Donald trump
US President Donald Trump owns over 3,600 website addresses, many describing him negatively Reuters

President Donald Trump registered almost 500 new website addresses to his name in the 18 months leading up to his January 2017 inauguration. On average, a new website address was bought by the Trump Organisation almost every day.

The 490 new addresses form part of a collection of 3,643 website URLs relating to almost every aspect of the US president's life.

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Many of the websites have been bought to stop so-called cybersquatters from stealing potentially useful sites, while others show Trump himself squatting on site addresses which could be potentially damaging to his image and that of his business and political careers.

A Business Insider investigation in August 2015 discovered 3,153 web addresses belonging to Trump, who was at that point the primary front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. A second investigation by CNN in February 2017 found Trump's address collection had grown to 3,643.

A lot of the URLs have been snatched up by the Trump Organisation to protect the President's brand, by stopping anyone else from using them. These include:

  • TrumpIsFired.com
  • IHateTrumpVodka.com
  • TrumpNetworkFraud.com
  • DonaldTrumpSucks.com
  • TrumpVodkaSucks.com
  • ImBeingSuedByDonaldTrump.com
  • TrumpFraud.org
  • TrumpScam.org
  • Others related to Trump's presidential campaign, such as:
  • ElectTrump.com
  • MakeAmericaGreatAgain.vote

Back in 2012, Trump was already planning his political career. That year saw his company purchase VoteAgainstTrump.com, TrumpMustGo.com and NoMoreTrump.com.

One website now owned by Trump, according to the CNN investigation, was TrumpEmpire.com. This was bought by a Mexican cybersquatter called Luis Jorge O'Brien Covarrubias for $10 (£8) in April 2015. The civil engineer hoped he would one day be able to sell the site to Trump for a small fortune, but then didn't bother renewing his ownership, letting it fall into Trump's hands.

TrumpNetworkPyramidScheme.com

Some of the most interesting domains relate to Trump Network, a multi-level marketing company he launched in 2009. Seen as a controversial business model, MLMs offer self-employment and attractive salaries to applicants as long as they recruit others to work for them, who then must also start recruiting. The more hires, the more money.

Even before the company launched, and perhaps sensing impending litigation against him, Trump acquired TrumpNetworkPyramidScheme.com and TrumpNetworkPonziScheme.com. The business was sold in 2012.

This, according to Bruce Rubin, a senior counselor and crisis public relations expert, is unusual behavior. Rubin told CNN: "Whoever bought those domains was already thinking those allegations might be raised. Most reputable organisations do not go out and buy these kinds of websites."