In the latest act of online political sabotage, individuals who type newtgingrich.com into their browsers will be directed to one of a number of sites that are embarrassing to Republican primary candidate Newt Gingrich. Instead of finding a homepage for Gingrich's campaign, which is hosted at newt.org, visitors are redirected to sites like Tiffany & Co. (where Gingrich has a six-figure tab) or Freddie Mac (where Gingrich's role as "historian" has been called into question), or to news articles and YouTube videos that make conservative voters cringe, like this ad for former Vice President Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection. In the ad, Gingrich appears cozying up next to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to talk about climate change.
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It's uncertain who's behind the mischief, which is the digital equivalent of supporters of one politician vandalizing?the lawn signs of an opponent in the dark of night. The newtgingrich.com domain is privately registered, so the owner's information is not readily accessible.
Gingrich's campaign wasn't immediately available for comment.
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Two weeks ago, rickperry.com was redirecting to Ron Paul's campaign website. That domain no longer redirects and is now up for sale, but the current owner's information is also private.
Both of these campaigns have been caught with their digital pants around their ankles. Many Internet users still consider the ".com" suffix to be standard. By failing to acquire these domains, Gingrich and Perry left themselves vulnerable to attack by digital vandals, who are taking advantage of anyone making the assumption that a candidate's homepage will be their name followed by ".com."
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, jcamilobernal
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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