In light of the recent data breach, Capital One has been actively registering domain names relating to the hack. Domains like, Capital1Hacked.com. This is not uncommon during PR disasters for companies to register a ton of domains related to the disaster, but is it something that companies should do? Is it actually helping matters at all at this point?
The logic behind these desperate domain registrations is to take or remove all the domain names associated with the disaster off the market. Control the narrative. Don't allow these domains to be available for people to use or create websites about the disaster or possibly share the hacked data on. Cover it up or hide it from the public by registering all these domains and if someone wants to start a blog about it or share the data, they'll have to use some obscure or completely unrelated domain name.
My question is does this work and is it necessary? Certainly someone could find a domain to publish opinions or news about this event. I did quite easily. TheCapitalOneHack.com is available as of me typing this and I think that domain fits quite well for this. My first point is, it's easy to come up with a domain like this, so does Capital One really prevent anything by registering all these domains? In my opinion no.
Further more, scrambling to register all these domains just brings more attention to the matter in my opinion. The event is already all over the news and in the media. Everyone is already aware of the event. By registering all these domain names you've just brought more attention to the issue because not only will the event still be talked about, but now you're domain registrations will be noticed and talked about too. How does that silence or prevent anything? It doesn't.
Lastly, I'd like to point out that it's a waste of money. Capital One has registered at least 192 domains about this data breach. At an average price of $8 bucks per domain, they've spent over $1500 dollars just on defensive domain registrations. They also had to pay someone to go and register all of them! Seems like a large waste of money and resources to me.
Anyway, that's just my opinion as a domain name investor... What do you think? Are mass domain registrations of a bad PR event preventing anything? Am I missing something? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
