The profiles are found on MySpace.com, a popular social-networking website with over 147 million individual members. Among those who've had their identities swiped there are hockey icons Wayne Gretzky and Don Cherry and politicians Pierre Trudeau and Belinda Stronach.
Dion's office had no idea his page existed until contacted by a reporter this week.
"We have contacted MySpace because the site breaches the rules of MySpace for identity theft and we are going to have it taken down,'' spokeswoman Elizabeth Whiting said Friday.
"We like to have control over what is said in Stephane Dion's name.''
Most MySpace users put up profiles of themselves, which include text and photos that have varying relationships to reality. The Dion profile included a small disclaimer stating he was not the real Stephane Dion, but a recent posting discussed his leadership run.
"I decided to run for leader of the Liberal party, and won against the war-loving Iggy and the nude-diving Bob!'' it crowed.
"I won because `my homies' (as they say en anglais) Gerard Kennedy and Martha Hall-Findlay helped me defeat Bob and Iggy (sic).''
The site's creator said he voluntarily pulled the profile due to media interest.
The man said he is in his 20s but requested his identity not be made public. He would only say that he is a graduate student living in Ottawa.
"I didn't want to create any problems for anyone,'' he said via e-mail, "especially Dion's office as I'm a Liberal supporter.''
He added that he used to run a parody page for former Ontario premier Bob Rae, but changed it to Dion after the Liberal leadership race so the page could be more topical.
"Often humour can be a very effective means to communicate a message,'' he wrote. "I thought this could be a way to promote Stephane Dion a bit.''
Unlike the Liberals, the NDP has no problems with unauthorized MySpace sites that include altered and flattering photos of party leader Jack Layton.
"They are basically fan sites,'' said spokeswoman Joanne Deer, who added the NDP plans to launch its own official MySpace site in the next election.
Legal experts say there is a fine line between parody and defamation on the Internet, but the fake profiles are more likely to stir up headlines than generate legal troubles.
Most disputes over online postings are problematic only when a request to remove defamatory content goes unanswered, media lawyer Fred Kozak said.
"If a website administrator accepts some degree of responsibility for removing defamatory comments, and they fail to carry out a request, it's then that they have an increased exposure to liability,'' he said.
Dan Johnston, a freelance web developer, runs a spoof profile for Prime Minister Stephen Harper _ one of nearly a dozen found online.
He said via e-mail that people tend to run fake profiles either because they adore the person they are pretending to be or because they hate them.
The 27-year-old believes the controversy over the parody profiles is unfounded because the difference between the real and the fake is obvious.
"If people are stupid enough to believe everything they see and read on the Net, then they deserve what they get, be it spyware ... getting their bank account phished or, in this case, taking a MySpace page seriously,'' he wrote.
He added that with the right amount of legal pressure, however, he would shut his site down.
No one from MySpace could be reached for comment Friday.
