Labour fingered for cyber 'dirty tricks campaign'

The Labour Party has been accused of being behind a "desperate dirty tricks campaign" after it registered three domains bearing the name of Tory leader Michael Howard.

The Tories accusd Labour of being "cyber-hypocrites since cybersquatting is against Government rules.

The domains in question - including www.michaelhowardmp.org, www.michaelhowardmp.net and www.michaelhowardmp.org.uk - are all registered to "The Labour Party" based in Westminster, London.

The Tory leader's official website is Michaelhowardmp.com.

Said Michael Fabricant, Shadow Minister for Industry and Technology: "I do not believe the Labour Party have registered these websites in Mr Howard's name in order to sell them back to him. That would be bad enough. I believe the plan was to launch a dirty tricks campaign. How desperate have they now become?

"By having three websites compared to the genuine one, search engines like Google, would be far more likely to hit on the fake website rather than the genuine one. What was the Labour Party going to put onto the website?"

The MP for Lichfield added that the "cyber-squatting" was also in direct contravention of Government policy.

"It exposes Labour as cyber-hypocrites," he said.

A spokesman for the Lapour Party said it did own the URLs which were to be used to "highlight Mr Howard's record in Government". ®

Related stories

Emergency advice parody misses Gov UK funny bone
People must come first in e-government
UK gov computer misuse is 'rife'
Blair reveals some games 'unsuitable' for kids