By Jess Durfee, DNC Member
Chair, San Diego County Democratic Party
I’m hardly an Internet expert, but for years I’ve had a simple piece of advice for potential candidates and Party leaders: Claim your name online.
Though it might seem obvious, many politicos still fail to purchase the “.com” and “.org” versions of their own names until it’s too late. They’re dismayed to find them already taken – often by opponents with bad intentions, or squatters demanding a small fortune.
I reserved jessdurfee.com some time ago and use it (occasionally) for a blog highlighting my DNC activities. But I was late to the Twitter bandwagon. Sure enough, last month I found that someone was masquerading as me under the “jessdurfee” handle.
Our County Democratic Party’s legal counsel filed a complaint with Twitter on behalf of me and several Democratic city council candidates whose names had been snapped up in the previous weeks. Since the offending accounts were clearly meant to be deceptive – in violation of user rules – they were shut down within days.
We noticed that the accounts of the county Republican Party and its chair, Tony Krvaric, had been suspended too. So we connected the dots and issued a press release suggesting that the Republicans were behind the fraud. Within hours, Krvaric admitted to the charge.
I did not expect the flood of media coverage that followed. Local TV and radio stations wanted interviews. Our conservative daily newspaper questioned Krvaric’s leadership in a scathing editorial. A story in the D.C.-based blog Wonkette called my Republican counterpart a “bored dingbat” and a “vindictive weirdo.”
This episode turned out well enough for our side, but it was a serious reminder of the need to be more aggressive about acquiring online real estate. Paying for your own domain name is a must, and adding a couple variations is probably worthwhile. There’s no cost to getting multiple Twitter handles. Facebook lets you choose a username for your page’s URL.
After you’ve acquired your own names, ensure that Democratic candidates and elected officials in your area secure their Web-based “brands” too. Protecting your online political identity can take a little time and money, but it will ultimately save you much more of both.
Follow Jess on Twitter: @chairjessdurfee.
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