Tuesday - Oct 5, 2010
I’ve been writing about Chinese domain name scammers since last May. In fact when you Google “Chinese domain scams” the blog post comes up second on the search results. Evidently Rensis Ho didn’t take the time to do this, because the other day I received an all-too-familiar e-mail from him:
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward to the right person/ department, as this is urgent, thank you.)
Dear CEO,
We are the department of registration service in China. we have something which needs to confirm with you. We formally received an application on Sept. 24th, 2010. One company called “Kurer Research & Development Ltd” is applying to register “learnthenet” as Brand name and domain names as below:
learnthenet.asia
learnthenet.c
learnthenet.com.cn
learnthenet.com.hk
learnthenet.com.tw
learnthenet.hk
learnthenet.tw
After our initial checking, we found the Brand name and domain names being applied are as same as your company! So we need confirmation with your company. If the aforementioned company is your business partner or your subsidiary, please DO NOT reply us, we will approve the application automatically. If you don’t have any relationship with this company, please contact us within 5 workdays. If over the deadline, we will approve the application submitted by “Kurer Research & Development Ltd ” unconditionally.
Best Regards
Rensis Ho
Senior Consultant
Here’s my reply:
Dear Mr. Ho,
We have no relationship with Kurer Research, so kindly deny the application.
And his response:
Thanks for your confirmation. If your company does not have any relationship with “Kurer Research & Development Ltd”, according to our work experience, either they just invest these domain names. Just like a company named Beijing national network company registered google.cn & google.com.cn in 2005, and then they made lots of return from these two domain names. (Google Company failed to make a arbitration and paid 1 million USD dollars to redeem the two domain names.) Or they are just your trade, and confuse your clients to make profit. Because it seems that these domain names have no relationship with them, that’s why we send e-mail to inform you. As a domain name registration service organization, we have no right to reject any individual or entity register available domain names through us, because domain name registration is open worldwide, the policy is “ first register, first own”. I think you also know this. But it’s our duty and responsibility to avoid the registration in bad faith, so we inform you this issue in advance before the registration starts.
Now, what you need to consider is that whether these domain names are important to your company? If important to you, we will apply the priority to register for your company; meanwhile, we will send you the dispute application form. Due to time is limited, if you have any other question, pls contact with us in time. Thanks for four cooperation！
My next reply…
Dear Mr. Ho,
Kindly send me the dispute application form and advise as to the cost to register the domain names you listed.
…and his response:
The cost list is as following:
| Cost list | |
| Domain names | Cost (USD/ Per Year) |
| www.learnthenet.cn | 30.00 |
| www.learnthenet.com.cn | 30.00 |
| www.learnthenet.hk | 45.00 |
| www.learnthenet.com.hk | 45.00 |
| www.learnthenet.tw | 50.00 |
| www.learnthenet.com.tw | 50.00 |
| www.learnthenet.asia | 40.00 |
| Brand name | Cost (USD/ Per Year) |
| LEARNTHENET | 95.00 |
Following is the procedure, you can do follow these.
1.Your company fills in the application form and return it back, make sure the information in the form absolutely correct.
2.We will prevent other applicants to register at the first time, after we receive the application form from your company.
3.Our company will offer an Invoice to your company, enclosed a sealed application form by our company. Each party has a copy, and your company pays for the registration fees to our company.
4.Your company sends us the proof to payment from your bank after your company executes the payment.
5.We will finish all the registration work within 2 workdays after we receive your payment, and link these domain names to your website www.learnthenet.com which you use now.
6. Your company will receive the certificate awarded by the relevant department of China government within 10 workdays after the domain names and brand name are registered successfully.
Because time is limited, when you receive our e-mail, pls fill in the application form and return it to us soon, so we can arrange the following work. If you have any other question, pls contact me at any time. Thanks for your cooperation.
Needless to say, I’m not sending the $385 to register the domain names. I suppose that in the world of Internet scams, the amount of money involved here is relatively modest. But these guys are preying on people’s fears, trying to peddle an unnecessary service. If you’re one of their targets, please forward the e-mail you received so I can post it on the blog to expose this nasty business.
Wednesday - Jul 21, 2010
In May I wrote about a suspicious e-mail I received from a company in China that claimed it had received a request from a third party to register “learnthenet” as an Asian domain name. It turns out to be a scam that’s been going on for years. The goal is to scare victims into paying exorbitant prices to register domain names they don’t need. Since that post, dozens of people have added similar e-mails to the growing list.
You would think that these crooks would be smart enough to Google their intended victims before emailing them. If “Leopold Zhang” had done that he would have discovered my blog posts about this racket. Instead, he just sent the message below. For what it’s worth, add yours to the list to discourage these predators.
