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A Blog on Understanding, Informing, and Influencing Global Publics, published by Matt Armstrong

Using URL typos for political gain

Surfing to the German journal Internationale Politik, I found an (outdated) Kurdish independence website. Registering domain names that closely resemble another is an old trick, usually used by savvy marketers for competiting or less ethical redirects. I remember that when AT&T held a promotion in the United States for long distance based on calling 1-800-OPERATOR, a competitor registered 1-800-OPERATER. All those that didn’t know how to spell were directed not to AT&T but to someone else, MCI was it? Sprint?

Returning to Internationale Politik, the proper URL is http://www.internationalepolitik.de/. However, if you insert a hypen between Internationale and Politik, you get the Kurdish site. Clever and old.

Category: ICT
  • Spooky Pete says:

    Fiendishly clever.
    All I can say is I should have bought the rights to http://www.sex.com in 1996 for subsequent resale!
    Pete

    January 30, 2006 at 7:08 am

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