Sunnyvale council hopefuls battle over web domains

Courtesy Sunnyvale Sun, By Alia Wilson:   08/28/2013

A Sunnyvale councilman’s unique tactic for generating web traffic to his re-election campaign is not sitting well with his opponent.

Councilman Jim Griffith is running against Tap Merrick for Seat 3 on the city council, and Griffith was quick to pounce on his opponent’s unclaimed web addresses. Griffith scooped up alternate versions of “tapmerrickforsunnyvale” web addresses to redirect traffic to his personal re-election website.

Click here for the full Mercury News article.

Advertisement

Sunnyvale Councilmember Jim Griffith Conduct in Question

Sunnyvale Vice Mayor and Candidate Jim Griffith has yet to respond to the allegations that he hijacked the identity and registered .com and .net of his opponent’s  campaign domain name.

Using these web domains Jim Griffith then built fictitious websites to falsely represent Councilmember Candidate Tap Merrick in a malicious manner.

Apparently Jim Griffith, in the past and as well now, has been linked to and is familiar with posting fictitious online content as Tim Risch points out: 

Sunnyvale Vice Mayor Jim Griffith accused of identify theft

After learning that Sunnyvale Councilmember and Vice Mayor Jim Griffith may be formally charged with committing a crime of identify theft, outraged Sunnyvale residents are calling Griffith a disgraceful politician and have recommended voting him out of office.

Candidate Tap Merrick approached the Sunnyvale City Council on Aug 13, protesting the unethical identity theft of his name and campaign administered and paid for by Councilmember and Vice Mayor Jim Griffith.