Risk: Informational
Some domain names being resold could be used to facilitate credit card or bank account fraud.
Domain names can be resold after having been registered, and some can fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars, for example, www.designerclothes.com is currently for sale for $150,000. There's nothing wrong about making a profit from reselling domain names, but worryingly, domain names that feature banks and credit organisations are starting to appear. There are only two reasons that people would want to buy these domains - if they work for the bank and want to acquire a new domain, or if they intend to set up phishing scams.
A quick search on a domain reseller's website, using the keyword 'bank', revealed that over 8400 domains were available for sale, including bank.uk.com, creditbank.com, internetbank.com and americabank.com. Using the keywords 'bank of' returned almost 300 domains, including bankofameriuca.com, bankofglasgow.com and bankofscoltand.com.
One domain reseller, Sedo, said that it has procedures in place to remove domain names that violate trademarks, but also stated that it is the trademark owner's responsibility to file a complaint. Jeremiah Johnston, Sedo's general counsel, said: "We have more than six million domains for sale. It's impossible for us to proactively filter sales." He also said that Sedo wants to "balance the rights of all users" and added that at times, trademark owners "harass a lot of legitimate domain owners".