti-homosexual stance and calling it a cult.

The site's registered owner said John Smith was not his real name and that he wished to remain anonymous.

"You would be hard-pressed to prove it wasn't being used in bad faith by someone who had no legitimate interests in respect of the name," said Mr Greenfield.

The church felt this breached its trademark rights and the domain name policy of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). If the site owner did not stop using the name, he said, the church would either take legal action or use the ICANN disputes resolution service.

Although the site offered links to Destiny Church and the Destiny Political Party, Mr Greenfield said this meant nothing if the site name misled people seeking the church website.

The church would offer to reimburse "John Smith" for name registration fee provided he stopped using the name.

"John Smith" said he felt the church's threat was unfair because he made it clear the site was not the official church website.

"My site is in good faith - to help people to think for themselves. Destiny don't ever encourage people to think for themselves, debate issues ... why not let people know that?"