A massive registration of .fr domain names copying well-known sites has triggered an alert about a possible wave of cyber scams. Among the “false sites”: asemblee-nationale.fr, elyses.fr, leparirien.fr, Elboncoin.fr, Kiaby.fr, Polelemploi.fr or villepariis.fr
On July 25, Le Parisien reported the filing of almost a thousand website addresses in .fr, including the names of highly visited sites. Behind this suspicious operation, an unknown person who would have spent around 6,800 euros (7 euros registration fees per domain name) to pay for this process.
As Pierre Bonis, Director General of the .fr domain name registration office (Afnic) declares, you cannot prevent someone from registering domain names, even if they look a lot like to others. These deposits are legal, “until you do something illegal with it”. Afnic, who does not know who is behind this strange operation, has launched a justification procedure and has requested the lifting of the anonymity of the individual behind these sites as a preventive measure. The full list of affected domain names can be viewed here.