When confronted with these guerilla attacks against their prestige, most companies grin and bear it. That’s not the case with Bank of America, which has taken the offensive against offending domain names by buying them up.
The bank has been feverishly registering domains that include the names of its directors and executives combined with “sucks” or “blows,” according to Domain Name Wire. Hundreds of domain names were registered by the bank on December 17 alone, Domain Name Wire said.
Among the names registered by the bank to protect its CEO Brian Moynihan, for example, were BrianMoynihanBlows.com, BrianMoynihanSucks.com, BrianTMoynihanBlows.com, and BrianTMoynihanSucks.com. In addition to the .com domains for those names, .net and .org versions were also registered (though .info seems to have escaped the bank’s notice).
Other officials receiving domain protection include CFO Charles Noski, Chairman Charles Holliday, and board member Charles Rossotti.
Apparently the bank’s campaign to avert naughty domain names being created with their executive’s monikers isn’t very systematic. For example, the names of all board members are protected from .com abuse except for Monica C. Lozano and Thomas May, according to Chris Nemey at IT World.
Despite its domain buying spree, there is one domain that it can’t buy, and it’s probably the most important naughty domain of all: bankofamericasucks.com.