Dear Manager,

We received a formal application from a person who is called John Alldis is applying to register “lizzdmcproductions” as their domain names and Internet brand in Hong Kong and also in Asia on 2009-02-02. During our auditing procedure we find out that the alleged John Alldis has no trade mark, brand nor patent even similar to that word. As authorized anti-cybersquatting organization we hereby suspect the alleged John Alldis to be a domain or trademark grabber. Hence we need you confirmation for two things. First of all,whether this alleged John Alldis is your business partner or distributor in Asia. Secondly,whether you are interested in registering these domains and Internet brand instead of that alleged person. (The alleged John Alldis will be entitled to obtain a domain not needed by original trademark owner.) If you are not in charge of this please forward this email to appropriate dept.

This is a letter for confirmation. If the mentioned third party is your business partner or distributor in Asia, please DO NOT reply. We will automatically confirm application from your business partner after this audit procedure.

Best Regards,

Heather Lau
Registration Commissioner
Sponsoring Registrar:Asia Network
Tel: +852 3118 1808
+852 3065 8284
Fax +852 3065 8189
Email:heather@asianetworks.asia
Website: www.asianetworks.asia

Something really needs to be done about these scams. Currently, it looks like the only recourse on the NET is to file a Domain Name Dispute, and apparently, at a considerable cost.

The folks at Nolo, state:

A victim of cybersquatting in the United States has two options:

• sue under the provisions of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), or
• use an international arbitration system created by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Trademark experts consider the ICANN arbitration system to be faster and less expensive than suing under the ACPA, and the procedure does not require an attorney.

Hmmm… but what if they are not from the United States??? Stay tuned…

Related posts:

1. What’s in a Trademark?

Apparently, to certain Domain Registrar companies from Asia, there is NOTHING to a trademark! Here is a lovely excerpt from a recent email sent to our offices:

We are Hong Kong Network service Company Limited, a domain name registration center in Asia. Yesterday we received an application from another company for the domain names “lizzdmcproductions”, but later we found your company is their original owner and this may involve your company name or trademark and this may cause confusion between your products and others’, and bring about negative effect on your company. Therefore we decided to inform you of this and check out your attitude toward this matter.

Here was our reply:

We are concerned that the company in question may be engaged in the practice of Cybersquatting, which according to the United States federal law known as the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price. We would sincerely appreciate the denial of the company’s application for domain registration under our trademark names. Please inform the company that any attempt to register these names may result in an ICANN’s Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) proceeding to be initiated with an approved dispute resolution service provider.

And finally… here was THEIR reply:

We perfectly understand this is your company name or trademark, and that was exactly why you’ve got these emails from us. Domains are different from trademark or company name, as they can be registered worldwide… Once you would like to protect or preserve them by registering ahead due to the importance, one valid application form will be sent to start your prior registration. Or we are going to approve the application from the third party if your company does not lay claim to these domains.

If you would like more information about these scams, check out the following article, Fraudulent e-mail from registrar: case study of a Chinese company. Stay safe, take care, but don’t get taken!

No related posts.