.cn Domain Registration Scam (yiguansolutions.com) – Don’t Be Fooled!

Every business owner and webmaster wants to do everything they can to protect their company – especially if the company has just started out.  This also includes protecting your businesses identity, trademarks, goodwill and reputation.  These are all valuable commodities to a business – they are its life and soul.

Bearing this in mind, some un-reputable companies  take advantage of this, while disguising their intervention as trying to protect you and doing you a favour.

Here is an example of an e-mail, with the subject “dpscomputing domain and keyword in CN”, that DPS Computing Limited recieved recently:

Please note, although this e-mail is from Yiguan Solutions, there are many different companies operating this kind of domain registration scam.

Now lets take a look at this e-mail in more detail.

From the looks of things, it isn’t just your ‘standard’ spam e-mail.  By that we mean that it is not completely generic with no identifying information like normal spam – however it is still a scam, with the sole intention of getting your money, not with helping you – make sure you remember that!

According to the e-mail a foreign company has attempted to register dpscomputing.cn the day before.  In addition, and most curiously, they say this company is also attempting to register it as their ‘internet keyword’.

Cue the alarm bells!

No, we’ve not cued the alarm bells because there’s anything to worry about (and don’t worry there isn’t a fire either!).  We’ve cued the alarm bells as the first thing that makes this scam noticeable is the whole thing about registering an ‘internet keyword’.  Keywords (or Internet keywords) are not registered, reserved, copyrighted or trademarked by anyone.  Keywords and words that relate to the contents of a document.  No one can reserve or register them – this is just a tactic into getting you to act quickly and register another (unnecessary) domain with their company.  Sometimes they also refer to ‘internet trademarks’.  There’s no such thing as ‘Internet trademarks’ and lots of people were finding this out (sometimes the hard way :() so they seem to have switched to referring to ‘Internet keywords’ now.  Either way, it’s nothing to worry about – however they refer to it they are either a) making it up in the case of ‘Internet trademarks’ or b) misrepresenting what an ‘Internet keyword’ is.

They go on to tell us that ‘after checking’ they’ve discovered that the registration might conflict with our trademark or company name.  Please note, despite what they say there is no registration that they have on hold.

And the part asking about whether it is a distributor or associated with your company – that’s just a way to reel you in.  Even if you don’t purchase the domain from them straight away and simply reply to the e-mail with the answer to their question, they’ve still kinda got you!  By responding to the e-mail you are showing that you are concerned to some degree.  So, what’s the harm in this?  Well, they know to keep sending you e-mails, informing you of all these registrations that are happening and to scare you into buying the domain – usually at a much inflated, over valued price.  If you reply, you will likely be added to their ‘suckers list’ (sorry, that’s not us calling anyone – just the standard term used for their lists!).  Not only that, but this ‘suckers list’ is likely to be passed around and / or sold on to many different companies – resulting in more junk, spam and scam e-mails.

What should you do?

Firstly, under no circumstances should you reply!  This will just bring more scams (including domain registration scams) direct to your inbox.  The more scams you recieve in your inbox, the more chance you ultimately have falling for one – whether that be later on today or a few years down the line.

Secondly, relax in the knowledge that they are talking crap.  Lets think about this logically.  Domain registrars are there to make money.  When push comes to shove, they don’t really give two hoots about any individual business.  Reputable domain registrars will stay within the law, but don’t think that they’ve got a dedicated department vetting each registration to make sure it doesn’t conflict with any other companies or websites.  This simply doesn’t happen.  Domain registrations are processed there and then – they’re a business, they want to make money.

Only people operating domain registration scams use tactics such as the ones in the e-mail example above.  Some of these domain registration scam companies are offering domains at a massively over inflated price – sometimes as much as $185 (approximately £118!).

For example, years ago Windows2000.com was registered by an individual – completely unrelated to Microsoft.  Did the domain registrar inform Microsoft it was being registered?  Course not – why do they need to?  By the way, just in case you’re interested, Microsoft did end up getting the domain Windows2000.com – they traded it with ‘Bob’ from the USA for bob.com – the domain which previously hosted the website for the disastrous failure that was Microsoft Bob.

Finally, if you actually want to register a domain, go to a reputable domain registrar.  Do some research on them.  The reputable ones don’t approach you in the manner that these e-mails are written in.  Sure they may advertise their services to you – but not in an ‘act now, or your going to lose to this other guy’ way.

‘Alarms’: mwichary.