Many of the Britain's Got Talent finalists have had their
names registered for fakeTwitteraccounts by internet users keen to make money
from their popularity.
Thirty-three of the 40 semi-finalists on the talent show,
including Susan Boyle, have had their names registered unofficially
on the Twitter site.
The cyber-squatters have also bought both .com and .co.uk domain
names that might be wanted by finalists, and will be hoping to make
money from the sale of the domain names.
Only five contestants registered web addresses in their name
before entering the talent contest, and just four were previously
registered on Twitter. Guitar player Martin Macham and dog trainer
Jackie Prescott are the only two contestants that have so far
completely avoided being targeted by cyber squatters. The
semi-finals of the show run each night this week and the final will
be held this Saturday.
Stephen Waddington, managing director of Speed Communications,
which conducted the research, said businesses should also be wary
of cybersquatters.
"It is not just 'celebrities' that are affected. Brands can
often be targeted by cyber squatters, particularly on social
networking sites such as Twitter. Companies should register
accounts in their name on these sites as a precaution, as well as
common misspellings of their brand names. This is important as some
users can accidentally mistype web addresses."