EXCLUSIVE: NHK-Related Domain Put Up for Auction

October 16, 2018

Tokyo- The domain for a now-defunct official website of an organization related to Japan Broadcasting Corp., or NHK, has been put up for auction, Jiji Press learned Monday.

The domain, nhk-grp.jp, was used for the online portal, NHK Group Net, which was closed down in February.

The domain was put up for sale on Oct. 1 at an online auction website dealing with secondhand domains, operated by major information technology service firm GMO Internet Inc..

According to GMO Internet, the bidding deadline is set at 7 p.m. Thursday (10 a.m. GMT). As of Monday, the domain had received 23 bids and the highest bid amount came to 30,000 yen.

The company said that it acquired the domain and put it up for auction in response to requests from several users looking to buying the domain.

At least seven NHK-affiliated organizations still included links to the shut-down website as of 6:30 p.m. on Monday, raising the possibility that the winner of the auction will create a fake website that hardly looks any different to an authentic official website.

"We have suspended use of the domain name with the closing of the (NHK Group Net) website and returned the rights to the (domain's) acquisition agency," an NHK official said. NHK, a public broadcaster, started deleting the links Monday night.

An official of the Information-Technology Promotion Agency, an independent administrative agency that promotes public awareness for information security measures, said that if organizations or people wish to release their domains, they should erase links to the domains within any area that they manage.

"A string of letters in a domain name basically does not carry permanent rights," a GMO Internet official said. People or organizations should hold onto a domain for a long time if they are worried about protecting their brands, the official said.

The size of the Japanese market for preowned domains stands at around 500 million to one billion yen, according to a major IT firm dealing with businesses including domain auctions.

Domain registration is done on a first-come, first-served basis. Organizations and people will not be able to register the same domain names.

Domains that represent products and services, as well as those with many remaining outside links to the domains, are often sold off at high prices, according to the company.

The firm said that there is also high demand for secondhand domains of websites that are famous or have operated for a long time.

There are cases in which abandoned domains have been abused.

In May, the domain of a website that posted announcements on a symposium hosted by the Cabinet Office was found to have been acquired by a third party and used as an information site for adult-entertainment businesses after the event was over.

"It is important that (people and organizations) do not change their domain names easily once they (start) using them," an official of Japan Registry Services Co., which manages the registrations of domains ending with .jp, said.

The official said that if the domain users have to change their domain names, it would be "favorable" for them to consider the later effects of the name change and maintain their domains. Jiji Press