Aust domain administrator warns against .biz scam

auDA chief executive officer, Chris Disspain, said the organisation, trading as the Federal Bureau of Domain Names (FBODN), had contacted several Australian businesses, "telling them someone has applied to register their name in .biz, but that FBODN has blocked the registration and is now able to offer the name in .biz to the Australian business.

"As far as auDA can ascertain, FBODN is not an official, or US government-endorsed, administrator of .biz or any other domain name extension," Disspain said. "As such, Australian businesses should be wary of any contact with FBODN.

"Australian businesses should also be aware that anyone can register a .biz domain name. Additionally, those who own the comparable .com domain name extension are not able to veto the registration of the .biz extension by someone else," Disspain continued.

The auDA statement -- issued today -- follows on the heels of yet another warning to .au domain holders over faxes and letters from companies associated with Chesley Rafferty. auDA claims those statements may mislead people as to the status of domain names and induce them to pay money to Rafferty's companies.

Disspain said despite FBODN's Web site being being heavily branded with American icons, imagery and references to the US federal government, www.fbodn.com was registered to Michael Goodall -- a resident of London, England.

Disspain told ZDNet Australia  that while he was concerned about people being misled in domain name registrations, his "gut feeling" was that they were being misled "less and less" because of their greater awareness of what constituted a dubious approach. This was, he said, in part due to the work of auDA.