Heinz Ketchup recently discovered that a porn site had set up shop on a domain that Heinz had let lapse, and is their face red! You see, not only had the domain lapsed, but there were bottles of Heinz Ketchup on store shelves with a QR code that lead to the lapsed domain, which had been turned into a pornography site.

Now, domain squatters, particularly those who grab lapsed domains, are nothing new. But Heinz – a global megabrand – should have known better. The domain had been set up as part of the Heinz “Spread the word with Heinz” contest in their German market.

But upon scanning the QR code, it turned out that words weren’t the only thing being spread.

So it was that one Daniel Korrell ended up purchasing a bottle of Heinz Ketchup, scanned the QR code, and found himself on the FunDorado.com porn site. (Note: do not go to that site – it is very much NSFW.)

Said Daniel Korrell on his Facebook page, when posting the information to Heinz’ EU page, “Euer Ketchup ist wohl nichts für Minderjährige. Vielleicht solltet Ihr mal der IT-Abteilung Bescheid geben – das Gepostete passiert jedenfalls, wenn man den QR-Code auf der Heinz-Flasche scannt. Getestet mit verschiedenen Handys und QR-Code-Readern. Achja, bei direkter Eingabe der URL bekommt man dasselbe Resultat.”

(Approximate translation: “Your ketchup is probably not for minors. Maybe you should let your IT department know – the posted happens anyway when you scan the QR-code on the Heinz bottle. Tested several phones with QR code readers. Oh, for direct input of the URL you get the same result.”)

It’s interesting to note that the ketchup on which the QR code appears does not expire until next year, suggesting that, if Heinz had thought about it at all, they thought the bottles bearing the QR code going to the sagsmithheinz.de site would still be on the shelves until 2016, making their letting the domain lapse all the more puzzling.

Michael Mullen, SVP of Corporate and Government Affairs with Heinz, told CNN that “Heinz in Germany has apologized for the way in which an out-of-date QR code and website link to design a ketchup label in 2014 has been reassigned to an adult content web site.”

“Clearly this was never our intention and we are taking steps to avoid this from re-occurring,” added Mullen in an email to CNN.

However, not everybody is mortified by the situation.

“Ketchup porn affair goes around the world!” says the display banner when first accessing the FunDorado site.

Heinz Ketchup Porn Affair Goes Around the World

The domain on which FunDorado was squatting, https://web.archive.org/web/20180314202220/http://sagsmithheinz.de/, has since been taken down. In fact, in the time it took for us to write this article, the domain has changed hands, and gone from “server not found” to “website coming soon”. We can only hope that the hands into which it has changed are affiliated with Heinz.

For his trouble, Heinz has offered to provide Mr. Korell with a personalized ketchup bottle, which is apparently a big deal as the MyHeinz personalized ketchup service is no longer available.

Example of Personalized Heinz Ketchup

MyHeinz Personalized Ketchup No Longer Available to the Un-porn-rickrolled Public

Not to be outdone, FunDorado offered him a year’s membership to the site.

“Hello Daniel Korell, wow! Has Heinz perhaps confused FunDorado’s Sexy Lila with its Lila Ketchup EZ Squirt? However, you won’t of course be going away empty handed. We’re giving you a year’s free access to FunDorado.com.”