Phoenix:
One might think that BobMenendez.com would be the Web site of Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. But no. Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for the Senate in Nevada, has the site, which her campaign uses to bash Democrats.
Likewise, BenQuayle.com has nothing to do with the candidacy of former Vice President Dan Quayle's son, Ben, who is running for Congress in Arizona. Among the advertisers that have used the site is the Democratic National Committee, which promoted the accomplishments of President Obama, whom Ben Quayle has called history's worst president.
At BradEllsworth.org, there are no kind words for Representative Brad Ellsworth, an Indiana Democrat who is running for the Senate. The site forwards visitors to BadforIndiana.com, run by the Indiana Republican Party, which criticizes Mr. Ellsworth as a "reliable rubber stamp for liberal policies."
A survey by the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, a Washington-based trade group, has found that lawmakers are not as conscious of their online images as they ought to be.
Not quite half of United States senators and 40 per cent of representatives own what the report called their FullName.com domain names. The numbers were lower -- 32 percent of senators and 22 percent of representatives -- when it came to their FullName.org names. The report also looked into permutations like FullNameforCongress.org, and found similar results.
Only one lawmaker in Washington, Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, owns at least six different Web sites associated with his name, along with the .gov site given to him by the government, the study found. One of those sites, however, JonTester.com, was bought for an undisclosed sum this year from an individual who had grabbed it up before the senator did.
"If folks are looking for basic information about Senator Tester's record, what he stands for and the good he does serving Montana, it'd be a darn shame for them to be redirected to some blank page -- or worse," a spokesman, Aaron Murphy, said in an e-mail.
The report is aimed at focusing lawmakers' attention on a practice known as cybersquatting, in which individuals buy up domain names and then use them to extract money or engage in mischief.
"Some political campaigns are more organized than others," said Josh Bourne, the coalition president. "I've been amazed on how many congressmen don't have the same sense of brand as businesses have."
JoeSestak.org, for instance, features a changing mix of political ads, some of which have endorsed Pat Toomey, the Republican opponent of Representative Joe Sestak, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who is running for the Senate. Records show that JoeSestak.org is registered to Tim Kelly, Mr Toomey's press secretary, who signed up for a number of domain names at the start of the campaign but said he did not recall specifically purchasing JoeSestak.org.
What can be a frustration for politicians and political hopefuls is not necessarily illegal.
"It can be a form of political activism," said Corynne McSherry, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which promotes civil liberties online. "People may register a site to criticize policies. I think that's a good thing."
But motives vary.
"They do it for profit," Matthew Sanderson, the counsel for Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, wrote last year in the Election Law Journal. "They do it for spite. They do it to broadcast criticisms. They do it out of egotism or to indulge their idea of fun."
Mr. Sanderson cited the case of a Florida private investigator named Joseph Culligan who owned more than 500 political domain names, including PresidentBillClinton.com and ReelectPresidentBush.com. He said that Mr. Culligan had offered PresidentHatch.com to Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, for $45,000. Another squatter is said to have sold Forbes2000.com to Steve Forbes, the presidential candidate, for more than $10,000.
In the current election cycle, numerous sites are not linked to the politicians whose names they bear. RalphHall.org routes to the campaign site of Jim Prindle, a Libertarian who is challenging Representative Ralph M. Hall, Republican of Texas. "The Prindle campaign has explored many strategies in marketing and campaigning to help bridge the advantage that incumbents share," Mr Prindle said in an e-mail.
BobLatta.com, which bears the name of a Republican congressman from Ohio, falls into a different, more innocuous category. It was taken up long ago by Bob Latta, who shares a name with the lawmaker and rents homes in the Mexican colonial town of San Miguel de Allende.
"All I'm doing is trying to rent some property," he said.
It is possible for companies, politicians, celebrities and others to sue to get hold of sites linked to their names, but such challenges are not always successful. The best solution, said Christine Jones, general counsel for Go Daddy, a domain site registrar based in Scottsdale, Ariz., is to sign up for sites before someone else snatches them up. "It is a fact that if you don't register your name, there is a chance someone else will register it and maybe say something bad about you," she said.
The executive branch is similarly affected by wayward sites. Whitehouse.gov is the official site, but Whitehouse.org forwards viewers to a site poking fun at former President George W. Bush. Whitehouse.com used to be a pornographic site but now advertises college financial aid.
In 2005, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was then a New York senator with presidential aspirations, went to arbitration and won rights to Hillaryclinton.com from an Italian cybersquatter. Former President Bill Clinton had less luck in 2009 when his lawyers sought to recover WilliamClinton.com, WilliamJClinton.com and PresidentBillClinton.com from Mr Culligan. An arbitrator said there was insufficient evidence of bad faith, even though the sites were being forwarded to the Republican National Committee.
Even the Fourth Estate can find Web sites appropriated. Last week, Phoenix New Times, an alternative newspaper, filed suit against a former employee, accusing him of improperly registering the domain names bestofphoenix2011.com and bestofphoenix2012.com. The paper publishes an annual list of the best restaurants, spas and other attractions, which it publishes on the Web using bestofphoenix and the year in question.
The employee, Ty Liebig, who worked at the paper for a few months in 2008, the suit says, could not be reached for comment. But in e-mail correspondence included in the lawsuit, Mr Liebig wrote to a representative for Village Voice Media, which owns the paper, seeking compensation for the sites. "I am open to and willing to sell those domains," he wrote. "I still have not received an offer or what you said you considered 'fair value.'
