Texas-based pipeline giant Energy Transfer Partners went on a website-buying spree after months of fierce public protest over its Dakota Access Pipeline, nabbing dozens of URLs it expected pipeline opponents might use to target the company’s other projects. The damage-control effort is related to several ongoing operations, including the company’s $4.2 billion Rover natural gas pipeline in Ohio, the $670 million Bayou Bridge Pipeline in Louisiana, and the Trans-Pecos and Comanche Trail pipelines in West Texas. Energy Transfer Partners purchased at least 102 anti-pipeline websites between January and June 2017, according to a list compiled by the nonprofit Climate Investigations Center and shared with HuffPost. Those domain names, purchased mostly through web hosting company GoDaddy, include addresses like “energytransfer.sucks,” “stopetppipelines.net,” “antiroverpipelinealliance.org,” “bayoubridgeresistance.com,” “gulfresidentsagainstbayoubridgepipeline.org,” “nocomanchetrailpipeline.org” and “nowahatranspecospipeline.org.”

When a company buys the .sucks website for their own name, you know they have problems. Kert Davies, director of the Climate Investigations Center

Energy Transfer Partners spokeswoman Alexis Daniel told HuffPost this website buying is “standard brand management practice for our company before we begin any major project in order to protect the brand of the project.” “During the time we had multiple projects under construction or beginning construction, all of which have been successfully completed and are operating today,” Daniel said in an email. She did not respond to questions about whether the effort was motivated by protests on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota or for how long the company plans to hold on to the sites. Kert Davies, director of the Climate Investigations Center, called the company “paranoia incorporated.” “Every one of ETPs recent pipeline projects has created major scandal and controversy across the country — from North Dakota to Pennsylvania to Louisiana,” Davies told HuffPost via email. “This preemptive GoDaddy website effort shows that ETP is pretty self conscious and paranoid about their social license. When a company buys the .sucks website for their own name, you know they have problems.”

Joshua Roberts / Reuters People protest at the White House against President Donald Trump's directive to permit the Dakota Access Pipeline project to move forward in February 2017.