Be Cautious and Vigilant with your Domain Names

Back in April, I received a phone call from a person with Sendori asking me about an application made using my domain names. The submitted email address was different than my Whois email address, and they wanted to verify the application. I thought it might have been made by a web developer working on my behalf since I never heard of the company before the phone call, but it turns out a scammer had applied for an account using my domain names and reputation.

For a couple of weeks in April, I put 5 domain names in my DNForum signature, and I had one new registration listed for sale in the offers section. Someone used those 6 domain names to apply for at least one parking company account (ParkingPanel.com) in addition to an account at Sendori. Perhaps they applied to other companies, but these were the two that contacted me due to the difference in the application email and my Whois email. The purpose of doing this, as I later found out, was to generate click fraud. The scammer somehow masked traffic and clicks to generate revenue. I am not good with the technical aspect of domain management, but apparently traffic looked like it was coming from these domain names even though the DNS was set elsewhere.

When ParkingPanel caught on, they immediately called me and told me what occurred. The account manager heard of me on one of the forums and knew I wouldn