I saw an interesting new type of cyber-mischief that is happening on the web. It’s called domain smacking. Basically anyone can buy an funny, embarrassing or insulting domain name like yourproductsucks.com and redirect it to the actual corporate website. The website revision3 gives you step by step details on how to do it.
While this can be humorous at times and seem harmless, it will assuredly open up a whole can of worms for the big corporations with their team of corporate lawyers with no sense of humor. It made me think of how the internet, while in its teenage years, is only in its infancy when it comes to legal regulation. Will this lead to some government bureaucracy to police the internet? Who knows. I am sure there are teams of lawyers and congressmen discussing this as we speak.
While domain smacking will be a fad that comes and goes, it will always be interesting to see what comes up next. Until then, take a look at some domains that have been smacked and are posted here.
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