Property ManagementUncle Sam Slams Domain Name Registration Scam
Many real estate agents were contacted recently by a company that claimed
that other parties were about to register similar domain names to the ones the
agents already had registered, prompting some to panic and sign up for
variations of their domain names they really didn"t need.
According to a news report, a company known as National Domain Name
Registry, Electronic Domain Name Monitoring and Corporate Domain Name
Monitoring has duped at least 27,000 Web-site owners. Real estate agents
counted among the many business owners who were fooled.
The Federal Trade Commission says that faxes sent by the company to Web-site
owners were deceptive on two levels: First, registrations for domain names are
instantaneous. If a third-party wanted a variation of someone"s domain name,
they could obtain one with no waiting, and certainly would not wait for the
original domain name owner to be contacted. Second, no third parties had asked
to register the variations. If they had, they would not have been subjected to
any delay.
A lawsuit was filed against the company.