No Jackpot for Domain-Name Speculators
Hundreds of candidate-related domain names have been staked out by those hoping that Web surfers might stumble upon their sites and buy on impulse, or that candidates’ parties might want to buy the domain name.
In March, 23-year-old John Holohan registered the domain name www.johnkerryforprez.com, thinking he might capitalize on the popularity of the Democratic front-runner, John Kerry.
His motives were not political. He used the Web address to sell long-distance phone plans, calling cards and other communications services. “For whatever reason, I thought, this is going to rock, people are going to stumble onto this and they’re going to buy something,” he said to NY Times.
Seven months later, Mr. Holohan has yet to make a single sale. But while bereft of customers, he has plenty of company in his tactics.
Hundreds of candidate-related domain names have been staked out by those hoping that Web surfers might stumble upon their sites and buy on impulse, or that candidates’ parties might want to buy the domain name.
MarkMonitor, a brand protection service that monitors domain registries for misused names, reports 871 registered Web addresses evoking President Bush’s name, and 733 using Mr. Kerry’s; fewer than 1 percent are owned by the campaigns. And those are only domain names using the candidates’ full names.
While many of the sites make political statements, MarkMonitor points out that an increasing number of such sites have little to do with politics or the election. “The more registry names, the more potential for abuse,” said MarkMonitor’s president, Mark Shull, who compared political names to commercial brands, which have long defended their intellectual property online.
The challenge in getting such sites to surrender their domains, however, is that many involve protected forms of political expression.
John Lawler of Berkeley, Calif., used the address www.bushocchio.com to sell parodys of a long-nosed Mr. Bush dressed in a flight suit. But Mr. Lawler said the domain had been a disappointing way to gain attention.
Of the over 4,500 Bushocchio dolls he says he has sold, few sales have come through the Internet. “I tried to advertise through Google, but they won’t allow any advertisement that is negative to any individual or institution,” Mr. Lawler said. “If you Googled President Bush, I would have loved for my thing to pop up.” Steve Langdon, a Google spokesman, said that the ad was submitted in January and “we have updated our policies since then and the ad would be approved if submitted today.”
Reaching for a connection, www.johnkerryneedstogetaclue.com declares that if Mr. Kerry “really wants to be having breakfast every morning in the White House next year, then he definitely needs to get a clue … or a Qlü!, a cute, plush alien collectible available for only $5.50.”
Other sites make no attempt at connecting the political Web domain to a political viewpoint. Both www.georgebushin2004.com and www.john-kerryforpresident.com, which are owned by Peter Deisenroth of Rochester, redirect browsers to his identity-card manufacturing business. “To be honest, I’m not a political person,” Mr. Deisenroth said. “I did it to generate business.”
Another, www.kerryforpresident.com, links to a site selling posters better suited to college dorms than to political rallies, while www.prezbush.com leads to Toypresidents, which sells talking presidential dolls.
Opportunistic registrations of Internet domains named for well-known people or brands - a practice known as cybersquatting - have been common for years. Domain names cost as little as $10 a year, and take just a few minutes to set up. While corporations have had success defending their trademarks online, politicians have not. The federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection act of 1999 puts John Kerry and George Bush “on shakier ground than a company like Coca-Cola,” according to Adam Scoville, a Denver lawyer who specializes in Internet cases. To recover domains that use their names, he said, “they would have the hurdle of showing they make commercial use of their name, and that might be a politically questionable position to assert in court.”
Hoping to further their protection, California lawmakers this year approved the Political Cyberfraud Abatement Act, which prohibits registering domain names similar to politicians’ sites. The act has not yet been tested in court.
A database of third party-mediations of domain disputes maintained by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers shows no records of actions involving Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry. In 1999, a lawyer for George Bush, then the governor of Texas, did file an unsuccessful complaint against the parody Web site www.gwbush.com.
Commercial sites can also be troublesome to pursue, and in the final rush for the presidency, parties may not want to sacrifice time and energy pursuing small entrepreneurs.
For many of the registrants, it’s a risk worth taking. Although the sites provide a small percentage of their sales, the payoff can be big. “I could get ahead of the game and do something for 2008,” Mr. Deisenroth said. “Just one order would pay for that registration cost.”
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