[xg15]

Just speculating here, but would it be possible that the redirecting domains could actually overtake the original site in terms of search rank, etc? If yes, this could be preparation for a semi-targeted phishing campaign:

1) set up plausibly-named fake domains that redirect to example.com

2) ensure that the fake domains rank higher than the original domain for "example" searches.

3) after a while, people have gotten used to accessing the service through the fake domains or might even think those are the official domains.

4) pull up the net by replacing the redirect with phishing pages. Suddenly, everyone googling for the service will end up on a phishing site, without any obvious way to fix the situation.

Phishers could also run this scheme for lots of sites in parallel, without needing to have some specific interest in any of them.

Edit: Seems like the semantics of the 301 redirect should prevent this from working though.