BREAKING: Cybersquatting war rages in Nigeria: As ‘FlyNigeriaAir’ is taken - ITREALMS Online

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Still on the heels of proclamation of the Nigeria Air by the Federal Government, last week, the ‘FlyNigeriaAir’ has also been taken by cyber-squatters, ITRealms can authoritatively reveal.

Cybersquatting, ITRealms  gathered, is the practice of registering names, especially well-known company or brand names, as Internet domains, in the hope of reselling them at a profit.

ITRealms recalls that barely a few hours after the unveiling of the Nigeria Air in faraway London on July 18, one Olumayowa Elegbede, who reportedly bought the domain names associated with NigeriaAir.com and NigeriaAir.ng as well as putted same up for sale at $66,489 (₦24 million each).

Also, the ‘FlyNigeriaAir’ as at press time, has since July 19, 2018, been registered by one Omo Naija Daada who claims to be working for an organization identified as ‘Fly Naija’ with unknown address of ‘Earth Planet’ but located in Yaba suburb of Lagos State with a phony phone no: ++234.111111111111, which has 12 figures instead of 11 for mobile phones operational in Nigeria under the telecom prefix code +234.

In addition, ITRealms investigations showed that the registrant has also registered “Email: flaynaija@gmail.com,” invariably could not get flynaija@gmail.com.

Further investigations by ITRealms, showed that the domain, ‘flynigeriaair.ng’ was registered by WhoGoHost, a NIRA accredited registrar on 19th July, 2018 for one year and is being housed under the WhoGoHost.com servers, having been created on 2018-07-19 09:28:59.49Z.

NIRA is the Nigeria Internet Registration Association, the managers of the Nigeria’s country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) names on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria and internet stakeholders in the country.

An indication of clear cybersquatting is that between the registrant contact, administrative contact to technical contact and billing contact are all of the same as with Omo Naija Daada, while the registrar, WhoGoHost, office is located at No 3, Celestial Church Street, Off Amara Olu Street, Agidingbi, Lagos.

However, two-days later, at the hours of 18:10:27.653Z on July 20, 2018, the ‘flynigeriaair.com.ng’ was also created and registered by one Mr. Peter Nwagbogu of PANTA REI INTERNATIONAL located at 60, Adebola Street, Surulere, Lagos, while supporting registrar is still WhoGoHost.

Nwagbogu went further to state on the website Welcome to Nigeria Air (https://flynigeriaair.com/) is up for sale, with an online form which must include name, email, phone and message, just as its Twitter handle debuts.

On the other hand, the domain name: flynigeriaair.com, has also gone on 18 July, 2018 via its creation at 12:27:04Z by Philip Obin of Potech Integrated Services Limited, located at 20 Adeniran Ogunsanya Streeet, Surulere, Lagos via the registrar, Name.com Incorporated with status as ‘client transfer prohibited and has its server name at ns1.potechintegrated.com, while admin could be reached with admin@potechng.com.

Some cyber security experts in Nigeria who briefly commented on the on-going cybersquatting war in the country over NigeriaAir blamed those who packaged the deal for neglecting the domain name industry in their due diligence, while positing that those cybersquatting on the NigeriaAir are doing some in bad faith, which may take away their smile too soon.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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