An insightful post by Matt Cunningham over at Red County today on Sheriff Sandra Hutchens already making the rounds of GOP bigwigs, presumably in her quest for election in 2010.
With an eye towards another side of campaigning — the Internet — the Reg’s resident smart guy, Ron Campbell, ran a check of possible Web sites for Hutchens’ campaign.
Ron tells me that somebody registered the most obvious website addresses on the afternoon of June 10 — just hours after the supes voted to appoint Hutchens. CSMJBS Enterprises, 412 Lavender Court, North Las Vegas, NV 89031, 910/321-1200 registered these web domains:
* hutchensforsheriff.com
* sandrahutchens.com
* sheriffhutchens.com
Ron reports that the company may have grabbed more, and that he looked up the most obvious possibilities. Ron also says that there are still some more unclaimed sites out there for Hutchens supporters:
* friendsofhutchens.com
* friendsofsandrahutchens.com
* hutchens2010.com
From Ron:
“It’s cheap to register a domain name. At Network Solutions, you could buy friendsofhutchens.com for a year for $9. You could also prevent people from creating knockoff sites by buying several similar domain names, including misspellings. (Network Solutions helpfully generates a list of such close misses and lets you add them to your order for $14.99 a pop.
“But if someone already owns the site you want, buying it can get expensive — a charming custom known as ‘cybersquatting.’ Companies have paid thousands of dollars to buy website addresses. Don’t know if Hutchens’ supporters bought these sites or if it’s a squatter holding valuable real estate and waiting for her to pay up.”
