The Trump Organization has renewed its claim on more than 1,000 of the web domains registered by its general counsel, including some politically sensitive websites such as TrumpRussia.com and TrumpTowerMoscow.com.
The company, which President Donald Trump’s two adult sons are managing while he serves in the White House but from which he has not divested, has reserved thousands of web domains associated with the Trump name and its various properties.
POLITICO recently published a searchable database of hundreds of those URLs, based on publicly available internet directory records on the domain registration database website WhoIs.com.
Some of the domains reference the company’s various existing business ventures, such as its golf courses and hotels, while others describe products or properties the Trump Organization has yet to develop, including TrumpTowerLondon.com.
The Trump Organization’s claim on hundreds of the web domains was set to expire at the end of June or the start of July. Among some of the websites the company re-registered last Wednesday: some URLs referencing Donald Trump poker, the political site ElectTrump.com and the two domains referencing potential business ventures in Russia.
This is the first time the company has renewed the Russia domains since Trump entered the White House. The Trump Organization says it will not pursue any new foreign business deals while Trump is in the White House, and the president has repeatedly denied that he has any inappropriate business entanglements in Russia, but given that a special prosecutor is currently investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to the country, it’s nonetheless politically sensitive.
According to experts, it’s common for large companies to buy up hundreds or even thousands of web domains, often to claim URLs for products they think they may want to develop in the future.
Businesses often also register potentially embarrassing web domains defensively to prevent competitors or critics from taking them first. Last week, the Trump Organization renewed several URLs that seem to fall into that category, like DonaldTrumpSucks.com.