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Bank of America Buying Abusive Domain Names
Nite_Hawk writes "Bank of America has snapped up hundreds of abusive domain names for its senior executives and board members in what is being perceived as a defensive strategy against the future publication of damaging insider info from whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. According to Domain Name Wire, the US bank has been aggressively registering domain names including its board of directors' and senior executives' names followed by 'sucks' and 'blows.'"
Google, Microsoft and all other large companies do the same. What is the news angle exactly?
Exactly.. People aren't going to type in "bankofamericasucks.com" or "BOA-blows.com" into their URL. .
Ok... so I just realized that bankofamericasucks.com actually goes to a gripe site for the bank... so uh, I guess if people still type this in, they'll still go to a gripe site by typing in the most obvious URL anyway!! Makes this whole venture seem even more ridiculous!
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
You're making a classic mistake; I've heard about it being made in reverse (by someone who used to work in a bank getting a job in a company that wasn't a bank).
If you were a business, that debt would go on your list of liabilities. You'd like it to disappear of its own accord with no action from you.
You would also have a list of assets, and you certainly wouldn't let them disappear of their own accord.
The important thing is that if you are the bank, other people's debts appear in your list of assets. And other people's assets (ie. bank accounts in credit) appear in your list of debts.
Listening to folks like the commenters here, it is clearly impossible for BofA to do this - everyone who owns a home has been impacted by Countrywide. If their home wasn't financed through Countrywide their neighbor's was and the drop in value of their neighbor's home tanked their home's value.
Roughly, according to National Association of Realtors, there are about 80 million single-family homes in the US today. The average value of all of these homes was around $170,000 and is now more like $100,000. Just having BofA pay every homeowner in the US $70,000 - all 80 million of them - would be 5.6 trillion dollars. If you blame banks for this mess, that is about what it would take. They don't have it.
One flaw with this is the banks may have participated, but the real problem is the bond rating agencies like Moody's. They are the ones that rated bonds backing subprime mortgages as AAA investment-grade bonds. Those bonds were then invested in by pension funds, municipalities and school districts. We haven't seen all of these bonds default yet, but they are going to - because the underlying mortgages are valueless and the rating agencies knew it. That pretty much means a lot of bankrupt pension funds, municipalities and school districts. Anyone that invested in AAA bonds exclusively is likely to get hit with this.
We haven't even seen the beginning of the collapse yet, but it is coming.
Check out this Wired article for some highlights of the legal issues related to a "sucks" / "gripe" site: Legal Tips For Your 'Sucks' Site. Although it was written in 2000 and so might be a little outdated, it's worth reading for some interesting info.
Two important points: (1) The site operator should avoid any commercial activity (at all) on the gripe site and; (2) The site operator should ensure that visitors would never think that the site is in any way associated with the entity that is the focus of the gripe site. While a properly designed gripe site is generally safe from losing a lawsuit it's definitely best to check with an attorney to make sure that you're doing everything properly before heading down a potentially expensive road.
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.
This was true in Paulson's financial bailout as well. No major CEO, board member or other major player was held accountable or lost their job, or has even been named in public as doing something wrong. For example, the ratings agencies, who clearly failed all their legal fiduciary requirements have been completely ignored.
So far the only big player who has faced any legal action is Earnst and Young, the accounting firm for Lehman Bros. They are accused of helping Lehman avoid disclosure of their weak financial condition by a trick known as "Repo 105". E&Y is being sued by Cuomo in New York State, not by the Feds. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/22/business/la-fi-ernst-young-20101222
The Feds have done almost nothing looking for illegal behavior among the financial elites. Their recent "big announcement" was about going after illegal insider information trading, mostly in the high tech sector. This is about as far from the financial meltdown as you can get and still be pretending that Wall St. is involved.
This is why the WikiLeaks dump of (most likely) BofA is so important. It will show massive wrong doing and that the Feds are consciously ignoring massive criminal activity on the part of the banks. It has the potential to change the public perception and possible change how these institutions are being regulated. One can always hope.
This is why trying to buy up domain names is so lame. This is going to be so meaningless if even part of the truth comes out.
And by the way, in the medieval hierarchy, anyone who reads this is a pesent.
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