Domain name scams have become
commonly misused with internet scammers registering and purchasing domain names
that very closely resemble that of a trusted business. Using a domain name that
misrepresents an existing renowned business, scammers can:
● Send phishing mails from the domain and resort
to illegal data mining for internet scams
●
Lure internet users to visit the web pages and
subscribe for services by making payments, under the impression that they are
accessing a genuine web page
●
Sell substandard products and services under the
domain name
●
Cause cyber-attacks using computer viruses and
other hacking tools
Proactive
ways for averting internet scams on fake websites
It will be worthwhile for the
average internet user to understand a few basic requirements of a safe website
so that he can be on alert the moment he accesses unsafe domains:
●
Domain name registration and website hosting are
two different things. Domain name is the name of the URL. It has to be
purchased from a domain name registrar.
●
The ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers) is a nonprofit organization that coordinates the databases
of such registrars. An ICANN accredited registrar holds repute and trust for
selling domain names
●
The www part of the domain name represents the
server on which the domain is hosted. The ending part of the domain name like
.com or .org represents the purpose for which the entity exists. Usually it is
.com for commercial entities, .gov for Government organizations and .org for
the non profits
●
One must look for security seal and the https
protocol soon as one lands on a web page. An unsafe site will not contain any
of these in the URL.
The Generic Top Level Domains are
maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority regulating the use of
domain names on the internet. Internet scammers can subscribe to many look
alike domains in order to fool individuals as well as businesses. As a measure
of internet scam prevention, all new businesses with legitimate trademarks will
need to register with a clearing house. This procedure will not allow
fraudsters to steal domain names.
Reporting
fraud websites that lead to internet scams
It is the responsibility of internet
users, individuals as well as businesses to approach fraud prevention
organizations at the earliest, when they are fooled by fraud websites, so that
furtherdamages from internet scams are abated. They can turn to:
●
The registrar of domains for lodging complaints
on fake domain names and resultant internet scams
●
The cyber police who take complaints from public
who are misled by impostors
●
The Internet Crime Complaint Center, called the
IC3 set as a multi-agency task force of the FBI and other organizations
●
Online tools like fake domain detective can be
used to detect fake domain names
●
The public domain registry where reports of fake
domains can be filed
●
Phishing page reports can be filed with Google
In addition to the above, various
private and nonprofit organizations can be approached for reporting domain name
fraud.
