Operation Quack Hack: FDA Working with Domain Registrars

I recently wrote about the NY State Attorney General’s Office communicating with GoDaddy about COVID-19 related domain names. In its letter, the NYAG encouraged GoDaddy to do more protect people from various schemes and scams associated with the coronavirus pandemic. The United States Food and Drug Administration has a similar goal, and it appears the organization is working with domain industry companies:


According to the press release distributed yesterday by the FDA, the government is working with some unidentified domain registrars to prevent and halt various scams as part of its Operation Quack Hack. From the press release:

“Additionally, as part of the FDA’s Operation Quack Hack, in just a few short weeks, the agency has discovered hundreds of such products including fraudulent drugs, testing kits and personal protective equipment (PPE) sold online with unproven claims. We continue to work with online marketplaces, domain name registrars, payment processors and social media websites to remove from their platforms products that fraudulently claim to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose or cure COVID-19 and to keep those products from reappearing under different names. At this time, the FDA has sent hundreds of abuse complaints to domain name registrars and internet marketplaces, who in most instances, have voluntarily removed the identified postings. We will continue to monitor the online ecosystem for fraudulent products peddled by bad actors seeking to profit from this global pandemic. We encourage anyone aware of suspected fraudulent medical products for COVID-19 to report them to the FDA.”

I am sure this is standard operating procedure for most domain registrars. I would be curious to know if all US-based domain registrars are cooperating with the FDA.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

12 COMMENTS

  1. The FDA has a history of persecution of medical “heretics” (i.e. raiding the Life Extension Foundation in the 1980s for selling Coenzyme Q10, which today many if not most doctors agree is a wonderful supplement) and may be using the pandemic as an excuse to silence voices which interfere with the profits of “big pharma” (see what Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has to say at ChildrensHealthDefense.org). Yes, there is a place for regulation, for making sure products are not advertised dishonestly. Hopefully they will leave it at that.

  2. “Tucker” is a mixed bag. I’m no Tucker or FOX fanboy by any means. And FOX is just as much a mainstream media propaganda mill as CNN, MSNBC, you name it. However, in the case of Tucker Carlson, he does sometimes do some great work. He even tells the truth. Amazingly, FOX also lets. Even, apparently, when his truth telling does not coincide with FOX’s own agenda, though in this case I’m sure it does.

    That said – this was an excellent statement by Tucker Carlson and an example of when he both tells the truth and does great work:

    “Tucker: Big Tech censors dissent over coronavirus lockdowns”

  3. A nice short ~10 min. excerpt was also censored, which had been called “This ER Doctor Just NUKED Fauci’s Pandemic Fraud.”

  4. @Johnny–

    Why is Tucker always staring all the time, and he never blinks!!
    Seems like he has been hypnotized while reading the news.

  5. Could someone give me an advice?

    Blue Host (Public Domain Registry / Endurance), disappeared from Brazil, with money from customers and took the domains.

    When accessing br.bluehost.com, the Brazilian customer is informed that Blue Host Brasil has ended activities and that he would migrate to Bluehost.com, however I cannot access my panel at Blue Host Brasil and I cannot access it through Bluehost.com either.

    The company simply disappeared taking the money from customers and their domains.

    The Blue Host Brasil support team does not answer and the Bluehost.com team says that they cannot find the accounts of their Brazilian branch customers.

    Since the beginning of May, I have lost access to my domains.

    I contacted ICANN support, but did not respond.

  6. Could someone give me an advice?

    Blue Host (Public Domain Registry / Endurance), disappeared from Brazil, with money from customers and took the domains.

    When accessing br.bluehost.com, the Brazilian customer is informed that Blue Host Brasil has ended activities and that he would migrate to Bluehost.com, however I cannot access my panel at Blue Host Brasil and I cannot access it through Bluehost.com either.

    The company simply disappeared taking the money from customers and their domains.

    The Blue Host Brasil support team does not answer and the Bluehost.com team says that they cannot find the accounts of their Brazilian branch customers.

    Since the beginning of May, I have lost access to my domains.

    I contacted ICANN support, but did not respond.

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