I received an email from WorldWideNetwork.asia purporting that someone by the name of Peter Alldis was attempting to register my name with a .cn and .asia top level domain (TLD) name. Because they discovered that a janleow.com exist in the internet, they would like to offer the chance to register .cn and .asia first to safeguard my interest for internet brand, trademarks and\/or internet intellectual property rights protection.<\/p>\n
I find it odd that someone would want to hijack and register my name considering that I’m not famous nor am I a celebrity. So why would someone want to cyber-squat using my name?<\/p>\n
So I tried to search as much info about this guy Peter Alldis but couldn’t find out much as it is a name that many people had; though there was one search where this name came out as a potential spammer. But this was perhaps coincidental.<\/p>\n
I tried to do other search about internet branding and finally found one post in TechRepublic.com<\/p>\n
http:\/\/techrepublic.com.com\/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=101&threadID=261209&start=0<\/p>\n
It was posted in April 2008, and some people have replied about it. Turned out there were others who were offered this option to pre-register their company internet brand\/trademarks before it was taken up by someone else. The company that was offering the internet intellectual property right protection was called Merit Technological Development. There was another post too and it mentioned Daisy Ren (AsiaDNR) who also approached another company to quickly register 3 domains before another firm registers it. In the end the post regarded such request as scams to sign up for internet domains by making people worried about protecting their internet brand and trademarks.<\/p>\n
When I inquired to WorldWideNetwork how much to register an .asia domain, they said it would cost US$74 per year, which sounds very expensive. A quick check with GoDaddy.com and Domain.com says that you can register an .asia domain for US$19.90. However other domain registrar may charge higher, some as high as US$100!<\/p>\n
After thinking about it, the TechRepublic.com posts may well be correct that this may be a scam or it could be these registrar companies using a scare tactic to induce companies or people to register the .cn and .asia extension.<\/p>\n
Personally I have no use for a .cn China domain, and an .asia isn’t very useful to me either. If I really wanted to, I could of course go register with GoDaddy.com or Domain.com which charges cheaper. Also why is there a need to warn me first? If anybody wants to cyber-squat my name they could just easily go and register; since that they think there is the off-chance of some potential that somehow one day I may become famous or become a celebrity and make tons of mullah by sitting on my name and make me pay them handsomely to get my name back!<\/p>\n
I think I will go with the TechRepublic.com post idea and do nothing about registering .cn\/.asia. These TLDs aren’t very popular not to mention expensive and not too useful for me. Mind you, if I have to register for every extension available online I think I will become a pauper!<\/p>\n
Update: 20\/4\/2009<\/p>\n
Uh, uh. Someone actually bought the janleow.cn domain but not the janleow.asia domain. Maybe that one may take longer to register? the janleow.cn IP is located in Beijing, China. Now, what are they up to…?<\/p>\n
Update: 10\/5\/2009<\/p>\n
janleow.asia is still available. Therefore this is just a total scam. Can safely ignore such scare tactic letter. Maybe my mandarin sucks or what, the .cn extension looks like an error message with a blank page…<\/p>\n
Here is their message to me in full:
\ndate:\tThu, Apr 9, 2009 at 5:27 PM
\nName: \tChars Lau
\nmailfrom: \tchars@worldwidenetwork.asia
\nCity:\tHong Kong
\nCountry: \tChina
\njanleow dispute of domain name We are a professional Internet consultant organization in Asia, which mainly deal with the global companies\u2019 domain name registration and internet intellectual property right protection. Currently, we have a pretty important issue needing to confirm with your company.On Apr 9th, 2009, we received an application formally, one person named \u201cPeter Alldis\u201d wanted to applied for the Internet brand \u201cjanleow\u201d and some domain names through our body. During our preliminary investigation,we found that these domain names\u2019 keyword and internet brand is identical with your trademark. I wonder whether you consigned “Peter Alldis” to register these domain names through us or not? Or is “Peter Alldis” your business partner or distributor in Asia? Currently, we have postponed this application of this company temporarily already. In order to deal with this issue better, please let the principal make a confirmation with me by telephone or email ASAP. In addition, I must state that we have time limited for one person or one company\u2019s registration. It is just 10 days. If your company files doesn’t resent within the time limited. We will unconditionally authorized the application of ” Peter Alldis”.Thank you for your cooperate. T:00852-31152295 F:00852-30723223<\/p>\n