McAfee SiteAdvisor Blog

One of the great things about online shopping is that you can purchase items from far away places. Whether you're searching for a rare Baule Tribe Monkey Fertility Figure or a Microsoft Xbox 360 that is sold out at your local Best Buy, the Internet lets you expand your marketplace beyond your city, your state, and even your country. No travel is necessary; you don’t have to deal with crowds; you can shop during your 3 a.m. bout of insomnia; and there's a market for pretty much anything your heart desires -- even, say, a piece of property on the moon. Wait… really?

Our thanks to a SiteAdvisor user for pointing out the site LunarFederation.com (SiteAdvisor Analysis: LunarFederation) by posting a comment on its SiteAdvisor site report. It looks like there are some people who would like to extend the real estate market to the moon and Mars. (Is buying property on Earth really so “last millennium" already?)

According to Lunar Federation Inc., self-proclaimed as “Earth's Official Lunar & Mars Real Estate Agency," over two million people have already purchased property on the moon and on Mars. The Lunar Federation's prices start at $29.95 for one acre of lunar or Martian property. Prices soar to $2.35 million for a lunar state (105,000 acres), which the Lunar Federation describes as “the opportunity of a lifetime." Obviously, there’s not much chance that you will actually be able to visit your new real estate investment in your own lifetime, but you will receive tangible documents including a lunar deed and a lunar constitution that you can display on your bedroom wall to impress friends and family.

At first I thought, this must be a joke. It must be a novelty site where consumers can find a silly gag gift to give to family members or coworkers. A certificate of extraterrestrial property ownership was not exactly something I had on my wish list, but I can appreciate the wit. However, the Lunar Federation purports to take their goal of colonizing outer space very seriously. They acknowledge that fraudulent sites might just take your money and provide “a worthless piece of paper." But the Lunar Federation claims to stand out as a legitimate outer space property broker.

Interestingly enough, the other lunar real estate Web sites make nearly identical claims of being the only true vendors of moon property. For example, LunarLandOwner.com (SiteAdvisor Analysis: LunarLandOwner) warns users to “Beware of other ‘Lunar’ companies selling Moon property. They might seem legitimate but the Lunar Embassy is THE ONLY COMPANY in the world to possess a legal basis and copyright for the sale of Lunar and other extraterrestrial property within the confines of our solar system since the year 1980." They also assure potential customers that their site is neither disreputable nor a joke. So, now, who are we to believe?

Don’t read all this and think we have no sense of humor. We have no problem with gag gifts, and we found one site, BuyUranus.com which is very funny (if a bit risqué) and openly admits that it’s just for fun.

BuytheMoon.com also discloses on its homepage that it’s a novelty site, and mentions that it donates a portion of proceeds to charity. While our automated tests for these two novelty sites are still under way, we have no problem with their business disclosures, and we anticipate these sites will end up with green ratings.

But some of the other extraterrestrial property sites are trying to take themselves so seriously that we feel they have the potential to mislead some people. The sites even walk through shaky legal (and financial) arguments explaining that the legality of their property sales is built on the premise of collecting enough money to fund the first lunar colony government. Presumably, that government’s first order of business would then be to parcel out crater deeds for the lucky early property investors. We're concerned, to put it generously. So we’ve given these sites yellow ratings.

Our ratings for these sites reflect our best judgments after taking a closer look at what they promise consumers. If you disagree with our assessments, let us (and other) users know by posting a comment on our site reports. Your user comments can meaningfully impact our ratings.

At least for this decade, we think the safe real estate ventures are right here on planet Earth. But we invite readers to flag other sites that seem a bit out of this world.

--Hannah Rosenbaum