Cybersecurity Battle: BlackRock Takes Legal Action Against Domain Name Imitations

Cybersecurity Battle: BlackRock Takes Legal Action Against Domain Name Imitations

Crypto News – BlackRock, the global investment giant, is taking a stand against a multitude of domain names that have been registered to mimic its brand. The company is pushing for stringent measures against potentially fraudulent domains and “typosquatting” websites that exploit its name.

On October 10th, BlackRock initiated a legal complaint in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against the owners of 44 internet domain names containing keywords such as “Blackrock,” “Aladdin,” “capital,” “crypto,” and “investments.”

BlackRock alleges that these domains were registered in bad faith, intending to capitalize on consumer confusion and redirect traffic through strategies like pay-per-click ads, malware, and email phishing attacks.

Wiley Rein LLP, the legal representatives of BlackRock, referenced studies demonstrating that over 95% of the 500 most popular sites on the Internet are affected by ‘typosquatting,’ a practice where a domain is registered to resemble a legitimate site through typographical errors.

The asset manager claims that these entities have breached the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act by registering domains deceptively similar to its own.

Among the identified domains were a few related to cryptocurrencies, like blackrock-crypto dot net (which failed to open) and crypto-blackrock dot com (offering web design services). However, many domains tested by Cointelegraph did not open or were typical cases of cybersquatting.

In its efforts to identify the domain owners, BlackRock accessed publicly available domain registration data from the Whois database.

The company is striving for the transfer of these infringing domains under its control, seeking damages and injunctions against future cybersquatting and trademark infringement involving BLACKROCK, ALADDIN, and BLK.

Copycat domain names are frequently employed alongside advertising providers such as Google and Facebook to promote scams or distribute malware.

Earlier this year, Cointelegraph reported that victims lost over $4 million to counterfeit websites promoted using Google Ads.