[LINK] Albanese.com.au taken down over ‘misleading’ Liberal Party redirect was Re: Albanese.com.au

[Kim Holburn]

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 <StephenLoosley at outlook.com> 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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Kim Holburn
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