Category: News

Take-Two going after more Grand Theft Auto V beta scammers, additional complaints filed

Post author By J.B.
Post date March 17, 2013

In February, Take-Two Interactive won a dispute over the domain getgtavbeta.com, which was followed by a win over betagtav.com, a phony website that claimed to have beta keys to the game. Now, Take-Two has a total of four open cases over Grand Theft Auto V related domains.

This week, complaints were filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over gta5betacode.com (Case Number: D2013-0490) and grandtheftauto5beta.com (Case Number: D2013-0489).

While grandtheftauto5beta.com does not resolve to a web page at the moment, gta5betacode.com (screenshot above) is a full-fledged website, complete with a Facebook page that has over 1,000 likes and a YouTube account.

How does the scam work?

People who visit the website are first instructed to help unwittingly spread the scam through Facebook. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you can see the steps.

If you click the “Get Your Key!” button, you’re taken to another page that has you pick a console.

After you select a console, the final page is shown that tries tricking you into downloading a file to your computer.

If you don’t think people still fall for these absurd and obvious scams, take a look at the website’s related Facebook page. At the time of this story, it has over 1,300 likes.

This case will be another slam-dunk for Take-Two.

Gta5betacode.com is owned by a resident of Pennsylvania, who first registered the domain in January 2013.

Talking about this story: VG247, playNATION.de, Eurogamer.net, Digital Trends, Attack of the Fanboy, Explosion, Menly, Product Reviews, In Entertainment, MCV, GameSpot, PSX Extreme, MegaGames, GamePro, Xbox Way, games.reveur.de, PIXEL ENEMY and Examiner.com

Tags Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto V, GTA V, PS3, Take-Two, Take-Two Interactive, Xbox 360

Facebook acquires the domain name Instachecker dot-com

Post author By J.B.
Post date March 17, 2013
1 Comment on Facebook acquires the domain name Instachecker dot-com

According to WHOIS records, Facebook is now the owner of the domain Instachecker.com.

Facebook acquired the name through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.

Considering the word “insta” in the domain, instachecker likely has something to do with Instagram, the online photo-sharing company that Facebook bought in 2012. For now, it’s just speculation, as Instachecker may be nothing more than a defensive registration to protect its Instagram service.

Instachecker.com was first registered in late May 2012. The previous owner used a WHOIS privacy service, so the price paid for the domain will likely never be known.

The social networking company doesn’t seem all that interested in “Instachecker” if you look purely at domain registrations, having only acquired the dot-com. The dot-net, dot-org, and other top-level domain names are still available.

At the time of this story, instachecker.com does not resolve to a web page.

Talking about this story: All Facebook

Tags facebook, Instachecker, Instagram, MarkMonitor

Disputes News Video Games WIPO

Take-Two wins another dispute over a Grand Theft Auto V beta domain, 3 more to go

Post author By J.B.
Post date March 9, 2013

Take-Two Interactive has won a dispute over the domain betagtav.com, a name that was registered back in 2011 shortly after Grand Theft Auto V’s official announcement. The game is set to be released in September 2013.

Last year, the domain owner launched a website on betagtav.com that claimed to have beta keys to the game. Of course, the website was a fake. But it wasn’t the only site on the internet issuing fake beta keys. There were and are others.

At the beginning of 2013, Take-Two filed five separate complaints with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over ‘GTA V Beta’ domains.

In February, it won a dispute over getgtavbeta.com, but there are still 3 more cases that are active and undecided. The cases involve gtavbeta.net, gtavbeta.org, and gta5downloadsecure.com.

You can see a screenshot below of betagtav.com from 2012. The web address currently redirects users to Rockstar Games’ official website.

Expect to see more complaints filed over beta domains in 2013 as scammers continue to prey on unsuspecting fans of popular video games.

Last year, Microsoft took control of the domain names Halo4Beta.biz and Halo4Beta.net, after filing similar complaints.

Talking about this story: Examiner.com

Tags Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto V, GTA V, PS3, Take-Two, Take-Two Interactive, Xbox 360

Electronic Arts is buying up plenty of “Supreme Heroes” domain names

Post author By J.B.
Post date March 7, 2013

Electronic Arts has something in the works, according to the company’s latest domain registrations.

This week, EA purchased several domain names involving “Supreme Heroes”.

The latest batch of registrations include: Supreme-Hero.com, Supreme-Hero.org, Supreme-Heroes.org, SupremeHero.org, SupremeHeroes.com, SupremeHeroes.fr, SupremeHeroes.org, SupremeHeroesRock.org, SupremeHeroesRocks.org, SupremeHeroesSuck.org, and SupremeHeroesSucks.org.

All of the registrations above and more took place on March 5, 2013.

There’s no word yet on what “Supreme Heroes” will end up being and EA has made no official announcement.

At the time of this posting, nearly all of the domains redirect visitors to a parked web page.

Talking about this story: VG247, ntower, Play3-Live, GoNintendo, Nintendo Everything and Eurogamer.it

(Image of Battlefield Heroes via EA.com)

Tags Electronic Arts, Supreme Hero, Supreme Heros

Fake ‘Modern Warfare 4 Beta’ website taken down after news of scam spreads [UPDATED]

Post author By J.B.
Post date March 4, 2013
1 Comment on Fake ‘Modern Warfare 4 Beta’ website taken down after news of scam spreads [UPDATED]

As of today, a website that promised users beta codes to the yet-to-be-announced “Modern Warfare 4” has been taken down.

The website went offline only after news of the scam, which operated on the domain name ModernWarfare4Beta.com, spread across the internet in the past 24 hours.

A YouTube video apology posted earlier by Sn4gamers “claims” they hired a third-party to help grow their Facebook page, but were unknowingly victims of a scam themselves.

Being a victim seems somewhat questionable, since the Facebook message stayed online for days before being deleted.

The good news is, the site is now offline.

The scam involved promising beta codes to “Modern Warfare 4” if users posted a link to the site to other game pages on Facebook, including the official Call of Duty Facebook page, which has more than 1 million likes.

You can see screenshots of the fake beta site here and get an idea of what unsuspecting people encountered when visiting the page, now that nothing but an error page appears online.

Sn4gamers also deleted a Facebook post encouraging users to visit the site and download the MW4 beta code.

This isn’t the first time and won’t be the last time a fake beta website crops up online.

Just last year, Microsoft took control of the domain names Halo4Beta.biz and Halo4Beta.net, after filing complaints against their owners.

In January 2013, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc, filed several domain complaints against the owners of Grand Theft Auto V beta domain names.

The domain getgtavbeta.com has already been ordered transferred to Take-Two, while three other cases are pending that involve gtavbeta.org, betagtav.com and gtavbeta.net.

UPDATE 2 – March 5, 2013 – The WHOIS record has been updated from this to this.

UPDATE 1 – March 4, 2013 – The home page of ModernWarfare4beta.com now displays the video explanation that was uploaded to YouTube.

Talking about this story: VG247 and Examiner.com

Tags activision, Modern Warfare 4, Modern Warfare 4 Beta