A British multi-million political campaign urging for the exit of Great Britain from the European Union has failed to register the matching .com domain.
The official Vote Leave campaign operates from VoteLeaveTakeControl.org, and a serial prankster duly registered VoteLeave.com.
Mario Van Poppel is a Belgian who pointed the domain to a Rick Astley clip singing “Never gonna give you up” – a reference to being “Rickrolled.”
Thousands of unsuspecting opposers to the UK’s stay in the EU are met with the 80’s pop idol’s baritone antics.
Van Poppel claims that more than 50,000 visitors were fooled into visiting VoteLeave.com, .net and .co.uk in the first three days of its operation.
If you haven’t had enough of Rick Astley over the years, head over to VoteLeave.com.
Vote Leave. Not the .com.
A Belgian sending Brits to Rick Astley’s “Never gonna give you up” video is a triple Rickroll lol.
And it looks like the Vote Leave campaigners missed out on a couple of other domains that are probably currently receiving very high traffic…type in brexit.com and you get:
“www.Brexit.com & http://www.Brexit.co.uk were offered to the various national Out campaign groups for no charge.
After no contact was offered in response it is now up for sale. £3500. Please contact php0101@gmail.com for any enquiries.”
Huge lesson learned for this organization. Made for a good snicker for the rest of us though.