British supermarket chain Lidl has issued an urgent recall of sweets sold under the Paw Patrol brand because their packaging featured a website with “content clearly unsuitable for children”, Le Figaro reports, News .ro reports.

This is a pack containing Mini Butter Cookies, Choc Chip Biscotti Cookies, Yummy Bake Apple Bars and Yummy Bake Raspberry Bars.

The boxes were sold under the Paw Patrol brand, a well-known cartoon character.

The products were withdrawn from sale at the end of August and customers were urged to return the products to their nearest Lidl store for a full refund.

Reason? The Internet link on the package, which was supposed to lead to the manufacturer’s website, actually led to a site with pornographic content.

“Lidl is recalling the branded product mentioned above as we have been informed that the supplier’s URL on the back of the packaging has been compromised and is directing internet users to a website with content that is not suitable for children,” Lidl said in a statement. press

It was the customers who raised the alarm, writes the British newspaper The Sun. “Usually I don’t look at packaging on websites

food but I had never heard of this company so I decided to check it out. I was afraid. How could this happen? You’d think you’d have to go through a lot of checks before you put the wrap on!” said one customer.

Another buyer pointed out the mention of the word “kids” in the misleading URL. “This is disgusting given the type of content presented on this site,” he said.

CYBER SQUATTING

According to The Sun, the Internet address is linked to a pornographic site hosted in China. Meanwhile, the site is down. Despite this, Lidl says it has launched an investigation with its supplier in addition to a national recall campaign.

According to British media, the manufacturer of Paw Patrol cookies recently went bankrupt, and then hackers bought the brand’s domain name for a few euros as part of the idea of ​​”cybersquatting”. This is an inexpensive way to take advantage of visiting the manufacturer’s website so far. Internet users can easily fall prey to hackers because a website remains highly visible in search engine results for weeks. Links to the damaged site remain active, even if its content has radically changed.

However, this type of incident is not unusual, and more or less well-known brands suffer from it. As The Sun reminds, the travel company Easyjet had a similar scandal in 2020, when it directed thousands of customers to a prostitution website. The link on the airline’s website was supposed to lead to the privacy policy, but because of the missing letter, it directed users directly to a site that promised to “make all your sexual dreams come true.”