# Who else is using our agency's name online? https://miromiro.co.nz/insights/sites-using-your-name/ Paid middlemen, lookalike sites, ads and forged email: what people can meet when they search for a government service, and what agencies and councils can do. --- Insight · Findability # Who else is using our agency's name online? By Miro Bzduch · October 2026 When people search for a government service, they don't always reach the government. Some find a paid middleman that charges for something that's free or cheap on the official site. Some find a site made to look official. And some get an email that really does show your address as the sender, but wasn't sent by you. It's a findability problem as much as a security one: it's about who people find when they look for you. ## What people can meet Paid middlemen. Sites that take the same details as your form, charge a fee, and submit the application for the person. Often legal, rarely obvious. In January 2025 the Department of Internal Affairs warned that some third-party sites were charging up to $195 on top of its fee for citizenship applications, and told people to apply through a govt.nz website ([RNZ's report](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/540422/beware-fake-websites-extra-fees-for-citizenship-services)). Lookalike sites. Sites with your service's name in the address, your colours and your wording. Some are middlemen; some collect personal details or payments and give nothing back. Ads above the real result. A paid ad can sit above your own page in Google for your service's name. People in a hurry click the first thing that looks right. AI answers. Ask an AI assistant where to apply for something, and it may name a well-written third-party site alongside the official one, or instead of it. Email that pretends to be you. Unless your domain is set up to reject it, anyone can send email that shows your address as the sender, and inboxes will accept it. Government agencies are required to close this gap: the Secure Government Email framework says all domains, including ones that never send email, must have a "reject" policy ([the framework](https://dns.govt.nz/products-and-services/products-and-services-a-z/secure-government-email/secure-government-email-common-implementation-framework)). Councils aren't bound by it, but the same setting protects them. ## Why it falls between teams Comms sees the complaints, the contact centre hears "but I already paid", IT runs email, and the web team owns the site. Nobody's job is to look at what the public finds when they search for you, so nobody does. ## What you can do - Search for your services the way the public does. Your top services by name, on Google and Bing, on a phone, ads included. Note every result that isn't you. - Ask AI tools where to apply. "Where do I apply for…?" and "What's the official site for…?" in ChatGPT, Copilot and Google. Check which sites they name. - Say the fee and the official route on your page. "Apply on this site. It costs $X. Other sites may charge extra to send us the same form." People who land on a middleman's site later are more likely to notice. - Report misleading ads and sites. Google and Microsoft take reports on ads that impersonate government services; registrars and hosts take reports on sites that do. - Ask IT about your email setting. One question: "Do all our domains have a DMARC policy of reject?" Free online checkers show the setting for any domain. - Keep the web addresses you stop using. An old address that lapses can be bought by someone else, along with every link still pointing at it. ## Where to start Pick the three services people pay you for, or apply for most often, and search for them by name. If the first result isn't yours, start there. The [findability audit](https://miromiro.co.nz/findability-audit/) includes this check: who people find when they search for your services, and who acts on each finding, from comms to IT. I also work alongside teams on findability, AI search and AI implementation: see [AI project consulting](https://miromiro.co.nz/ai-consulting/). [Image: Miro Bzduch] ## Miro Bzduch AI and findability consultant in Wellington. I've led findability work across a large portfolio of government websites at MBIE, and user experience design at Health New Zealand. [Checking AI Overviews for accuracy](https://miromiro.co.nz/projects/ai-overviews-accuracy/) comes from my work there. Related: [Why is AI giving wrong or outdated answers about our agency?](https://miromiro.co.nz/insights/why-ai-gets-your-agency-wrong/) · [Findability audit](https://miromiro.co.nz/findability-audit/) ## Talk about your project I [consult on AI projects](https://miromiro.co.nz/ai-consulting/), from where AI is worth using to testing the answers, and run [findability audits](https://miromiro.co.nz/findability-audit/), for government agencies and Crown entities. [Get in touch](https://miromiro.co.nz/contact/)