Do you have feedback you'd like to give to Google, Facebook, StackOverflow, Inc., or Gandi? Now there's a website that will collect that feedback. Or... not.

There is a new TLD called ".feedback". It is a scam and ICANN should be ashamed of approving it.

The people that run .feedback have pre-registered "for free" 5,000 major companies. As a result you can go to sites like http://www.google.feedback/ and http://www.gandi.feedback/ and http://www.stackoverflow.feedback/ and more.

These websites enables people to send feedback about your company and products.

Will the company ever receive the feedback? Unlikely.

The company probably doesn't know the site exists.

If they do discover it, they are given a choice: Pay $20/month to receive the feedback, or pay $600/year to take the web site down. Of course, there is a free option: Just let the site remain and suffer as people send their feedback and feel ignored.

It is a perfect scam... what company wouldn't pay $600/year to avoid angry customers?

Most domains cost $10-$12 per year. Charging $600/year is highway robbery.

This reminds of the big internet scam where websites claim to be the lost-and-found for cities, taxi companies, etc. but really just collect money and do nothing useful with the information (listen to the podcast to find out what service they actually provide).

If you are one of the 5,000 companies being scammed, my advice is to be strong and not pay a cent.

Instead, ICANN should withdraw the TLD. If this scam complies with the TLD's original proposal, and nobody noticed, that is very sad. If it doesn't, then there is no reason ICANN should hesitate to stop this $3 million dollar fraud.

For more information, read this and this.