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Hollywood's Cyber Squats
(FORTUNE Magazine) – What do Sean Penn, Jessica Tandy, and Henry Winkler have in common? Nothing, except that all of their names have been registered as URLs for CelebSites.com, a celebrity-worship site that has managed to snap up about half the names in Hollywood; the other half belong to a competitor, Celebrity1000.com. Given that Sharon Stone recently threatened to sue a porn site operating at sharonstone.com, both sites have wisely decided to route Web users to innocuous, star-gazing content: links to gushy fan sites, for instance, or polls in categories like Favorite Famous Person. Still, the legality of owning, say, gwynethpaltrow.com is in doubt: The House last month passed a bill to restrict cyber squatters, though it may not pass in the Senate. In the meantime, CelebSites and Celebrity1000 have been pretty thorough. FORTUNE found only one unclaimed celebrity URL, which it promptly purchased. And if Joyce DeWitt wants to buy joycedewitt.com, she can call us, anytime. --Tim Carvell |
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