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".
For example, the company registered a number of domains for CEO Brian Moynihan: BrianMoynihanBlows.com, BrianMoynihanSucks.com, BrianTMoynihanBlows.com, and BrianTMoynihanSucks.com.
The wire report counted hundreds of such domain name registrations on 17 December alone. They were acquired through an intermediary that frequently registers domain names on behalf of large companies, says the report.
Bank of America has reputedly established a 'war room' to draw up strategy and rebutt allegations likely to emerge from the publication of thousands of internal documents by WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange this week told a reporter with The Times that he had enough data on a major US bank to force the resignation of its senior leadership. While Assange has yet to reveal the true identity of the bank in question, it is widely accepted that the 5 gigabit drive in WikiLeaks' possession relates to internal documents and e-mails from Bank of America.
Late last week, the bank got its retaliation in early by joining Visa, MasterCard and PayPal in cutting off WikiLeaks payments processing, leading the whistleblowing site to instruct account holders to "place your funds somewhere safer", in a veiled hint about the likely impact of its forthcoming disclosures.