A new trend is emerging among large commercial companies to mitigate the likelihood of impostors scamming consumers with fraudulent domains, reports Bloomberg. Since the dot-com boom, thousands of scam websites have popped up looking to capitalize off of slight variations of popular domain names. Large companies such as Google, Barclays, and Chanel are particularly vulnerable to this brand of cyber plagiarism.
Every day the FTC reports over 1,000 instances of fraud from individual consumers and an estimated 750 cases are caused by phishing schemes that steal client information by posing as a legitimate site. In order to remedy this security shortcoming and restore consumer confidence many companies are switching from .com domains toward specialized web domains, such as .google or .barclays, or category domains, such as .bank or .coupon. In the past two years alone over 5,500 companies have applied for .bank address through fTLD Registry Services.
Although the new shift toward specific domains does provide users with the security of authenticity it does come with a significant price. In addition to the steep cost of the domain name alone, companies will be forced to take on increased responsibilities over the underlying architecture and functional security of their domain.
The shift to private and categorized domains will be gradual. It will take a significant amount of effort to undo the muscle memory associated with .com domains; however, these private domains do offer a potential solution for protecting consumers against predatory phishing scams.