UPDATED 16:43 EST / AUGUST 09 2010

Godforsaken, Reactor Towns For Sale? TorrentReactor Will Buy [and Rename] You.

Google’s not the only tech company with a town named in its honor. A small town in Russia will soon bear the name TorrentReactor. That is, the town will be named after the torrent company that purchased the town. At least Google, Kansas wasn’t bought off for its new hometown pride.

Right out of a scene from Big Fish, TorrentReactor has snapped up the “godforsaken” town of Gar, population 214, with hopes of developing it up. There’s only three computers in town, two of which are at the library, the other located in a school administration office. Only one is internet-connected. The town itself? Well it’s located near a Russian reactor, of all places. Whadya know.

As much of a publicity stunt as this was, TorrentReactor still seems to have done okay with the deal. The company had looked at several “godforsaken” towns across the globe, all of which are situated near reactors, settling on Gar with a random number generator.

The charitable TorrentReactor sees its acquisition and re-naming as a win-win, helping the town and gaining some literal name recognition at the same time. It cost the company less than $150k, and the town will soon have free internet. From TorrentReactor,

“We’ve picked a few thousands of godforsaken places around the world that are close to operating nuclear reactors to make a connection to the name of our company. The list was numbered and a random number was picked by a generator. The number 377 was a lucky one for Gar village. We think it was a good choice since Gar citizens are very kind and generous people.”

And as odd as that news was, TorrentReactor isn’t the only torrent with dreams of owning a town. TorrentFreak reminds us that Pirate Bay once set out to purchase micronation Sealand, seeking legal amnesty for its bit torrent service on the high seas.


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