Domain name holders should be mindful of an ongoing Domain Name and Keyword Dispute Scam originating from what appears as a “China Domain Name Registration Center”.
In this scam, a domain name holder is notified of “some company” trying to register the equivalents of his or her domain names and keywords in Chinese and other Asia-related TLDs. The registrant is then urged to verify whether or not the company attempting to register the domains is his or her distributor or a business partner in China.
The domain holders’ contact details are copied from Whois register or, in some cases, from the websites directly associated with the disputed domain names. Oftentimes, registrants are pressed to register their domain names with this particular “Chinese Domain Registration Center” to protect their intellectual property.
This activity is a scam because there is no evidence that somebody actually applied for the domain names in question. It is advised to treat such emails as spam. However, for domain holders wishing to secure their domains in Chinese or other Asia-based TLDs, it is recommended to contact a reputable and reliable registrar.
More information on .CN registrars can be found at the Chinese Internet Network Information Centre.
A sample of a scam email is provided below. Please note that the emails may vary slightly, depending on the source of the scam.
Subject: Regarding Asia/Cn/Hk domain name & Internet Keyword Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 17:27:23 +0800 From: Jim Ying <jim.ying@ygregistry.org> To: <job@web-solutions.eu>
Dear Manager,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)
This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in China and Asia. We received an application from Huafeng Ltd on August 26, 2013. They want to register " web-solutions " as their internet keyword and China/Asia/Hongkong (CN/ASIA/HK) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name conflicts with your company. In order to deal with this matter better, so we send you email and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China or not?
Best Regards, Jim General Manager Shanghai Office (Head Office) 3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China Tel: +86 216191 8696 Mobile: +86 1870199 4951 Fax: +86 216191 8697 Web: www.ygregistry.org