Bank of America Buys Naughty Domain Names

Fearing public backlash over fat cat bonus schemes, bad loans and general mismanagement, Bank of America has begun registering hundreds of internet domain names to save its top level executives from widespread public ridicule and outright ignominy. The strange thing about this flurry of domain purchasing is not the Bank’s concern for its staff, but rather its keen anticipation of public opinion.



A great number of the hundreds of domains registered by Bank of America include the names of board members and top level executives prefixed or followed by derogatory terms: bankerXsucks.com and the like. In some of the worst potential cases, the company has even gone to the trouble of registering the names with each of the .com, .org, and .net URL suffixes.



While analysts are unsure of exactly why Bank of America started this domain buying frenzy, it is thought to be a result of uneasiness stemming from the December WikiLeaks revelations and latent anxiety about the 2008 economic collapse. A domains directory report, responsible for outlining and monitoring the activities of companies seeking domain registration and cheap web hosting packages, gave an air of perplexity when talking about the subject. "As a weird defense tactic, the bank has been registering rude domain names about its own top dogs", concluded the report.



A number of experts from within the banking industry have criticized the decision, saying that it opens up Bank of America, its board members and its executives to an unnecessary and otherwise unfathomable degree of ridicule and public attention. Others still have pointed out that in buying the domains, the bank made it widely known that this type of behavior on behalf of hackers and activists would be deeply insulting: again, opening up Bank of America and its executives to public ridicule.

Unfortunately for the bank, now that it has opened up this particular can of worms, it has planted the idea that slack domain registration procedures and cheap webhosting are all hackers need to get their own back on the big banks.