Internet companies had been put on heightened alert by a recent identify theft case in which a Moroccan national by the name of Fouad Mourtada opened a false profile on Facebook in the Moroccan Prince Moulay Rachid's name. For this breach of trust, Mourtada was sentenced to three years in prison by the Moroccan government. However, using a false user name is hardly something out of the ordinary, and BackgammonMasters Mexico has found that many system users have opened account names that are not the actual names of the users. These fraudulent users, similar to the case in Morocco, make accounts in the names of famous people including Tom Cruise, Madonna and Prince William.
A representative of BackgammonMasters.com recently commented on the trend of using certain types of fake names online. BackgammonMasters refers to this category of users as "Gold usernames", because it has become so popular recently. "Gold usernames" such as "backgammonking," "pokerking," and "blackjack-king", are buyed and sold by poeple. This practice, for the most part, has been used for fun and likened to a car owner ordering a personalized license plate, something by which to stand out above the rest.
Other companies that offer games like Poker, Backgammon and Blackjack are going on high alert, because of the recent case in Morocco, which involved a now world-renowned online company like Facebook.In fact, Mourtada was released from prison after 43 days of his term were served, and 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. While this practice of using false usernames is more common in European countries, according to Mourtada's lawyer, this was a first for Moroccan society and clearly not something taken lightly by the authorities.