Yahoo and Coca-Cola Fight Against New Domains

Several famous brands such as Yahoo, Coca-Cola, Hilton and Dell joined forces for a new organization, codename the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse that will fight against the domain name abuse on the Internet. Basically, it aims to stop the cybersquatting activity that is regarded as an illegal action because it involves the users who are trying to register new domains with names close to famous brands.

For example, c0ca-cola.com might be one of the domains affected by this coalition. Usually, these domains are created with only one intention: to place adverts provided by Google and Yahoo and to lure users who are typing a wrong URL address. In addition, some of the websites are even used for phishing attacks. According to Red Herring, a study conducted in April by the research company MarkMonitor revealed that a huge number of Internet users were attracted by cybersquatting as the percentage grew up with no less than 248 points.

"As a result of the automation of the registration process and the monetization of domain name portfolios, the policing burden placed on brand owners has become almost insurmountable," said Susan Crane, Group Vice President of Intellectual Property of Wyndham Worldwide. "We have joined CADNA in this fight because we believe a coalition of companies from across multiple industries will be a more effective voice to address this issue than any one company or industry standing alone."

This is an interesting move made by Yahoo because the Sunnyvale company was recently affected by a phishing attempt that concerned the accounts used for Mail, Messenger and other services. However, Yahoo managed to stop the majority of the attempts since it introduced the Prevent Password Theft that allows you to personalize the login page in order to make the difference between an original website and a phishing attempt.