What's Chinese for "shakedown"?

September 19, 2010 3:15 PM

Domain name registration/IP question, .cn edition

I host/run a forum that's automotive-related, dedicated to an engine that Toyota only produced for a couple of years in the mid-80's. The forum is something I do for fun, and a way for me to give something back to the other enthusiasts of this motor. The entire site is free/free from advertising. I registered the site through GoDaddy about 3 years ago, and renewed about 4 months ago.

Yesterday, I received the following email:

"Dear Manager:

We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On September,17th,2010, We received HUATAI Company's application that they are registering the name "[distinct name of my site]" as their Internet Trademark and "[distinct name of my site].cn","[distinct name of my site].com.cn" ,"[distinct name of my site].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

[someone's name]

Shanghai Office (Head Office)
Registration Department Manager
3002, Nanhai Building 854.Nandan Road
Xuhui District, Shanghai"

I don't want to self-link, but if it helps the distinct name of my site is something like "[engine model identifier]-trucks".

Is this a scam? Is this legit? What, if anything do I need to do? I don't have a legal department, lol, and I'm not selling anything through the site -- it's a forum with about ~600 members, and it has various discussions about maintaining and modifying this particular motor. I don't really care if they hijack my domain name in China -- this motor was never sold there and I can't see any real advantage to it, other than as a means of hosting a site with a similar name that sells parts and steals search results...both things I don't care about. Again: The entire site is free and free from advertising, and if someone wants to impersonate it, I don't expect it to fool any of my current or future members. I'm honestly not going to lose any sleep over it as long as it doesn't come back to hurt my legitimate claim to my legitimately registered site. On the other hand, I don't object to taking some minimal/free steps to protect my IP rights if doing so will really protect them.

This reeks of being a shakedown, and I'm not sure how to respond. YANML, you are not giving me legal advice, etc., but I welcome your suggestions.

posted by mosk to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Best answer: Somebody in China wants to make money by selling you a domain you don't need. The story they told you about another company is fake and only serves to add a false sense of urgency to the matter.

You should ignore this like you would ignore any other spam.
posted by ctab at 3:28 PM on September 19, 2010

Best answer: I wouldn't worry about it until you get something formal in the mail. E-mails are easy to send, fedex legal documents aren't. I wouldn't sweat it, then again, IANAL.
posted by ibechase at 3:28 PM on September 19, 2010

Best answer: This reads like the ones I get. Basically they say, "Hey, we noticed you have example.com, but did you know example.net and .biz are also open? You should get them." These are called defensive registrations.

I think I would ignore it. Worst case you lose your domain after an appeal to WIPO. But even that's probably not going to happen.

I would go back to sleep.
posted by cjorgensen at 3:29 PM on September 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Scam
posted by rhizome at 3:31 PM on September 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Although the English is awkward, I think they're giving you notice about HUATAI Company's registrations because they, the registrar, consider you to be "the owner of the trademark" because you registered the .COM version of the domain. The notification is a courtesy to allow you time dispute HUATAI's use of what could be a trademarked name.

But you don't own the trademark. Toyota probably does. And I assume that if Toyota was concerned about the use of the name, they'd probably already have done something about your use of it.
posted by goblinbox at 3:36 PM on September 19, 2010

Best answer: goblinbox: "Although the English is awkward, I think they're giving you notice about HUATAI Company's registrations because they, the registrar, consider you to be "the owner of the trademark" because you registered the .COM version of the domain. The notification is a courtesy to allow you time dispute HUATAI's use of what could be a trademarked name."

Nice, but sadly no - it's a scam. They are basically saying "You own XYZ.com. Our client wants to register XYZ.asia, XYZ.cn and XYZ.com.cn but dontcha just know, under this Chinese law we just made up, we have to offer them to you first. Of course, they're Chinese domains so you'd have to use us as your agent. They're only like a million bucks each - did you want them?"

Ignore. It's just spam.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:57 PM on September 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, all. That makes sense. I appreciate you educating me on this. I'll go back to sleep now ;-)
posted by mosk at 4:07 PM on September 19, 2010

For all we know, it could be true, but if you Google anything from the e-mail you'll find there's dozens of webmasters who have received a similar e-mail.

Just for fun, here's their website: http://www.yiguannetwork.com/ (plain text for no Google-rank). Also, I live about an hour away from their office.
posted by msittig at 5:39 PM on September 19, 2010