NOTE: I redacted the name of the actual web site from this article due to a legal representative of the site leaving an unapproved comment about this article being inaccurate — without pointing out the inaccuracies. This is an OPINION blog, based on my observations and experience — and I saw what I saw. Nevertheless, since I have no desire to argue with those who are trying to lure people into thinking that they are a legitimate institution of higher education, I’ve substituted the name of the institution with “[redacted]“. Feel free to leave a comment if you want to know the real name; I might email it to you…
While reading a security article about a cross site scripting vulnerability on Twitter (which has since been fixed; no need to worry about that), I saw an ad for the “University of [redacted] Online” (URL is www.[redacted].com but I won’t give them an actual link). The ad offered an “Internet Marketing Certificate” after an 8 week course of study.
Wow, I thought — an actual university offering an Internet Marketing certificate? Well, not quite — at least in my opinion.
This link leads to the *REAL* University of [redacted] (well, it did until I redacted it; now it leads to Jumbo Joke…). It’s a Jesuit Catholic College (one of only 28 in the world) and is the oldest university in [redacted], California (according to their website). And since they have a real, live .edu domain, they must be a real, legitimate university.
I also like their mission statement:
[redacted] exists to provide a rigorous, world-class education to a new generation of leaders, who will work to create a more humane and just world.
You aren’t going to reach that goal with an 8 week Internet Marketing certificate!
But what about the people who seemingly have ripped off their good name? Let’s do a bit of digging, shall we?
[redacted].com is hosted on IP address 67.134.215.5, which is registered to B.isk Education of Tampa, Florida.
Obviously there must be a [redacted], Florida — right?
Uh, no. In fact, I can’t find another [redacted] in the United States.
So to me, B.isk Education seems to be taking advantage of the REAL [redacted]‘s reputation to make a quick buck. Riding the coattails and all that.
I didn’t find out much about B.isk Education, and much of what I did find was on sites like Ripoff Report (where people write about their experience and the site owner uses it to extort hush money from the website owner, so take what you read there with a grain of salt). I won’t link to the site, but you can go to Google and type in “B.isk Education site:ripoffreport.com” and get the link. Not very flattering, to say the least. And it’s just opinion, of course… They could be an outstanding institution that just made a poor choice in this instance.
So I think B.isk Education is confusing people with their “fake” University of [redacted] Online web site. And while the reviews are mixed, I’d personally stay away from anything that has B.isk Education written on it. Yes, you’d get an education, but probably not the kind you really want!
If you want a college education, go directly to the college or university of your choice and deal with them. No need to get yourself embroiled with an intermediary.
And legitimate institutions of higher learning will, for the most part, have a .edu domain, not a .com domain. If you visit a website that claims to be a educational institution but they don’t have a .edu domain, be careful.
And I can only hope that the 8 week Internet Marketing certificate comes in a roll so that you can get SOME use out of it…