Loopholes in the .edu Domain Exploited

The Conversation Marketing blog has discovered that Pickering Institute is allowing anonymous users to register for-profit blogs on their .edu domain. This would allow any potential blogger to take advantage of the trust and goodwill created by real institutions.

The article does a great job of outlining the reasons why this is a bad idea, and how it could affect the SEO, value, and success of our legitimate operations.

As a higher ed professional, I agree with the author (Ian Lurie). There is a higher purpose attributed to .edu domain name. By allowing non-institutions to take advantage of the domain, it reduces taints the water. I would support a solution to fix these loopholes.

Pickering Institute doesn't visually appear to be a reputable institution, but it did grab hold of a .edu domain and is now exploiting the loopholes.