New domain scam? ICANN issues vague warning
ICANN has warned internet users about a domain name scam that exploits the ICANN name and logo.
Not giving away much information, ICANN said in a statement:
It has been brought to ICANN’s attention that some online entities have attempted to sell fraudulent “certificates”, which they claim are required to protect generic top-level domain names. The perpetuators of this scam threaten registrants on the protection service with the objective of securing a fee from the registrant. The “certificates” look official and include an unauthorized use of the ICANN logo.
Please note that ICANN does not issue certificates to registrants and does not collect fees from registrants directly.
It’s not clear whether the scam is related to the “ICANN certificates” fraudsters sometimes demand as part of domain appraisal scams, which have been well-documented online.
The reference to a “protection service” and new gTLDs suggest this might be something new.
I asked ICANN for a sample of the scam in question yesterday but haven’t heard back yet.
UPDATE: The certificates look like this:
and this:
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