Linda Mosher admits to buying domain names of rival Halifax council candidate

Halifax Coun. Linda Mosher admits she bought the internet domain names of a potential rival in the upcoming October election.

The councillor for Halifax West Armdale said she made the decision based on bad information from a "website adviser."

On Friday, CBC News reported that a man who plans to run for the District 9 seat discovered the .com and .ca domains associated with his name had been bought by Mosher.

Shawn Cleary told CBC News he was unhappy to find out shawncleary.com and shawncleary.ca had been taken by someone with Mosher's name and home address. Cleary said he thought it was "dirty" politics.

On Monday, Mosher published a statement on the "Communications" page of the District 9 website.

"This type of campaign tactic is not something that I would normally do, nor even think of doing," Mosher wrote in the statement.

"In all my previous municipal campaigns I have maintained a positive, 'high road' campaign despite some extremely negative campaigns by other candidates. I was ill-advised to use this means to address potential misinformation and negative statements that may arise during the campaign.

"However, it was my decision and I should not have used it."

Attacks unfair

Mosher went on to write that constituent feedback had shown her some could "misinterpret" her intention and be disappointed in her actions.

Mosher said she is proud of her record as a councillor since 2000, "notwithstanding political attacks on me which have been at times unfair, lacking in balance, and suffused with misinformation."

She claimed the reason she purchased the domain names was for "posting of factual and accurate information to counter any misinformation" during the election campaign.

Mosher wrote that she is "releasing" the two domain namesand that she has no further comment.

Candidacy launch planned this week

It's unclear what Mosher meant by "releasing" the domain names. Tucows Domains, the service used to make the purchase, has a help section on changing the ownership of the domain names. It suggests giving a username and password to the new owner. There is also an option to "unlock" a domain name to transfer it.

Clearysaid Monday he would like to own the domains associated with his name so he can control them, although he has already purchased shawnclearyhalifax.ca for his campaign.

"That was a very strange way to start what was so-called a positivecampaign, totake someone else's presence on theinternet," Cleary said. "I have no idea what experiences she has had in the past to make her think that for this election she would need to protect herself, and particularly from me.

"I've never run for office before, so I'm not really sure what the need was to counter misinformation when I haven't even announced my candidacy until now."

Cleary saidhe has not heard directly from Mosher about the incident.Mosher has refused to comment to CBC News since May 13.