As Zika Virus Spreads, People Buy Zika Domains

The Zika virus has been in the news for the last few weeks as it spreads across the Americas. Apparently, the Zika virus can be especially bad for women who are pregnant, and the symptoms for those who aren’t pregnant seem pretty bad, too.

As news coverage of the Zika virus continues to expand, it looks like the number of domain name registrations containing “zika” are also growing.

Using Verisign’s DomainView tool, I was able to see that over 300 .com domain names containing the “zika” keyword have been registered during  the last 30 days. 25 .net domain names have also been registered in this time period. In the last 90 days, over 500 “zika” domain names were registered.

Here is a graphic of the trend from the last 30 days:

Here is a graphic of the trend from the last 90 days:

I would imagine that many people are registering these domain names in the hopes of reselling them to pharmaceutical companies, insect spray companies, and others who have a vested interest in eradicating or treating the disease. If history is any indicator, most of these newly created domain names will not have any aftermarket value.

I am hopeful that the news coverage draws attention to the spread of the disease and that the awareness helps eradicate it and protect people. It is also likely the added coverage that encourages people to speculatively register related domain names in the hopes of profiting.