Monday, July 30, 2007

World of Warcraft Domain Scam

World of Warcraft playing species, beware! Can you find the differences? Depending on the font type, font size and email client, an euphoric gamer can easily fall victim into this, and she will, since the domain is currently redirecting to Blizzard's real WoW site in Europe. As you can see in the attached screenshot, this domain registered a week ago aims to trick you, and your email client font preferences, into thinking VV equals W, and that vvovv-europe.com is indeed wow-europe.com.

vvovv-europe.com
69.147.83.157
Creation Date........ 2007-07-25
Expiry Date.......... 2008-07-25

Some developments on the cybersquatting front :

"The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) is announcing the launch of its national campaign against Internet fraud. A non-profit organization based in Washington D.C., CADNA is leading the way in confronting cybersquatting – the fraudulent abuse of domain name registration that threatens the future viability of Internet commerce. Although the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) was introduced in 1999, cybersquatting remains an underestimated threat. The number of .com domain names alone has doubled since 2003, and the number of cybersquatting disputes being filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is on the rise – up 25% in 2006 from 2005. According to a recent independent report, cybersquatting increased by 248% in the past year."

So far, this remains the most creative typosquatting "scam to come" I've seen in a while.

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