Web surfers looking for police now get anti-Harper site
Last updated Dec 12 2005 09:47 AM EST
CBC News
A New Democratic Party supporter from British Columbia is no longer sending web traffic from people looking for the Windsor police to the party's website.
Instead, web users who try to access the site www.windsorpolice.ca are now taken to a site critical of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.
Last week, police departments in several Canadian cities surprised to find that websites with similar names to theirs were redirecting web users to the NDP website.
The web addresses included www. reginapolice.ca, www.saskatoonpolice.ca and several others with names similar to police departments in Vancouver, Windsor and Edmonton.
FROM DEC. 9, 2005: Police names send web users on political detour
The domain names are similar, but not identical, to the real web addresses used by police in those cities.
Burnaby, B.C. businessman and self-described NDP supporter David Bedford owns the sound-alike web addresses and it was his idea to reroute the traffic to the NDP website.
Bedford said he wanted to help the NDP and planned to keep it up until election day on Jan. 23.
An NDP spokesperson said Friday the party didn't have the power to make Bedford stop, but hadn't asked him to stop either.
However, representatives of several police departments indicated they weren't pleased.
On Sunday, the extra web traffic to the NDP site ended.
Instead, people putting www.windsorpolice.ca and the other names into their browsers are redirected to one of Bedford's own websites – one that targets Harper and "religious extremists."
Last updated Dec 12 2005 09:47 AM EST
CBC News
A New Democratic Party supporter from British Columbia is no longer sending web traffic from people looking for the Windsor police to the party's website.
Instead, web users who try to access the site www.windsorpolice.ca are now taken to a site critical of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.
Last week, police departments in several Canadian cities surprised to find that websites with similar names to theirs were redirecting web users to the NDP website.
The web addresses included www. reginapolice.ca, www.saskatoonpolice.ca and several others with names similar to police departments in Vancouver, Windsor and Edmonton.
FROM DEC. 9, 2005: Police names send web users on political detour
The domain names are similar, but not identical, to the real web addresses used by police in those cities.
Burnaby, B.C. businessman and self-described NDP supporter David Bedford owns the sound-alike web addresses and it was his idea to reroute the traffic to the NDP website.
Bedford said he wanted to help the NDP and planned to keep it up until election day on Jan. 23.
An NDP spokesperson said Friday the party didn't have the power to make Bedford stop, but hadn't asked him to stop either.
However, representatives of several police departments indicated they weren't pleased.
On Sunday, the extra web traffic to the NDP site ended.
Instead, people putting www.windsorpolice.ca and the other names into their browsers are redirected to one of Bedford's own websites – one that targets Harper and "religious extremists."
