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 The site is registered, not to Clinton, but to an administrator in
the Cayman Islands. Its existence underscores the challenge 2016
U.S. presidential hopefuls will face in trying to control their
digital brands, more important than ever before as voters
increasingly turn to the Internet to learn more about candidates.
An examination by Reuters of domains including the full names of
eight Republican and four Democratic hopefuls, ending in .com, .org,
.net and .info, showed that only a few of those sites appear to be
under the control of the candidates.
The rest are seemingly owned by a hodgepodge of buyers - from
self-declared fans of the candidates to anonymous registrants who
have "parked" the domains - that is to say owned but unused - for
undisclosed reasons.
"Welcome to the Wild Wild West of the Internet," said Patrick
Peterson, the chief executive of cyber safety company Agari.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz learned that the hard way last week when he
became the first major Republican contender to announce his bid for
the presidency. Tedcruz.com, whose owner is anonymous, immediately
attracted increased attention but for the wrong reasons: its
pro-Obama, pro-immigration reform message. The real Cruz has vowed
to fight President Barack Obama's immigration reforms.
Several experts, including from Trend Micro and TrustedSec, who
reviewed the hillaryclinton.org site at the request of Reuters said
it contained malware that could infect users' computers or phish for
personal information. Kevin Epstein, a vice president at cyber
security company Proofpoint, said the site had "classic
domain-squatting drive-by download malware."
The owner of hillaryclinton.org did not respond to a request for
comment.
A source familiar with Clinton's office said she values using
"innovative ways on digital platforms" to communicate should she run
for the presidency. "But that doesn't mean that this kind of thing
isn't going to happen from time to time, as we've seen with others
in recent weeks."
UNEVEN RESPONSE
The success of various campaigns in protecting their digital brands
has been wildly uneven.
Republican Scott Walker, for example, appears to have control of
scottwalker.com and scottwalker.org. That puts the Wisconsin
governor at the top of the heap among the candidates and sites
examined by Reuters.
Data suggest that he picked up scottwalker.com in 2012 from a seller
in Alabama, the same year he faced a recall election.
Matt Oczkowski, the digital director of Friends of Scott Walker,
said the Walker campaign group bought the domain name "to make sure
that we can control that content flow that comes out under our
brand."
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In contrast, chrischristie.com belongs to a computer programmer in
Milwaukee, not his more famous namesake, the Republican New Jersey
governor. And chrischristie.net shows the photo of a Chris L.
Christie, who identifies himself as a mortgage planning specialist.
One problem across parties and candidates is the near infinite
number of domain names available once hyphens, dots, election years
and other terms are added to site names.
Still, there are ways for candidates to help divert traffic away
from sites they don't own. Campaigns can use various tools,
collectively called search engine optimization, to push real sites
higher in search results.
The problem is that people who are interested in a candidate will
often direct navigate, said Josh Bourne, the president of the
Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, a group that fights against
so-called cybersquatting.
That means some people will simply type what they think is the
likely address for a candidate site directly into their browser
window. That makes them more likely to stumble onto a website not
operated by a particular campaign.
The websites votehillary.com, votejeb.com and votewalker.com all
redirect to the same website, which is owned by Boca Raton
orthodontist Larry Kawa, a Republican who says he owns thousands of
domain names across the political spectrum.
Kawa is reselling a number of political domains, available for
prices from a few hundred to thousands of dollars.
"It started out really just as a hobby," he said. "Political domains
are my one kick."
(Reporting by Luciana Lopez and Jim Finkle, editing by Ross Colvin)
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