Celebrities lose out in Facebook vanity URLS

Namesakes and cyber squatters quick off the mark

Celebrities lose out in Facebook vantiy URLS

15 June 2009 17:25 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Facebook vanity URLs are now fully live and gaining traffic, but did you get the name you wanted? While some celebrities were lucky enough to have one reserved for them, dozens of celebs and companies have missed out with cyber squatters or people with the same name moving in.

Fans of TV celebs Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, Gail Porter and Dawn French won't be visiting Facebook to find out the latest about their favourite TV stars anytime soon.

Matthew Woods in Toronto was quick off the mark to grab car loud mouth Clarkson, while Hammond, Porter, and French were pipped to the post by people with the same name, something that ex-Blue Peter presenter and editor of Pocket-lint were also beaten to - thanks Stuart Miles in Australia.

Hollywood seems to be mostly unaffected with most stars names not actually being registered, however UK star Simon Pegg has lost out any hopes of building a fansite on the social networking site.

Other stars to have lost out to cyber squatters and namesakes are Michael Caine, Steve Martin, Julie Andrews, Sean Bean, Jamie Bell, Hugh Jackman, and Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle.

But it's not just film and TV stars who've lost out though. Even the British royalty can't claim their own Facebook vanity URL page with both Prince Charles and Prince Harry loosing out to Charlie Nordholm and Suraj Bharath respectively.

Elsewhere British tennis star Andy Murray loses out to Daniel Domingo, while number one seed Roger Federer either spoke to Facebook or stayed up late to grab his named URL Federer. David Beckham is using Beckham, but Dame Kelly Holmes lost out to another Kelly Holmes on the Internet.

Active politicians in the UK seem up on the Facebook phenomenon with both Conservative leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg getting their Facebook pages, however Gordon Brown has failed to register his at the time of writing.

Past politicians haven't been so lucky. Philton Harmenszoon James holds Tony Blair, while a Dusty Sayer has registered George Bush.

Britain's got talent judge Piers Morgan has secured his Facebook page, as has Susan Boyle, although Simon Cowell doesn't seem bothered enough to have his own Facebook page with the URL returning "The page you requested was not found".

On the corporate side, while companies like Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury's have secured their vanity URL, John Lewis is yet to be registered while Waitrose has gone to a Paulo orrock.

Tesco too has lost out, to a Kristina Louise Dent. Companies like Microsoft, Dell, and Ford have all secured their vanity URLS.

The news is likely to cause disappointment and upset amongst the celebrity pack who are likely used to getting what they want.

Facebook has told Pocket-lint that names are non-transferable. It will be interesting to see how long they can hold that line.

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Software, Online, Facebook