This is a fairly old scam by an unscrupulous salesman or company. We had
it some three or four years ago, with a company phoning round to say that
someone was trying to register several of our museum names and they were
giving us the option to purchase them first. They contacted several of my
colleagues unaware that all enquiries were redirected to me.
The caller said that we needed to protect the name, explaining that he was
aware of a number of examples where names had not been not purchased, and
that they had sunsequently been used for porn sites, and what a negative
effect this would have from potential users of our site if they came on
this in error. A dheap scare tactic!
When I questioned them further about who was trying to buy the names they
were less than forthcoming. Various other museums received similar phone
calls around the same time.
My advice would be to ask the name of the potential buyer, the name of the
person contacting and their company, contact the MD of the company asking
for clarification, and then ignore the whole issue.
In any case, there are now so many domain name suffixes that you could
endlessly be registering new variations.
Ian Edelman
Web Manager
Hampshire Museums & Archives
www.hants.gov.uk/museums
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