The real site, above; the spoof, below

To prevent the spread of unofficial sites, the Bush campaign had preemptively purchased over 60 domain names (including www.bushbites.com and www.bushsux.com) earlier this year; all names point to the campaign's official site. The three addresses now owned by Exley escaped their purview, however, and lead instead to the spoof site. In publicly responding to the matter last week, Bush commented that "there ought to be limits to freedom." Though that statement could haunt him among fans of a free Internet, Ginsberg insists the campaign isn't trying to shut the site down, but is simply protecting its rights. Exley, who says his primary goal in this is to have fun, says he isn't anti-Bush and is actually certain that Bush will win the 2000 presidential election. "I'm not trying to take Bush down," he says, adding that Bush's strong candidacy is a good reason to encourage political debate about him, which is what he feels his site does. Not so, counters Ginsberg, citing the $350,000 figure Exley quoted when the campaign asked to buy the domain name (Exley has since said he won't sell it). "This isn't just some poor person with a mimeograph machine down in the basement, trying to add to the First Amendment debate," he says. "They're trying to do some serious profiteering off the Internet." — Anjali Arora