Afnic, the French ccTLD registry, has updated its policies to make it easier for the government to take down .fr domain names, and has banned names that could be used for government-related phishing.
The company has incorporated provisions of a 2020 national law that allows the General Directorate for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control to instruct the registry to suspend domains believed to be used in fraud.
It sounds similar to the set-up in the neighboring UK, where consumer protection agencies have a deal with Nominet to take down domains used for things like counterfeiting and piracy.
Afnic has also banned all domains where the second-level string ends in “-gouv”.
In France, official government domains end in .gouv.fr, but fraudsters could register the similar-looking -gouv.fr to trick citizens into thinking they were visiting a legit government web site. Not any more.
