Security analysts have widely condemned the use of misleading Japanese earthquake domain names to scam unsuspecting supporters of the Japanese people out of money.
According to Forbes, there has been a predictable deluge of websites created in the aftermath of the Japanese quake with the sole aim of siphoning off aid money.
Internet users have already registered hundreds of domain names containing the words Japan, Japanese, tsunami, earthquake and quake — and often combinations of the above.
Registrars have also been doing a brisk trade in Web addresses containing the words help, give, victims and rebuild.
Writing for the Forbes Informer blog, William Barrett said that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation found that “many of 4,000 Web sites dedicated to directing aid at New Orleans were fake.”
“Even if they weren’t scamsters, the people running the new websites had no ability to pump aid more efficiently than big established outfits,” Mr. Barrett noted.
The Japanese earthquake struck on Friday, March 11, and as many as 10,000 people may have been killed as a result.