Trump owns a lot of domains involving words like "fraud," "scam" and others related which could be used against him

Feb 21, 2017 13:48 GMT  ·  By

Donald Trump isn't just the owner of plenty of buildings across the globe, but also of a vast online portfolio of domain names, over 3,600 of them.

According to CNN Money, Trump's company has bought at least 3,643 website domains, in an effort to stop others from laying claim on them. This, of course, is not a new practice whatsoever, although, admittedly, the number is pretty high.

While most of these were apparently bought well before he ran for president, the shopping spree continued even after he launched his presidential campaign. Since then, 93 new domains were added to the ever-growing list.

In order to figure out what domains belong to Trump, DomainTools was used to comb through 20 years of Internet records. Some of the domains bought by Trump and his company are obvious - TrumpOrganization.com or TrumpBuilding.org - but the list also includes some that Trump grabbed before someone else did in order to prevent them from using the domains against him. Two examples are TrumpFraud.org and TrumpScam.com.

One of these domains was TrumpEmpire.com. As you can imagine, Trump needed to have it. Originally bought for $10 in April 2015 by a Mexican civil engineer in Guadalajara, Luis Jorge O'Brien Covarrubias, the contract expired a year later. He had hoped an offer would be made on the domain and he'd cash in quite a bit of money. But the offer never came, so he didn't renew his claim on the domain, and Trump snatched it up in June 2016.

O'Brien wasn't too happy when CNNMoney told him Trump bought the domain, which he wasn't aware of. "What did I do? He's rude to people. He mistreats everyone. Now he has an empire - in every meaning of the word," he said.

Claim and defend

Another example given is TrumpNetwork.com, which he bought ten years ago as he prepared to launch a multi-level marketing company. Since this is a pretty controversial type of business, often accused of actually being pyramid schemes, Trump also bought other domains, such as TrumpMultiLevelMarketing.com, TrumpNetworkPyramidScheme.com, TRumpNetworkPonziScheme.com, or TrumpNetworkFraud.com, as well as other 15 similar to these. That particular business was sold in 2012.

Similar preemptive measures were taken to protect another one of his businesses - Trump University. 157 different versions for related operations across the United States and Puerto Rico were registered. Trump was accused of fraud over these real estate seminars back in 2010, before closing a year later. Just before he moved into the White House, Trump agreed to pay a $25 million settlement over complaints against his school.

The breadcrumbs left behind by his domain purchases show just how he planned his political rise. In 2012 he bought VoteAgainstTrump.com, TrumpMustGo.com, and NoMoreTrump.com. Then, he bought MakeAmericaGreatAgain.cote and MakeAmericaGreatAgain.us, just two months before he announced he was running for president in June 2015.