The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) concluded in its recent study that there has been widespread use of politicians’ names in domain names across legacy and new TLDs by opponents, who are using these confusingly-worded sites for misinformation or slander purposes. “Presidential and Congressional Candidates Face Identity Squatting” is CADNA’s fourth biennial study of online identity squatting affecting members of the US Congress and presidential candidates. Josh Bourne, President of CADNA, comments, “our report this year, as it has done in the past, brings to light the continuing challenges of politicians trying to deliver legitimate information to their voters online when the bad behavior of cybersquatters is allowed to continue without meaningful consequences.” Over 100 “for sale” pages based on politician names and 1,100 websites hosting pay-per-click ads designed to monetize errant user traffic were found.
