More than 800 rogue webshops taken offline

Over 2,000 online shops promised cheap branded products, but delivered fake versions or even sent nothing.

More than 850 rogue Web stores have since been taken offline by domain companies at the request of Consumers Union, which was investigating the suspicious Web sites.

As many as 92 percent of the websites detected had domain names registered with Indian domain manager PDR, American GoDaddy, German 1API and Dutch Registrar.eu.

The Consumers' Association requested that these domains be taken offline, which Registrar.eu and 1API complied with at 850 websites. The Stichting Internet Domeinregistratie Nederland (SIDN), which is responsible for managing .nl domain names, was asked to take the remaining 1,150 domains offline.

One in five web stores in the Netherlands is currently fake, according to the Consumers' Association. In total, there would be 23,000 to 25,000 fake Web shops in the Netherlands.

All the more reason to take care of good branding, recognizability, locally known labels, a green bar in the browser, with a traceable ssl certificate and customer reviews. Vicus is happy to advise you on the possibilities.

Use this link to read the entire article on the Consumers Union website