https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-politics/2022/04/06/liberal-albanese-domain-website-redirect/
Australia’s internet domain name regulator has pulled down Albanese.com.au
after it was found to be redirecting visitors to the Liberal Party’s homepage.
The unexpected redirect was no accident.
Information provided by the regulator shows the Liberal National Party of
Queensland registered Albanese.com.au in December, with Brisbane-based LNP
adviser Sam Jackson, who did not respond to TND‘s request for comment, listed
as the main contact.
Anthony Albanese said the website redirection showed the government was
engaging in “scare campaigns, tricks and misinformation”.
“This is a test of integrity for Scott Morrison and for the Liberal Party,” he
told reporters on Wednesday.
The Opposition Leader was nonetheless confident that voters won’t have been
duped.
“As if someone who is searching for my website is going to go, ‘Oh, it is the
same as the Liberal Party website’,” he said.
Political advertising has relatively few regulations, and enforcement can be an
arduous process.
The current controversy prompted the AEC to clarify that electoral laws do not
cover website domain names.
Instead, local websites fall under the remit of the .au Domain Administration,
more commonly known as auDA.
For websites ending in .com.au, auDA policy states that the domain name must
match the name, acronym, trademark, service or premises of the applicant’s
organisation.
For Albanese.com.au, the LNP didn’t fulfil any of these criteria.
“Where registrants are found not to have met the requirements of the .au
licensing rules, an .au domain name may be suspended or cancelled by auDA,” a
spokesperson for the regulator told The New Daily on Wednesday afternoon.
“auDA has received complaints about the allocation of the domain name
Albanese.com.au to the current licence holder. The domain name is currently
suspended.”
These rules are enforced in order to “maintain trust and confidence” in
Australian websites.
The LNP has since confirmed that it was behind the redirect.
“We’re glad to see the domain name has been promoted so heavily, which has
helped to spread the message about the Morrison government’s achievements,” an
LNP spokesperson told AAP.
“The domain name was acquired appropriately and it’s a matter for Mr Albanese
to answer why he hadn’t registered this domain if he wanted to use it.”
It’s the latest example of political operatives registering websites named
after their rivals.
In response to the controversy over the Albanese domain name, former Senator
Derryn Hinch claimed an unaffiliated minor party had previously registered
DerrynHinch.com.au.
“Dirty pool,” the radio host said on Twitter.
Meanwhile, in January 2021, the ownership of PaulineHanson.com.au lapsed and
was snapped up by refugee advocates who redirected users to the Refugee Council
of Australia website.
Both websites have since gone blank.
On 2022/04/6 3:01 pm, Stephen Rothwell wrote:
On Wed, 6 Apr 2022 02:48:15 +0000 Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
wrote:
Haha .. Typing in http://albanese.com.au redirects you to:
liberal.org.au and the Liberal Party of Australia
It would be interesting to know how they justified registering that
domain name, given that one of the "advantages" of a ".au" domain name
is that there are rules about who can register them.
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