Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul shelled out "a ton" of cash to purchase his campaign's domain name, RandPaul.com, the
National Journal reports.
A payout from the Kentucky senator's re-election fund shows
$100,980 went to escrow.com to purchase the domain, a big fee in the world of cybersquatting, the Journal said.
Paul had previously manned the RandPaul2016.com site, which now redirects to his new URL. His newly purchased RandPaul.com site had previously been a fan site, the Journal said.
While the payout was steep, having your own name is seen as crucial, one digital expert, Patrick Ruffini, told the Journal. "I would argue that almost nothing else matters," he added, alluding to the high fee paid.
"It's very much a seller's market," he said.
Other candidates have felt the backlash when someone else owns their namesake dotcom site. TedCruz.com taunted the Texas senator when he announced his presidential bid at his own site, TedCruz.org.
"SUPPORT PRESIDENT OBAMA. IMMIGRATION REFORM NOW!" the Cruz dotcom site read, said the Journal.
By turn, the Journal reported, the website CarlyFiorina.org mocked her 2005 firing from Hewlett-Packard after she had laid off 30,000 people. The site included 30,000 "frownie" faces.
She had previously purchased her namesake dotcom, the Journal said, adding that Fiorina had lamented not picking up all related domains sooner.
A new dot-vote (.vote) domain could held curb political cybersquatting, the
PanAm Post reported.
The new political domain, which also includes the Spanish version, dot-voto, was created by Monolith Registry, which "requires the domain name and the registrant's activities to be connected," the Post said.
"Websites are only trusted if the information they convey is authoritative. With .Vote or .Voto, we ensure that only the person with the authority has the ability to buy that website domain name," Monolith managing member Chuck Warren told the Post.
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