Had a really odd email this morning from a Chinese firm claiming that they have been approached by another person to register the chinese variants of my own domain names – and asking me to verify that I do not own the trademark in China.
Now there seems to be two scenarios…
a) this is legit.
b) they are expecting me to panic about losing my Chinese domain names and try to stop the cyber squatter by registering the domain names myself – presumably via their friendly service.
…I am edging towards the “it is spam†option, but I have to take my hat off to them – it’s a bloody good spam.
Dear Manager?
We are Shanghai Squile Network Information Technology Co., Ltd, which is the domain name registrar centre in China. We have something need to confirm with you.
On the March 14, 2007, we received an application formally. One company named “Yinli Investment(China) Co.,Ltd ” applied for the Internet Brand “brandname” and the domain name “brandname.cn” “brandname.com.cn” “brandname.net.cn” “brandname.net” “brandname.biz”.
Today we are dealing with it, hope to get the affirmation of your company because that may relate to your intellectual property on internet. We have not finished the registration of Yinli company yet,in order to deal with this issue better, please let someone who is responsible for trademark or intellectual right contact me as soon as possible.
It’s interesting for GOOGLE
shanghai squile
“Gmail.cn”, the domain name for Gmail in China, has been registered by a Beijing-based company instead. Gmail is a key product of Google.
In fact, almost all the CN domain names for Google’s such products have been registered by others.
Launching Gmail in April 2004, Google registered “gmail.com.cn”. However, gmail.cn was registered by a Beijing-based company as early as in August 2003.
shanghai squile
Experts say, the time of the registration of “gmail.cn” was far earlier than the debut of Google’s Gmail, so the possibility for the CN domain name to be recovered is rather slim unless the registration was vicious.
do it by youself !