Brit Awards nominee Young tops online favourites poll

LONDON - Will Young, the bookies' favourite to scoop the British Male Solo Artist gong at this year's 25th Brit Awards, is the most popular British male nominee online, according to domain name specialist NetNames.

The company, responsible for managing and protecting online brands for international corporations, has revealed that Will Young has a massive 16 dedicated web addresses registered by fans around the world.

Songstress PJ Harvey tops the British Female Solo Artist category with seven sites. In the British group category, Franz Ferdinand came top with nine domain names compared with just four for Keane, who had the biggest selling album in 2004.

The research also showed that a number of record companies have failed to register the most common domain names for their artists, meaning they are not in control of .com web addresses carrying their names.

A number of domain names are being registered that could harm the image and reputation of some artists, including one for newcomer Joss Stone titled "jossstonenaked.com".

It has emerged that some record companies are attempting to deter users from setting up unofficial sites by registering domain names of commonly misspelled celebrity names.

Natasha Bedingfield, of Sony, is one example as her official website can be found at both "" and "'.

Jonathan Robinson, business development director at NetNames, said: "Managing image is vital for high-profile recording artists because they use it to sell their records.

"It's great to see that some attempts have been made to protect artists' image online, but record companies and most recording artists are still wide open to abuse."

The company, part of recently rebranded London Listed Group NBT, says rising stars need to protect their online identities early on in their careers.

NetNames Brit Nominees League Table

1 Will Young - 16

2 Franz Ferdinand - 9

3 Bob Geldof - 7

4 PJ Harvey - 7

5 Joss Stone - 6

6 Morrissey - 6

7 Lemar - 4

8 The Streets - 4

9 Natasha Bedingfield - 4

10 Amy Winehouse - 4

11 Keane - 4

12 Snow Patrol - 3

13 Jamie Cullum - 3

14 Jamelia - 3

15 Muse - 2

16 Kasabian - 1

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