Dear CEO,
We are the department of registration service in China. We have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application on July 19, 2010, one company which called “HePe Technologies Pvt. Ltd” is applying to register “learnthenet” as brand name and domain names as below:
learnthenet.asia
learnthenet.cn
learnthenet.com.cn
learnthenet.com.hk
learnthenet.com.tw
learnthenet.hk
learnthenet.tw
After our initial checking, we found the brand name and these domain names being applied are as same as your company’s, so we need to get the confirmation from your company. If the aforesaid company is your business partner or your subsidiary company, please don’t reply us, we will approve the application automatically. If you have no any relationship with this company, please contact us within 7 workdays. If out of the deadline, we will approve the application submitted by “HePe Technologies Pvt. Ltd” unconditionally.
Best Regards,
Leopold Zhang
Senior Consultant
Monday - May 10, 2010
Last week I received the following e-mail:
“Dear Sir/Madam
I’m sorry to disturb you so abrupt. We are a domain name registration service company in Asia,
On 4th May. we received a formal application submitted by Mr. John Wang who wanted to use the keyword “learnthenet” to register the Internet Brand and with suffix such as .cn /.com.cn /.net.cn/.hk/.asia/ domain names.
After our initial examination, we found that these domain names to be applied for registration are same as your domain name and trademark. We aren’t sure whether you have any relation with him. Because these domain names would produce possible dispute, now we have hold down his registration, but if we do not get your company’s an reply in the next 5 working days, we will approve his application
As authorized anti-cybersquatting organization we hereby suspect Mr. John Wang is a domain investor. so we need you to attach importance to this issue.”
The e-mail came from someone named Tina (tina@domainnamesasia.com), with no last name given, nor any company listed, just a postal address in NanTong City, which I later discovered is about 65 miles northwest of Shanghai, China.
As the owner of the trademark for Learn the Net, I e-mailed Tina that the name is protected under U.S. and international law and that they should not allow John Wang to register the name.
Tina replied: “You would know domain name takes open registration, this is international domain name registration principle. So Mr. John Wang has right to register it.
If you think his registration will confuse your clients and harm your profits, we can send an application document to you and help you register these domains within our approving period. This is a better way to prevent domain name dispute.”
Of course Tina is wrong about “domain name takes open registration”. Under the protocol established by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organization that approves Internet registrars, if a registrar knows that the registrant of a domain name is infringing on a trademark, it should deny the request. (More on this in a moment.) In fact “Tina” had acknowledged the infringement in her initial e-mail.
At this point, I got suspicious. I know that to register a .cn domain suffix, the Chinese government requires that you have a branch office in China or be a wholly owned subsidiary of a Chinese company. I went to the company website to see what I could learn about them.
The website says that “NanTong WiFi Network Technology Co.,Ltd is one of the largest and professional Internet consultant for oversea companies, which authorized by ShangHai Industry and Commerce Bureau and China government.” While there are lots of official looking logos on the site, they are just links to organizations like ICANN, not endorsements. WF.Network’s web address, www.domainnamesasia.com is suspiciously similar to www.domainnameasia.com, owned by BrightDomain, a legitimate web hosting and domain name registrar. But unlike BrightDomain, there is no way to register online, the standard way to do business with a registrar.
I e-mailed Tina inquiring if her company was certified by ICANN. She answered, “Yes, our company an ICANN authorized registrar.” ICAAN lists approved registrars, but you won’t be surprised to learn that NanTong WiFi Network isn’t on it.
My last exchange with Tina involved payment for the suggested “registrations”, which total $290 for a year. Here’s what she wrote: “For security reasons we only accept wire transfers.” Security for whom? Certainly not for the customer. Once you wire money to someone’s bank account, there’s no recourse.
By now you undoubtedly get the picture. This is a sophisticated ploy to scare businesses into forking over money for Internet real estate they may not need. But it got me thinking: How many domain suffixes does a business need? Between the 21 generic top-level domains, like .com, .net, and .biz and the 240 national top-level domains like .ca, .mx, and .de, a business could go broke.
A company like Google owns dozens of domains, like google.jp and google.in. Likewise Microsoft, Apple, Nokia and the many multinationals that do global business. If you visit these sites, you’ll see that the content is localized for the language and culture of the country and in many cases, offers different products and pricing. But even multinationals don’t own all the various combinations. Why? Because it’s not necessary.
According to Inc. magazine, “Don’ t think you’ re going to be able to own mcdonalds.biz or nike.info. Even if you somehow manage to register a trademarked name, unless you can show a legitimate claim for such a domain, the trademark holder can keep you from using it.”
When you register a domain name, you agree that it “will not infringe upon or otherwise violate the rights of any third party.” You must also agree to participate in arbitration if someone files a claim under ICANN’s Dispute Resolution Policy.
The bottom line is that if you hold a trademark or service mark and someone else is using it, you can file a dispute to have it yanked from the registrant. Even if your name isn’t trademarked, you may have legitimate grounds to reclaim it if the registrant is using it in bad faith. Sometimes just the filing of a dispute claim is enough to have the offending party surrender the domain name.
That’s exactly what I plan to do if John Wang—if he exists–uses the Learn the Net trademark. Spending the $290 may be cheaper than filing a claim, but who wants to be exploited in such a clumsy manner. If you’ve been contacted by NanTong WiFi Network or encountered similar scams, share your story. As the saying goes, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
