.cn Domain Name registry – spam or not?

Have you in recent times received an email from Asia with a subject heading, (something to the effect of) “safeguard intellectual property notice”. In the email it tries to grab your attention by stating:

The Spam email
“We have something important need to confirm with you. On the 3 Jan 2009, We received an application formally from one company which self-styled “Magnum IP Development Co.,Ltd. ” wanted to register “Magnum IP” as their international domain names and Internet brand.

During our preliminary investigation,we found that these domain names
keyword and Internet Trademark are identical with your trademark….”

They try to scare you by stating that if these domain names and internet brand are important to you, you should protect them by registering them first and not letting the other company they have named beat you to the post.

Your Trademark details publicly available
The fact is your trade mark registration details are publicly available for all to see and this is where they have discovered your brand name. It’s very unlikely the other probably factitious company name they have invented wants your trade mark/domain name. The fact you’ve got your name registered makes it obvious that IP protection is important to you – what a captive audience they’ve written to!

Organisation names
Some organisations sending these email include Asia Pacific BrandName Solutions Ltd or YiGuan China Co, Ltd or cnsknet.cn (sk-holdings.net). Our advice is don’t respond. If you really want to register this domain name (particularly as domainname.cn) then go ahead and register it with a reputable register – it’s probably a lot cheaper. Don’t do it because they’ve scared you into registering a domain name you don’t really need or want.