online identify theft

Recently an identify theft case in which a Moroccan national by the name of Fouad Mourtada opened a profile on Facebook in the Moroccan Prince Moulay Rachid’s name, has put Internet companies on heightened alert. Mourtada was sentenced to three years in prison by the Moroccan government for this breach of trust. However, using a false user name is hardly something out of the ordinary. In fact, BackgammonMasters Mexico has found that many system users have opened account names that are not the actual names of the users. Similar to the case in Morocco, these fraudulent users make accounts in the names of celebrities including Madonna, Tom Cruise and Prince William and others.

A representative of BackgammonMasters.com, the best place for online backgammon and blackjack, recently commented on the trend of using certain types of fake names online. It has become so popular recently that BackgammonMasters refers to this type of user as “Gold usernames.” People are even buying and selling “Gold usernames” such as backgammonking, pokerking, and blackjack-king in forums on the internet. For the most part, this practice has been used for fun and compared to a car owner ordering a personalized license plate, just another way to stand out above the rest.

However, because of the recent case in Morocco, which involved a now world-renowned online company like Facebook, other companies that offer games like Poker, online Backgammon and Blackjack are going on high alert.

Mourtada was released from prison after serving just 43 days of his term . It is believed that he did not have to carry out his entire sentence due to the pressure of Human Rights groups that circulated petitions to activists and concerned citizens for the prisoner’s release. According to Mourtada’s lawyer, while this practice of using false usernames is more common in European countries, this was a first for Moroccan society and clearly not something taken lightly by the authorities.