ISSAQUAH, Wash. — The local water district and Issaquah are fighting about how the city wants to get rid of storm water and the fight moved online with a case of what's known as cybersquatting.
The Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District has two websites sammplat.wa.org and letstalkaboutourwater.org.
The city of Issaquah admitted to KIRO 7 they created two similar websites sammplat.org and letstalkaboutourwater.com.
Both Issaquah sites were designed to trick people into going to the city's website instead of the water district's site. It is a move known as cybersquatting, more specifically typosquatting.
"It may occur in the private sector, but we're not aware of anything like this occurring with government agencies before," said Janet Sailer, a spokeswoman for the water district.
She said the Sammamish district asked the city to take down the sites earlier this week when they were discovered and the city complied.
The city of Issaquah would only send KIRO 7 a statement that said the cybersquatting websites were created because of the water district sending out misinformation.
The city also confirmed the city sites were taken down.
KIRO
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