Cybersquatters take a bite out of Pizza Hut’s new web identity

Cybersquatters have taken advantage of the Pizza Hut rebrand by registering domains closely resembling Pizza Hut's new Pasta Hut website.

The pizza chain is spending about £100m on the rebrand over the next six years, but someone at Pizza Hut towers did not think it was worth spending a few pounds on fully protecting the firm's web identity.

Whilst Pizza Hut has registered Pasta.co.uk to help promote its new pasta dishes and less reliance on its doorstep thick pizzas, cybersquatters have been able to move in and register Pastahut.net, Pastahut.info, Pastahut.org and, amazingly, even Pastahut.com.

These sites have been filled with Google-style pay-per-click links and the owner of Pastahut.com is already touting the site for a quick sale, which should raise more than the price of a large double pepperoni.