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Domain Due Diligence

Report for Deviantart.com

Report Date
October 7, 2025
Recommendation
Caution
Overall Summary
Suspicious
  Why we think so? 

DeviantArt (deviantart.com) is a long-established, high-traffic art community (≈83M monthly visits) with robust infrastructure and mainstream payment options. ✅ The site uses Amazon/AWS hosting, valid SSL, and shows strong direct/search traffic. ⚠️ However, there are verified user phishing complaints, reports of unauthorized charges, and a prominent class-action lawsuit over its AI tools — so treat payment and outsider links cautiously.

Confidence Score
75%

Risk Insights

🛡️

Large, real site but targeted by scammers

  • DeviantArt is a high-traffic platform (≈83M monthly visits), which attracts impersonators and phishing attempts.
  • Technical controls are solid, but scams rely on social engineering and third-party links.
⚖️

Legal risk for creators

  • Class-action litigation over AI/copyright (DreamUp) creates reputational and policy uncertainty.
  • Creators should review terms before enabling AI-related features or uploading valuable IP.

Contradictory Signals

Automated blacklist scans can miss social-engineering scams that happen through messages or third-party links.

Signal A: No blacklist detections (Google Safe Browsing clean)

Signal B: Documented user phishing/unauthorized charge reports

Category Scores

Red Flags & Warnings

  • Documented phishing and at least one user-reported unauthorized charge; platform has acknowledged phishing as an issue.
  • Ongoing class-action lawsuit over AI/copyright (DreamUp) raises risk for creators and brand trust.
  • Low Google Places rating (2.5/5) from local reviews suggests customer-service or trust problems for some users.
  • Platform size attracts impersonators and scam accounts; user reports reference phishing and NFT/marketplace scams.

🔎 Detailed Checks & Analysis

Domain age & registrar

Score: 90/100
Passed

"WHOIS shows registrar GoDaddy and stable DNS records; no recent suspicious transfers listed."

Reason: Long-lived domain with a mainstream registrar reduces impersonation risk.

Traffic & reach

Score: 92/100
Passed

"SimilarWeb and SimilarTech report ~83M monthly visits and global rank ~259; high direct traffic share (~60%)."

Reason: Very high monthly visits and low global rank indicate an established, widely used platform.

Technical hygiene (SSL, SPF, CDN)

Score: 95/100
Passed

"TLS issued by Amazon RSA, multiple TXT records for Google verification and SPF present; site served via Amazon CloudFront and Route53."

Reason: Valid TLS certificate and proper SPF/DNS entries show reasonable email and transport security.

Blacklist & phishing checks

Score: 78/100
Passed

"Scans returned no matched threats; user reports indicate phishing campaigns that rely on social engineering rather than domain compromise."

Reason: No matches on Google Safe Browsing or crypto-scam blacklist, but phishing incidents are reported by users (not necessarily flagged by global blacklists).

Contact transparency

Score: 85/100
Passed

"help@deviantart.com and media@deviantart.com appear in site pages and support docs; multiple official social accounts are linked."

Reason: Public support and media emails and social profiles allow verification of official channels.

User complaints & reviews

Score: 55/100
Failed

"BBB complaints and community posts describe phishing, unauthorized charges, NFT and marketplace scams, and quality-of-support concerns."

Reason: Multiple complaints about scams, phishing, and poor customer support reduce trust despite overall site size.

Legal & IP risk

Score: 45/100
Failed

"Lawsuit alleges use of artists' works without permission for DreamUp; some claims were dismissed but others remain active."

Reason: Active class-action lawsuit tied to AI/copyright increases legal uncertainty for creators and may affect platform policies.

Your Next Steps

  • 1

    Do not enter payment or banking details from in-site messages or unfamiliar links; use only official purchase flows on https://deviantart.com.

  • 2

    If you see requests to 'verify payment' or similar via messages or email, treat them as phishing and report them to DeviantArt support and to your bank immediately.

  • 3

    Verify any transaction receipts with your bank and check card statements for unauthorized charges; dispute with your card issuer if needed.

  • 4

    Report scams to DeviantArt (use listed support emails) and file a complaint with the BBB or local consumer protection if you lost money.

  • 5

    For creators: review the status of the AI/copyright litigation before sharing high-value, copyrighted works or enabling DreamUp-style features.

Evidence & Citations

🕵🏻 Keep investigating

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