Beware the web domain scheme
One Moneyweb community member, CEO of a well-respected local company, was recently approached by a crowd that calls itself Horizon Interweb and is ostensibly based in the UK. The salesman’s pitch was that someone else was interested in buying six domains with names the same as our community member’s business. The domains included the suffixes .org, .com, .net, etc.
If our community member didn’t fork out £600 for each domain, the salesman said, he’d sell them to the other potential client. This is a multiple of what it normally costs to register a domain.
Fortunately our community member didn’t fall for this scheme. But its existence is evidence that many do.
The modus operandi of Horizon and other similar operators is as simple but ingenious. Its website, www.horizoninterweb.com , was registered on September 12 2006. The true owners of the website have been hidden with the help of a business called WhoisGuard.
To lend some credibility to its purpose, the site claims to be an “accredited member” of the “Against Internet Fraud Foundation” as well as an “accredited registrar” of the “Domain Name Council of Europe”.
Bizarrely, no information can be found about either entity on the internet, and no website link is provided on Horizon Interweb’s site.
No doubt Horizon Interweb’s promoters, whoever they might be, will resurface in a different guise next month.
“I don’t think they’re breaking any laws,” says Calvin Brown, financial director of Uniform, a South African internet domain registrar. “But they’re certainly not the most ethical group of people.”
Brown says that there is no way to determine whether anyone intends to register a domain until it is actually purchased.
Arthur Goldstuck, MD of consultancy World Wide Worx, advises potential victims to ignore the likes of Horizon, as it’s unlikely that someone else will register the domains offered to you. “They’re looking for a quick buck,” he says. “If you already own the domain name that you want, just ignore them.”
However, if someone else does register a domain in the name of your business, and it’s a registered trademark, Goldstuck advises threatening legal action.
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