Domain kiting
August 20th, 2007MarkMonitor released its Summer 2007 Brandjacking Index, a quarterly report that measures the effect of online threats to brands. The report describes trends of how domain names are used in scamming efforts to hijack well-known brands.
Cybersquatting is a well known form of domain hijacking, but according the report it only grew by 8% in the last quarter, compared to newer and lesser known scams like domain kiting which grew at 242%. Cybersquatting is when someone registers a domain name which contains a brand, slogan or trademark to which the registrant has no right. Owners of registered brands, slogans and trademarks can quite easily approach cybersquatters and gain ownership of the domains. Domain kiting, however, is an advanced hack of cybersquatting and is much more difficult to fight.
Domain Kiting: The process whereby domains are registered and dropped within the 5 day ICANN grace period, and then registered again for another 5 days. Kiting a domain lets the registrant gain the benefit of ownership without ever paying for the domain.
The highest growth rates of kiting is experienced in the media industry. Kiters rotate their domain names through registrars and some registrars simply ignore the practice – it seems they actually thrive on this business!
The report says a lot about spamming and phishing in the pharmaceutical drug industry, but I’m surprised that there’s no mention of stock spam because I have been getting a lot of that lately!