Hotwire Issue Radar: The reality of cyber-squatting
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Eagle-eyed Hotwire staff penned the political story of the week when they exposed a major online blunder by David Cameron as part of an issues jump for Hotwire client NetNames, which manages the domain names for a third of the FTSE 100.
The Conservative Party leader had just launched his own video blog at webcameron.org.uk, keen to connect with the masses, but failed to check whether the .com, .co.uk and .info versions were available. Hotwire discovered that the .com version is owned by an obscure Australian poet and that a rival political party had cybersquatted the webcameron.info address, posting a spoof Cameron video.
The news was reported in over 35 separate national and international newspapers including page 2 of The Times, The FT, Guardian, BBC News Online, Washington Post, Daily Telegraph and Reuters.
The story became one of the UK’s most talked about, sailing into the BBC’s weekly news quiz. The Hotwire team was even commended by Jeremy Paxman for their efforts.
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