As a Web Developer, I receive a fair amount of unsolicited email. My spam folder doesn’t catch all of it, as some of it is not sent by a “bot”, but
rather by an actual human spammer.

Recently though, I received an e-mail that I wasn’t sure about. A person claiming to be a Chinese internet registrar for Domain name sent me the following email:

Sponsored Links

We are the department of registration service in China. we have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application on June 19th 2009, One organization which self-styled “Actual Organization Holding Inc.” are applying to register “my domain” as world wide web trademark and Asian domain names as below :

After our initial examination, we discovered that the net brand applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark.These days we are dealing with it, hope to get the affirmation from your firm. If your company and this”Actual Name Holding Inc.”as the very same firm,there is no need reply to us.

In addition, we hereby affirm that our time limit for dissent application is 7 days. If your business files no dissent within the time limit, we will unconditionally approve the application submitted by “Real Name Holding Inc”.

Thanks for your cooperation.

John Smith

Head of Sales
Semi-legitimate Registrar

I read over the thing, and it looked actual sufficient, until I did some analysis on the organizations in question. They appear to be actual for 3 factors:

ƒ. The company that they say is attempting to acquire your domain names in Asia is always a huge, legitimate business operating in Asia.

„. The use of urgent sounding language, which includes the legal sounding terminology of “World wide web Trademark”.

…. They say that you can file a form to safeguard your rights. If you do not want to do anything, you do not have to. It makes it appear like they do not care regardless of whether or not you answer. (*note: I have received two of these communications so far. 1 guy stated five days, the other said 7.)

Before I go further, let me say for the record, that this is a giant scam.

How do I know? Nicely, initial I took a look at enforceable trademark law. The truth about trademark law is that it is not enforceable internationally, at least with any consistency.

Sure,if you are McDonalds, you most likely could possibly have the legal staff to make positive your trademark can’t be infringed in China, and to get your domain names back if a person steals them from you on the web.

However, there are two places where trademark infringement can be reliably prosecuted: The USA, and the European Union. Anywhere outside of that, you are going to be running up against increasingly vague intellectual property laws. You can always lodge a protest with ARIN, who regulates domain names, but outcomes will be mixed.

Secondly, there is no such issue as an web trademark. In truth, if you wish to use a domain name for a trademark (e.g. http://BankRate.com), there are some very distinct rules that apply. Numerous of the domain names that people would wish to trademark (e.g. http://Pizza.com&gt, http://Carseats.com) are to generic to even qualify under US law.

Thirdly, and this is the most essential, I requested a copy of the “dispute form”. It contained significantly inflated fees for domain registration ( per year, per domain), and a internet trademark registration fee, per year.

While some registrars do charge a lot more for international registrations, the most I have ever been charged, even for an obscure country is a year, and that was much more than I really should have payed, as other sites are cheaper.

Then, they provided to perform a “legal service”, for a product that doesn’t even exist. Trademarks are in impact for a excellent deal of time, and they certain don’t require a year of upkeep and maintenance.

So, how do I know for positive that this is a scam? Following they sent me two emails in a row, badgering me to respond, and telling me that the clock was ticking, I lastly did. It just wasn’t the response that they were expecting.

I told them I knew that this was a scam, and that it was a shame that they weren’t located in the US, where they could be prosecuted for fraud. I also stated that I was going to expose their small scheme to the world, which is what I am doing here.

I received no further communication from the Head of Sales for that business.

Just remember this 1 rule when you are attempting to establish regardless of whether something is a scam or not: If you’ve in no way heard of something before, and it sounds urgent, ask them to point you to a legal statute that confirms what they are saying. The legitimate ones will be patient, and able to back issues up with cold, hard facts.

Also, the Sales Department won’t contact you with issues that are of any legal import.

One more tip: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. No 1 who puts their hope in Him will ever be ashamed.