Presumed to Be Created by a Domain Seller
A Korean-language website of the US consulting firm 'Actgeo,' which analyzed the possibility of deep-sea oil and gas deposits in the East Sea, was discovered but confirmed to be fake.
On the 10th, an Actgeo website using the Korean domain 'co.kr' was found online. The main screen displayed phrases in Korean such as "The success probability of the East Sea oil field is very high" and "Actgeo supports South Korea's dream of becoming an oil-producing country." In addition, a brief company introduction, main business areas, and news articles related to Actgeo were posted.
Some speculated that Actgeo might have established an official Korean branch to directly address various suspicions recently raised domestically about the possibility of developing the East Sea oil field.
However, this website was revealed to be a 'fake' created by a third party unrelated to Actgeo. Korea National Oil Corporation issued a statement that day saying, "This website is unrelated to Actgeo. Actgeo does not operate a separate Korean domain aside from its official website."
The creator of the website has not yet been identified. However, it is presumed that the site was made by a seller who preemptively registered the domain for resale. This is because an English phrase at the bottom of the website reads, "Domain/website for sale. Please leave your contact information in the comment section of the news article below."
The practice of preemptively registering domains of famous companies or industries and selling them at high prices has been popular before. The most representative example is the '.ai' domain, which is frequently used by artificial intelligence (AI) companies. As AI companies such as OpenAI gained attention in the venture industry, numerous websites with famous company names followed by the .ai domain emerged rapidly both domestically and internationally.
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