Don’t Always Trust .org

Why Not?

Anyone with $10 can register a .org website, including me: a random internet person. .org websites are not inherently more trustworthy than any other public top level domains (like .com or .net).

I thought only non-profits used .org!

While that was the original intent for .org, it is not a requirement. Craiglist operates at craigslist.org and they are very much a for-profit website. Many other (if not all) major for-profit corporations own their .org domain: https://facebook.org, https://google.org, https://walmart.org.

Well if I can’t always trust the last 3 letters in a domain, what CAN I trust?

Good question. If you like thinking critically, here’s an article from Columbia University on evaluating online sources. Otherwise there’s plenty of videos on YouTube.

Why did you make this?

A friend sent me a link to a .org website that was claiming they were giving away free solar panels to homeowners (you can read a good article about that at Business Insider). And now for $10 / year I can send a handy link to anyone else so I don’t have to explain why scamwebsite.org isn’t trustworthy.