Netherlands removes 86 illegal websites that cloned pages of licensed operators

The Kansspelautoriteit (Ksa) has put the spotlight on a new form of fraud linked to illegal online gambling in the Netherlands: the creation of cloned websites from licensed operators that use domains that are virtually identical to the original ones.

The Dutch supervisor has detected an increasing use of the .co.nl extension, designed for Dutch company pages, by illegal operators trying to take advantage of the appearance and reputation of authorized brands.

The system consists of copying the website of a legal operator, maintaining a very similar domain and replacing the usual .nl extension with .co.nl. The user enters believing that he is accessing the legitimate website, but from that fake page he is later redirected to an illegal gambling platform.

The Ksa has just obtained the removal of 26 pages with deceptive .co.nl domains, thanks to the collaboration of the independent operator CO.NL, responsible for managing this extension.

According to the regulator, the pages were removed within a maximum period of 48 hours from the time CO.NL received the communication from the authority.

Almost all of those 26 websites were copies of pages belonging to licensed operators.

The action has gone much further, however.

During the investigation into this practice, the Ksa also located other illegal gambling sites that used this same extension. So far, the regulator has communicated to CO.NL a total of 86 pages, which have subsequently been removed.

The offensive shows a new dimension of the fight against the illegal market: not only to combat unlicensed operators, but also to protect regulated brands from cloning, impersonation and fraudulent redirects.

For legal operators, this type of practice also poses an added reputational risk, since the user may associate an illegal or fraudulent experience with an authorized trademark that, in reality, has no relation to that page.