Do you know that hijacking or sniping domain names is becoming a business? Anyone who values his domain name needs to take precautions, Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona warns.

Recently a company failed to register its domain name again before it expired. Another entity purchased it and held the domain name ransom, demanding payment of thousands of dollars in order to return it.

The company refused to pay the ransom, the threats escalated to the point of placing a porn site on the domain. The company ended up paying about half of the original ransom because they were losing business. Presently, the company is looking into what legal steps they can take.

What should you do to protect your domain name? Here are some precautions:

• Keep domain name registration records accurate and current.
• Keep registrant account information, passwords or other credentials private and secure.
• Only grant registration account access and change control to parties in registrant’s organization that involve domain name registration.
• Know urgent restoration of domain name procedures.
• Request domain names be placed on Registrar-Lock
• Routinely check domain name information to insure no unauthorized changes have been made to the contact information.
• Choose a registrar who issues a transfer pending notification as its standard practice.

As time goes by, more and more domain names will be taken and can become more valuable. Purchase the ones you want while they are inexpensive and protect them from getting away from you after purchase.

Recently, the BBB was contacted by a Dallas resident complaining that a locksmith company that advertised it was right down the street was not even in the same city.  In fact, the company, which advertised a fake name, was not even in the same state.

Attempting to locate the locksmith company, the consumer found that the advertised address down the street belonged to an unaffiliated engineering company.  It wasn’t until the consumer was billed that he thought to widen his search by 1,500 miles. The locksmith company was actually located in New Jersey.

This is “map spamming” and simply put, it is false advertising.

So, what is “map spamming?”

Map spamming is the evolved new version of directory spamming which involves the falsification of information within Web-based map directories.  The term describes the practice of dishonest advertisers using popular Web-based map directories, such as Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps, to create the false impression of a business’ local presence.

Directory spamming, map spamming’s predecessor, used physical directories like the yellow pages in (more…)