Likewise, BenQuayle.com has nothing to do with the candidacy of former Vice President Dan Quayle's son, Ben, who is running for Congress in Arizona. Among the advertisers that have used the site is the Democratic National Committee, which promoted the accomplishments of President Obama, whom Ben Quayle has called history's worst president.
At BradEllsworth.org, there are no kind words for Representative Brad Ellsworth, an Indiana Democrat who is running for the Senate. The site forwards visitors to BadforIndiana.com, run by the Indiana Republican Party, which criticizes Mr. Ellsworth as a "reliable rubber stamp for liberal policies."
A survey by the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, a Washington-based trade group, has found that lawmakers are not as conscious of their online images as they ought to be.
Not quite half of United States senators and 40 per cent of representatives own what the report called their FullName.com domain names. The numbers were lower -- 32 percent of senators and 22 percent of representatives -- when it came to their FullName.org names. The report also looked into permutations like FullNameforCongress.org, and found similar results.
Only one lawmaker in Washington, Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, owns at least six different Web sites associated with his name, along with the .gov site given to him by the government, the study found. One of those sites, however, JonTester.com, was bought for an undisclosed sum this year from an individual who had grabbed it up before the senator did.
"If folks are looking for basic information about Senator Tester's record, what he stands for and the good he does serving Montana, it'd be a darn shame for them to be redirected to some blank page -- or worse," a spokesman, Aaron Murphy, said in an e-mail.
The report is aimed at focusing lawmakers' attention on a practice known as cybersquatting, in which individuals buy up domain names and then use them to extract money or engage in mischief.
"Some political campaigns are more organized than others," said Josh Bourne, the coalition president. "I've been amazed on how many congressmen don't have the same sense of brand as businesses have."
JoeSestak.org, for instance, features a changing mix of political ads, some of which have endorsed Pat Toomey, the Republican opponent of Representative Joe Sestak, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who is running for the Senate. Records show that JoeSestak.org is registered to Tim Kelly, Mr Toomey's press secretary, who signed up for a number of domain names at the start of the campaign but said he did not recall specifically purchasing JoeSestak.org.
What can be a frustration for politicians and political hopefuls is not necessarily illegal.
"It can be a form of political activism," said Corynne McSherry, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which promotes civil liberties online. "People may register a site to criticize policies. I think that's a good thing."
But motives vary.
"They do it for profit," Matthew Sanderson, the counsel for Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, wrote last year in the Election Law Journal. "They do it for spite. They do it to broadcast criticisms. They do it out of egotism or to indulge their idea of fun."
Mr. Sanderson cited the case of a Florida private investigator named Joseph Culligan who owned more than 500 political domain names, including PresidentBillClinton.com and ReelectPresidentBush.com. He said that Mr. Culligan had offered PresidentHatch.com to Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, for $45,000. Another squatter is said to have sold Forbes2000.com to Steve Forbes, the presidential candidate, for more than $10,000.
In the current election cycle, numerous sites are not linked to the politicians whose names they bear. RalphHall.org routes to the campaign site of Jim Prindle, a Libertarian who is challenging Representative Ralph M. Hall, Republican of Texas. "The Prindle campaign has explored many strategies in marketing and campaigning to help bridge the advantage that incumbents share," Mr Prindle said in an e-mail.
BobLatta.com, which bears the name of a Republican congressman from Ohio, falls into a different, more innocuous category. It was taken up long ago by Bob Latta, who shares a name with the lawmaker and rents homes in the Mexican colonial town of San Miguel de Allende.
"All I'm doing is trying to rent some property," he said.
It is possible for companies, politicians, celebrities and others to sue to get hold of sites linked to their names, but such challenges are not always successful. The best solution, said Christine Jones, general counsel for Go Daddy, a domain site registrar based in Scottsdale, Ariz., is to sign up for sites before someone else snatches them up. "It is a fact that if you don't register your name, there is a chance someone else will register it and maybe say something bad about you," she said.
The executive branch is similarly affected by wayward sites. Whitehouse.gov is the official site, but Whitehouse.org forwards viewers to a site poking fun at former President George W. Bush. Whitehouse.com used to be a pornographic site but now advertises college financial aid.
In 2005, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was then a New York senator with presidential aspirations, went to arbitration and won rights to Hillaryclinton.com from an Italian cybersquatter. Former President Bill Clinton had less luck in 2009 when his lawyers sought to recover WilliamClinton.com, WilliamJClinton.com and PresidentBillClinton.com from Mr Culligan. An arbitrator said there was insufficient evidence of bad faith, even though the sites were being forwarded to the Republican National Committee.
Even the Fourth Estate can find Web sites appropriated. Last week, Phoenix New Times, an alternative newspaper, filed suit against a former employee, accusing him of improperly registering the domain names bestofphoenix2011.com and bestofphoenix2012.com. The paper publishes an annual list of the best restaurants, spas and other attractions, which it publishes on the Web using bestofphoenix and the year in question.
The employee, Ty Liebig, who worked at the paper for a few months in 2008, the suit says, could not be reached for comment. But in e-mail correspondence included in the lawsuit, Mr Liebig wrote to a representative for Village Voice Media, which owns the paper, seeking compensation for the sites. "I am open to and willing to sell those domains," he wrote. "I still have not received an offer or what you said you considered 'fair value.'
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