Owner Beware: Chinese Domain Name Fraud

How sweet . . . I just received an email from Angela at YGNetwork in Shanghai who is concerned that someone in China is trying to register my domain name with one of the many new extensions available to internet websites. It ain't just a .com world anymore.

Wow, I better respond. Maybe someday I'll be bigger than CraigsList or Amazon and really, really need those new-fangled extensions. I'll be so big that I'll need someone to manage all my domain names for me. I mean I'll be so busy going to meetings and flying all over tarnation I just won't have time. What's a girl to do?

I can picture Shanghai Angela, a pretty young Asian woman, wearing an impeccably tailored suit in her modern high rise office sipping green tea, and scouring the internet doing her due diligence for her sparkling reputable company, sending each unsuspecting domain owner a saccharine-laced email:

Dear Manager,

We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On July,30th,2010, We received HUATAI Company's application that they are registering the name "xxxxxxonline" as their Internet Trademark and "xxxxxxonline.cn","xxxxxxonline.com.cn" ,"xxxxxxonline.asia"domain names etc.,It is China and ASIA domain names.But after auditing we found the brand name been used by your company. As the domain name registrar in China, it is our duty to notice you, so I am sending you this Email to check.According to the principle in China,your company is the owner of the trademark,In our auditing time we can keep the domain names safe for you firstly, but our audit period is limited, if you object the third party application these domain names and need to protect the brand in china and Asia by yourself, please let the responsible officer contact us as soon as possible. Thank you!

Kind regards

Angela Zhang

Angela Zhang

Registration Department Manager
3002, Nanhai Building 854.Nandan Road
Xuhui District, Shanghai
Office: +86 216296 xxxx
Fax: +86 216296 xxx

Should I hit respond? Maybe I should call Angela? No, First I'll forward this to my attorney and see what he has to say. DONE.

Well, first I should have put my thinking cap on, as Miss Nancy at Romper Room used to say, and Google "ygnetwork" -- OMG! It's a SCAM! How could that be? My faith in humanity is destroyed (sniff).

Instead of discovering I had a new cohort in Shanghai Angela, I found Angela was trying to Shanghai my domain name.

Domain owners beware!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Superpower Would You Choose?

Image
Do you want to fly? Would you like be invisible? How about superhuman strength or X-ray vision? My superpower of choice is to be able to speak every language in the Universe - from Elven to Italian, Mandarin to Romulan, cat to bat, and everything in between. I'd like to hear (or receive, if it's a telepathic language) everybody's story in their own language and understand all the delicate nuances intelligent beings can fashion. Speaking of stories . . . think of the stories these guys could tell. Imagine talking to Thor in Asgardian or being able to translate all the spells from the stacks at Hogwart's (BTW - the best class EVER!). So what superpower would you choose?
Read more

17 Majors Where you Might Not Find a Job

Image
Forbes just released a list of  " 17 college majors that report higher unemployment ." This report completed by PayScale, polled 962,956 workers between March 2014 and March 2016. What they found may or may not be surprising depending on your major, but it correlates with the idea that popular majors may not be the best choice when it comes to finding a job. So let's take a look. No. 1 - Physical Education Teaching. 56.4% underemployment. No. 2. - Human Services. 55.6% underemployment. No. 3 - Illustration. 54.7% underemployment. No. 4 - Criminal Justice. 53% underemployment. No. 5 - Project Management. 52.8% underemployment. No. 6 - Radio/Television and Film Production. 52.6% underemployment. No. 7 - Studio Art. 52.0% underemployment. No. 8 - Health Care Administration. 51.8 % underemployment. No. 9 - Education. 51.8% underemployment. No. 10 - Human Development and Family Studies. 51.5% underemployment. No. 11 - Creative Writing. 51.1% unde...
Read more

MLA Citations

Image
When you reach college you will be writing a variety of research papers and by the time you reach second year English, your instructors expect that you know how to paraphrase, quote, use in-text citations, and create a works cited page entry in your sleep. Why is citation important? Plagiarism is one thing that can get your kicked out of college. Your ideas and your writing belong to you. Just like my thoughts and my writings belong to me and Shakespeare's thoughts and writings belong to him. So give credit where credit is due. Here are a couple of quizzes to test your knowledge: Click on the link for an In-Text Citation Quiz offered by McGraw-Hill Click on the next link for a Works Cited Quiz created by McGraw-Hill . So how did you do? Were you surprised by how much you knew about in-text citations and works cited entries? Or how much you need to learn? Don't worry it's not too late there are all kinds of online resources for avoiding plagiarism. I would also r...
Read more