The Evening Standard reported on Saturday that a number of online publishers (and I use the term lightly) are attempting to cash in on the Madeleine McCann Search by registering a range of different domain names similar to the Missing Madeleine site. These sites then make money by providing links for people who have stumbled on to them by mistake, and charging for every click.

The fake sites have caused uproar and thankfully the ones that we’ve checked today seem to have been taken offline and I’m pretty sure that they will not be earning any commission from any advertisers who were unaware their ads were being shown in such unsavoury company.

We’re very much against these sites but it does raise an interesting point about making money out of a tragic situation. Many papers are giving away free posters (and in some cases T-Shirts) with every issue sold and whilst they would almost certainly claim that they are only doing it to raise awareness of the situation, it could also be argued that they are doing so to encourage people to buy their paper and thereby increasing their readership and turnover.

We might for instance ask exactly how having a photo of Madeline’s younger sister on the article about the offending domains does anything other than cynically tug at heartstrings, or adds anything to anyone’s understanding of the story. Or whether the photo agency credited with the photo received payment for taking it.

This is an obvious by-product of a world where 24 hour news channels struggle to fill air-time, and where mainstream media of all types will do anything to try and cling to an audience - but maybe it’s time to have a rethink on stories like this.

Let’s hope that we don’t see publishers continue to try and make money out of such tragic circumstances and that little Madeleine is returned safely soon.

You can make a donation to the fund to help find Madeline here.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.