Most often, you don’t want to buy spoof names that look just like the real ones but embedded with special characters (and sometimes, you may want to buy those, for whatever reasons, I don’t want to judge).

How can you protect yourself, yet keep the platform censorship free?

ENSListing is adding a new mini-panel in all screens (aftermarket listings page, bid page, escrow/buy page) where you can type in the name that you expect to buy, and get alerted if the listed name is not the same as what you wanted.

Clicking that link opens up a text box for you to type in the name as you imagined:

As you can see, the name is not what it seems, you also get two links to etherscan.io to compare yourself (if you are technically inclined).

The same warnings are in multiple pages.

In the page where you would bid and also in escrow payment screen.:

The verify button along with visual links for “Foreign” (valid UTS46 names with non ascii characters) and “Invalid” names (names that change when UTS46 mapping is applied) should be sufficient clue for buyer to make informed decision we hope.

It is clearly the role of Client Apps such as MEW, Metamask to ensure users are not phished, but in a marketplace that lets you buy/sell names, shouldn’t you be allowed to buy/sell any name that is officially registered with the Auction Registrar for whatever it may be worth?

Let me know what you think.

Mano Samy.