A researcher has found that one out of 19 non-profit organizations and entity domains (.NGO and .ONG) are possibly associated with gambling.
Jim Yan, who published the findings recently, questioned whether those domains are losing their trust due to the results.
To begin with, they analyzed the complete zone files for both .NGO and .ONG domains, looking for tell-tale signs of gambling operations.
“The simple lookup started with keyword matching to find domains that looked suspicious. Then, Python scripts were used to check live websites to get rid of false positives.
“The keywords were numbers and words that are often used in the names of online gambling sites, such as “88,” “68,” “33,” “bet,” “win,” “vip,” “casino,” and “poker.””
Researcher suggests a ‘systematic abuse of domains’
This form of domain was made available for use from 2012 onwards, with a verification process required in the early days. From 2020 onwards, a self-certification model was introduced.
With this new system, domains could go live as soon as they had been registered with some checkboxes needing to be ticked rather than submitting necessary documentation.
“After examining zone files from ICANN’s Centralized Zone Data Service (CZDS) for both .ngo and .ong domains, I discovered that over 5% of all registered domains in these supposedly protected spaces appear to be associated with online gambling operations,” the researcher explained.
Out of 9,193 total .NGO/.ONG domains currently registered, the analysis identified 471 domains that likely involve online gambling activities.
“This shift from proactive verification to reactive auditing created the vulnerability that gambling operations appear to have exploited. While PIR retains the right to conduct audits and cancel domains for policy violations, the current system essentially operates on an honor system – asking bad actors to police themselves.”
According to Domain Name Wire, Public Interest Registry (PIR) has said it is reviewing the domains and considering additional safeguards.
Featured Image: AI-generated via Ideogram
