When one domain name forwards to another website, people often assume the forwarded domain name is owned or controlled by the operator of the destination website. While this is often the case for companies and businesses, it is not necessarily so. It can also be used in a deceptive manner.

Nat Cohen drew my attention to a tweet about an alleged scam involving domain name forwarding. The legitimate website operated on a non-.com domain name, and someone allegedly purchased the .com domain name for nefarious purposes. The .com domain name forwarded to the proper website, while email for the .com domain name was used for some sort of nefarious purpose. This was clever.

It is going to get a little bit more expensive to register .com domain names later on this year. In a press release sharing Verisign’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 results, the company that operates the .com domain registry announced a 7% price increase in September. As you may recall, the wholesale price of .com registrations was increased in September of last year.

Here’s what Verisign shared about the upcoming wholesale price increase:

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Stephen Colbert hosted Martha Stewart on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. During the segment, Stephen asked Martha how she was able to secure Martha.com. Skip to the 5:30 minute mark to hear Martha Stewart talk about her domain names:

On Monday afternoon, I won the auction for Buena.com. I sent my $24k+ wire transfer yesterday, and it was processed by NameJet. A few hours later, I received the standard Provisioning Complete email from NameJet. The domain registrar listed in the email caught my attention: Gunga Galunga Corporation.

If you have seen Caddyshack, “gunga galunga” may sound familiar to you. Here’s a clip from the movie to remind you:

This morning, I received an email from Dan.com announcing a required update to my payment settings: “Action required! Update your payout settings | Dan.com” The email was sent to customers to notify them that Payoneer will be handling the company’s bank payouts. A second email that followed clarified that an update is not required for customers who do not wish to work with Payoneer.

I reached out to Dan CEO Reza Sardeha, and he told me there are two reasons for why Dan implemented Payoneer as an additional payment option:

1: To decrease the time funds require to land in your bank account as Dan sends international wires while Payoneer sends local wires

2: Eliminate intermediary bank fees

I am not very familiar with Payoneer, but you may recall Payoneer once (briefly) offered an escrow service for domain name sales. Customers who receive payouts to their banks can choose to connect an existing Payoneer account or create a new Payoneer account via their onboarding program if they want to take advantage of the new partnership.

The subsequent email clarified that customers who want to continue to be paid via bank wire the way they have been paid may opt to not update anything. Since I have not worked with Payoneer before, with the exception of their escrow service several years ago, I intend to keep the status quo for my bank wire payout information. If I learn of an advantage to using Payoneer, I may change my mind.

Here’s the initial email announcement from Dan.com: