YOU are a housewife, eager to find out how the upcoming Universal Studios at Sentosa is coming along.

Or maybe you're a student doing a research paper on coral conservation, and wish to find out more about the conservation programme at Resorts World at Sentosa (RWS).

RWS Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of leisure and gaming company Genting International, is the company behind the development of the integrated resort (IR) on Sentosa Island.

The resort is scheduled to open in 2010.

So you type the URL on your computer: www.rwsentosa.com

And because it's in Singapore, you add the suffix .sg

You are taken to a web page called World of Resort Sentosa, which shows some pictures and information about RWS projects.

But, oops, the page also has pictures of scantily-clad women with a link to a website with sexually suggestive content called AdultFriendFinder.com - which touts itself as 'the world's largest sex and swingers personal site'.

www.rwsentosa.com.sg is not the official website of RWS.

The web address is www.rwsentosa.com, without the .sg

What a difference two letters make.

When The New Paper contacted RWS about the website last week, they said we were the first to inform them of the matter.

Mr Robin Goh, RWS assistant vice-president in charge of communications, said investigations showed nobody had hacked into its website.

He believed the incident was one of cybersquatting, the practice of registering a domain name similar to that of a well-known or well-established name.

Such domain names can confuse and mislead users trying to access the websites.

Cybersquatters usually do such acts in the hope that the owners of the original main name will pay them handsomely to buy back the domain name.

First for website

Mr Goh said the incident was the first one affecting its website, and the company did not know who was responsible.

He said 'it is regrettable that there are cyber opportunists who will exploit the Internet and even imbue it with lewd content, presumably with an aim to profit from it'.

He added that RWS will take the appropriate measures to address the situation.

The offending website was still present at press time, as was RWS' official website. Mr Goh said RWS has not received any complaints or calls about the new website so far.

He said: 'Our website address has been well-publicised and many people are aware of it.

'Most of our customers or patrons are also quite savvy and would know how to key in the correct domain name if they saw a website different from what they had been familiar with.'

More hits

Mr Goh said that since last year, the number of hits at the RWS website had been on the rise. He said there were over 165,000 hits last month.

'There are many reasons for that,' he said. The 'mounting excitement' for the RWS, which features Universal Studios Singapore, Marine Life Park and six hotels, and the availability of jobs - it will have 10,000 jobs when it opens in 2010 - through its careers page.

Lawyer Adrian Tan said that cybersquatting was not a criminal offence here.

He said: 'The affected party could take a civil suit and sue the person who registered the offending website.

'Since the domain name ended in .sg, RWS could look to the Singapore Network Information Centre (SgNIC) for help in finding out who registered www.rwsentosa.com.sg.'

He said the number of cybersquatting cases here was on the rise annually, but exact figures were hard to come by as many cases were not reported.

Uncontactable

An SgNIC spokesman said that www.rwsentosa.com.sg was registered by an individual named Aurazeal.

A check on SgNIC's website showed the domain was registered on 5 Aug 2007 and it would expire on 5 Aug 2009.

A handphone number was included among the details but it was no longer in use.

The spokesman said SgNIC was responsible for holding registration details of all domains ending in .sg but the Media Development Authority was responsible for monitoring their content.

Singapore has had at least 29 complainants and 28 respondents in such cases since 1999.

Last year, 2,156 complaints alleging cybersquatting were filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization's Arbitration and Mediation Center, an 18 per cent increase over 2006 and a 48 per cent increase over 2005.

This story was first published in The New Paper on 7 September 2008.