Madeleine website: Opportunists try to cash in on campaign

OPPORTUNISTS have registered commercial websites with very similar spellings to the official site for the campaign to find Madeleine McCann.

Since Wednesday a series of internet sites completely unconnected with the McCann family have been set up.

At least three are registered to the same address in El Segundo, California.

These websites are all identical, listing everything from “airline tickets” and “health insurance” to “casino” and “free ringtones,” although none appear to be working properly.

Another of the sites, which was created on Wednesday by a company in Pasadena, California, provides working links to a variety of different websites.

The official website — which can be accessed through www.findmadeleine.com or www.bringmadeleinehome.com — has already received more than 60 million hits since being launched at 3.30pm on Wednesday.

At one point yesterday there were more than one million people on the site at the same time.

Visitors have left more than 16,000 messages of support for the McCanns through the site.

Madeleine’s uncle, John McCann, branded the people behind the websites “parasites” and accused them of trying to cash in on heartache.

Mr McCann, a director of Madeleine’s Fund, said: “We are incredibly disappointed that people are taking advantage of people’s generosity and using it for commercial gain.

“I am loath to use the phrase parasites, but that is what it seems like.”