Twice this past March, more than a hundred activists gathered on Jean-Talon Road in Montreal to protest what they saw as improprieties at the city’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The protests came after Canadian press reports of possible financial abuses by the Montreal S.P.C.A.’s executive director, Pierre Barnoti. Among other things, Mr. Barnoti was said to have used S.P.C.A. funds for personal travel while engaging in improper fundraising activities and euthanizing an unnecessarily high number of animals.

In April, the protesters prevailed: Mr. Barnoti stepped down and was placed on “indefinite sick leave,” according to the organization. The Canada Revenue Agency, the country’s counterpart of the Internal Revenue Service, began an investigation, and a majority of the charity’s board of directors resigned.

A new board is now combing through the Montreal S.P.C.A.’s financials, trying to reconstruct how the organization wound up more than $4 million in debt. The board is also trying to solve a little Internet mystery: what happened to the organization’s prized Web address, SPCA.com.

Two years ago, a new United States organization called SPCA International took over the SPCA.com Internet domain and started using it to solicit money for animal rights.
According to public records and a report last November in Animal People, an animal care industry newspaper, Mr. Barnoti registered a company called SPCA International in May 2006 in Delaware. Registering an animal rights organization in the United States allowed Mr. Barnoti to raise money here, and he hired a New York City direct mail company to solicit donations.
In an effort to beef up the group’s Web presence, Mr. Barnoti consulted Paul Irwin. In an interview, Dr. Irwin said that he introduced Mr. Barnoti to Richard Gordon.
Mr. Gordon’s company designed the SPCA.com site, and James D. Winston, a longtime business associate of Mr. Gordon, is listed on tax documents as the organization’s executive director. SPCA International declined to make Mr. Winston available for an interview.
It’s not clear how much Mr. Gordon profits from his work on SPCA International. But the chief executives of petsupplies.com, an e-commerce partner listed on the SPCA.com site, and Pet-Togethers, an advertiser on the site, both say their company’s financial relationship is not with SPCA International but with a separate entity, the SPCA Foundation.
According to California corporate records, the foundation was registered as a for-profit company last August by Mr. Gordon’s lawyer, Mr. Woodlief.
As for SPCA International, Mr. Gordon appears to have no operational role there. Even so, the group is involved in a range of initiatives. Every few weeks, the SPCA International selects a “shelter of the week” from around the world and then asks for money for that shelter.
Four of five shelters that were awarded this distinction over the past two months say that they received a $1,000 check and a plaque for the honor — but not a percentage of any donations. The fifth shelter, Welfare of Our Furry Friends, in West Sacramento, Calif., says it received $48.
SPCA International has also undertaken one other significant project. Last year, it created a program called Operation Baghdad Pups that tries to rescue stray dogs in Iraq on behalf of the American soldiers who have befriended them.
The program is run by Terri Crisp, who is primarily known in animal-care circles as the founder of Noah’s Wish, an animal-rescue charity. Last October, Noah’s Wish settled an investigation with the attorney general of California, agreeing to pay $4 million over allegations that it misappropriated donations it received after Hurricane Katrina.
In an interview, Ms. Crisp declined to discuss the Noah’s Wish troubles. But she said SPCA International was “in its infancy” and was trying to “find something unique to make a difference for animals.”
She said she has traveled to Iraq five times to bring 14 dogs back to the United States for soldiers. The program is now prominently promoted on SPCA.com, alongside an ABC News story about it. Donations are solicited to support Baghdad Pups as well as “to further the mission of the SPCA International to stop euthanizing adoptable and healthy animals.”
SPCA International’s fund-raising is hard to assess. Last week, the group filed for an extension on its tax returns. It has yet to reveal how much money it has raised or earned from sponsorships — a requirement for charitable organizations.
Still, the site comes up first on any Google or Yahoo search for the term “SPCA” — ahead of even the 142-year-old American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which has 420 employees and runs a shelter in New York City.
The A.S.P.C.A. declined to comment on SPCA International. But the SPCA.com Web site has angered other animal rights activists who contend that the new organization is exploiting the goodwill of similarly named, more established charities.
Ms. Crisp acknowledged that the organization’s name might mislead people.
“We have people who are trying to reach us that call the A.S.P.C.A. in New York, and we have people who think they are calling the A.S.P.C.A. or contacting their local S.P.C.A. but who call us. We get a lot of that,” she said. “Nobody owns the name, so yeah there’s confusion.”
Back in Canada, meanwhile, the new board members at the Montreal S.P.C.A. are looking at how to get their domain name back.
“If Pierre Barnoti transferred this domain name to another company, that was not in the best interest of the Montreal S.P.C.A.,” said Wendy Adams, a board member and a law professor at McGill University. “It appears he has used this asset to his own benefit. It’s self-dealing, and it’s a breach of fiduciary duty.”
LAST month, Stickam, the live video social network operated by Mr. Takahashi’s DTI, sent out a press release proclaiming a new partnership: the social network had been selected, the release said, as the exclusive provider of live Web video for the SPCA International’s Operation Baghdad Pups and would broadcast regular updates on the program’s progress.
The announcement was ordinary and easy to overlook: two seemingly disparate organizations unveiling a partnership.
But to people who knew the men behind the two companies and their long and fruitful collaboration, it was clear that Richard Gordon and Wataru Takahashi were still looking for new ways to work together.