Local politicians fall out over cybersquatting domain

A Democrat politician believes dirty tricks may have been used to derail his local council election campaign.

Incumbent Phil Calabro is running alongside Mark Joseph against Republican candidates Ryan W. Gallagher and Margaret Chleboski for two seats on Newtown Township’s five member board, reports phillyBurbs.com.

But a domain name similar to Calabro’s campaign page calabrojoseph.org is currently being used to reroute web traffic to barackobama.com.

The Democrats believe a cybersquatter is using the calabrojoseph.com domain name in a bid to link the Newtown candidates directly with the President, whose approval rating continues to fall.

“They’re either running scared or they have to try every dirty trick in the book,” Mr. Calabro said, referring to his Republican opponents.

However, Gallagher denied knowing anything about the fake domain name, and moved to distance himself from the website link.

The calabrojoseph.com domain name is marked private, meaning ownership of the website remains unknown.