NZ firms warned about illegal domain letters

The New Zealand Commerce Commission has issued a warning about a new scam that asks people for hundreds of dollars in return for web addresses. The illegal mass mailing targets businesses and takes the form of a letter that appears to be an invoice for a .net.nz version of the company website. The letter, from a company based in Australia, offers bosses a free MP3 player if they make payment of over $225.00 for two years within a fixed period of time. The scam mirrors a similar attempt three years ago, which led to the company director involved being fined by a New Zealand court. The fraud came to the attention of the commission after several firms contacted the watchdog. The Commerce Commission has warned that the letter is not a genuine invoice and contravenes the country's domain name regulations. Experts are concerned that some companies will mistake it for an invoice and pay the fee.

All the businesses contacted have registered .co.nz domain names through the New Zealand Domain Name Commissioner. Domain name correspondence should only come from the registrar/s companies already deal with.

US passes new anti-meta tag abuse legislation

New legislation has been passed in the US imposing strict controls on the abuse of meta tags to attract users to inappropriate sites. Under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, named after a six-year-old boy who was murdered in 1981, website operators will face up to 20 years imprisonment for using misleading meta tags to attract people to their site.
Meta tags are labels used by websites that are seen by search engines but not by users of the site. However, many operators are using misleading meta tags to attract unsuspecting users to their websites. In many cases websites are including the names of popular children's toys in the meta tags of pornographic websites, or pages that contain material deemed inappropriate for children.

To combat this deception the new law imposes strict penalties on misleading meta tags, particularly those that link to pornographic or indecent material. The bill states: "Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a person into viewing material constituting obscenity shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than ten years."

However, websites that attempt to ensnare children will face even stiffer penalties: "Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years."

Strict meta tag controls were first suggested under the Stop Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Youth (SAFETY) Act earlier this year, although the proposals were rejected at that time.