Brands, Domain Names, and Scams on the Internet

Recently, a client in Alaska was contacted via email by a person purporting to be from China’s Internet domain name registration organization.  The email informed the Alaska business that a Chinese company had applied to register the Alaska business’ trademark as a keyword and to register domain names including the Alaska business’ trademark.  The tld’s (top level domains) identified were “.com.cn”, “.cn”, and “.ASIA”.  For example, if the Alaskan client were to own the domain www.business.org, the Chinese business would be attempting to register www.business.com.cn, www.business.cn, y www.business.asia.

The client in Alaska was very confused.  The client’s firm is local and focuses the majority of its work in Alaska and in Juneau, Alaska’s capital, in particular.  The question at the front of the client’s mind was, “we do not conduct any business in China, why did we receive this email?”

I conducted a quick search of the sender and the Chinese entity the sender purported to represent, on Google.  The first several results from the search informed me that other businesses had received a similar email from this Chinese entity and each of those sites.  The technology blog, Byte Chip, posted an email it had received several months ago that was nearly word-for-word, exact, verbatim, a replica of the letter referred to me by my client in Alaska.  See Byte Chip’s post here: http://bit.ly/arEbTb.

After my investigation, I wrote an email to the client in Alaska.  Rhetorically, I against the client if they had any interest in owning China-focused websites. Clearly, as a local Alaska business, they did not.  The client does not presently nor would it likely ever have need to conduct business in China or with Chinese firms.  It was good that the client did not respond to the email.  Additionally, it was also smart of the client to contact someone with experience in dealing with domain and Internet issues.  The rules and form of the Internet changes frequently and it is important that clients consult with people who are skilled in this area.