Cybersquatters rush to capitalise on mayoral election

Cybersquatters are rushing to cash in on voters looking for information about London mayoral election candidates – though they have largely ignored Brian Paddick.

In the weeks building up to election day, cybersquatters have been registering dozens of key domain names relating to Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, according to domain registration service NetNames.

"It is very hard to stop negative websites and click farms springing up, but by leaving obvious domains unregistered, the candidates have provided a route for cybersquatters to make money from unsuspecting voters looking for official campaign information,” said Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer at NetNames.

Ken's fake web site names include www.ihatekenlivingstone.org, www.kenlivingstone.org, www.kenlivingstone.net, and www.backken.com.

Some of Boris's are www.borisjohnson.net, www.borisjohnsonformayor.com, www.mayorborisjohnson.com and www.borisjohnsonmayor.com.

Boris seems to be more proactive than Ken in protecting his brand online, with 10 of the sites linking back to his official web site www.backboris.com.

However, Ken and Brian Paddick seem to be catching on to the phenomenon quicky – the web site borisjohnson.net features sponsored ads for both of their official web sites at www.kenlivingstone.com and www.brianpaddick.org.

See also:

Dot Asia domain goes live

Half a million applications submitted for web names already  26 Mar 2008

Customers siphoned off by typo scams

Typo-squatting is on the rise and UK sites are top targets  19 Nov 2007

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