In the UK, Lidl recalls 'Paw Patrol' cookies that include a link to a porn site

No keep in all hands. In the United Kingdom, boxes of biscuits bearing the image of the children's cartoon Paw Patrol (Paw Patrol) were withdrawn from sale at the end of August by the Lidl chain. The reason? The Internet link present on the packaging and supposed to direct to the brand's website actually led to pornographic content. “Lidl is recalling the branded product mentioned above because we have been informed that the supplier URL which appears on the back of the packaging has been compromised and directs the user to a site which is not suitable for consumption. children”, supports the hard-discount chain in a press release. She invites her customers to “return the product to the store for a refund”.

It was the customers who sounded the alarm, by expressing their emotion to the British newspaper The Sun. “I don't normally check food packaging websites, but this was a company I had never heard of, so I thought I'd check it out. I was horrified. How could this happen? You would think that you have to go through many checks before putting it on the packaging!”, indignantly a father of a family in the columns of the British daily. Another buyer noticed the mention of the word “kids” in the misleading URL. "It's disgusting considering the type of content featured on this website," he said.

According to information from the Sun, the Internet address linked to a pornographic site hosted in China. This would have since been deactivated. Despite this, Lidl claims to have launched an investigation with its supplier, in addition to its national recall campaign. “As soon as this came to our attention, we immediately launched an investigation with the supplier owning the URL and removed the item from sale,” says Lidl.

According to the British media, the manufacturer of Pat Patrol cookies had recently gone out of business, and hackers then reappropriated the brand's domain name, for a few euros, according to the principle of "cybersquatting". A way to take advantage at low cost of the visits that the manufacturer's site received so far. Internet users can easily fall into the trap of hackers, since the site retains a good place in search engine results for several weeks. The links that direct to the corrupted site remain active, even though its content would have changed radically.

This kind of setback is not unheard of. It is even common for brands, more or less known, to pay the price. As The Sun recalls, the travel company Easyjet had experienced a similar case in 2020, when it had directed thousands of customers to a prostitution site. The link, present on the airline's site, was supposed to refer to the company's privacy policy; because of a missing letter, he directed Internet users directly to a libidinous site, promising to "fulfill all sexual dreams".