Internet: "buy this domain or lose business"

There's a company apparently based in China about which complaints litter the internet: they claim to be a domain registrar and say that someone is trying to register a .cn name the same as the name of victims. Eg. if a company has XYZ.com, then the company says someone is trying to register XYZ.cn.

But, they say, their IP search has thrown up that the victim is the owner of the .com version and their policy is to offer the .cn version to incumbent holders of the .com so as to avoid confusion.

It's probably a scam: no one has published a comment saying that they have, in fact, found anyone using their name with a .cn registration after the approach.

In financial sector terms, it's a kind of derivative of cybersquatting: there's no need for the investment of actually buying the domain name and re-selling it.

But cybersquatters are doing just that. The Group of companies that owns the publishing business of which ChiefOfficers.Net is part owns dozens of vertical market titles. And sister companies own many more related to e.g. compliance training.

The Group gets many e-mails from cybersquatters who have obtained a name that is similar to the names the group owns. Today another mail arrived, threatening that business would suffer if a domain is not purchased.

The position should be clear: the demand, for that is what it is, even if it is cloaked in less than bullying language, makes it clear that the sender knows that he is setting up a device which will attract business from the legitimate and established owner of a domain. It's called "passing off."

Domain registrars should prevent it. They can, but instead they facilitate it.

Some domain registrars allow the registration of domain names without payment. They are "held" pending payment for a period of several days. During that time, the cybersquatter writes to the holder of a similar name. If he gets a positive response, or if he thinks that the name has some intrinsic value, he completes the purchase. If he gets no response, he lets his application lapse.

If domain name registrars required payment as a pre-condition of a name being reserved, then this loophole would be closed.

Further, domain squatters often hold hundreds or even thousands of domains that they think have intrinsic value. They post them to the web and fill them with advertising links. This sounds like a time-consuming task, but companies such as SEDO and Google encourage this by allowing such sites to join their advertising programmes and earn revenue by the simple expedient of including the keywords that actually relate to the legitimate business.

Finally, domain registrars facilitate the trade by allowing names to be traded easily, often within days of registration. Cybersquatting - and domain profiteering - could be easily reduced by registrar's refusing to register a transfer within, say, two years of creation unless that transfer is part of a larger commercial transaction or performed within the ambit of a Group re-organisation, say.

--------------------------Sample: re "compliancetrainings.com"

Note: The domain name ComplianceTraining.Com is owned by The Financial Crime Forum.Com, part of The Anti Money Laundering Network group of companies.

This is the time to make aproposition on compliancetrainings . com before it is offered to the general public. We want to ensure your business does not lose any clients or sales by not having this Domain Name.

Most companies own all domains, whether it is .com, .net, .org etc., to prevent any lost customers to their website to promote their products and services. We look forward to getting you your Domain Name shortly.

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And, just for a giggle (or not) less than 12 hours later the following arrived citing the same domain name:

Time is approaching for compliancetrainings . com to become available, with a minimum amount of time left, we want to ensure you that you can receive compliancetrainings . com at a responsible price.

You still have time to express interest: http://ledvideowalls.com/6682842vihino-LBI

The benefits you will receive by owning this domain: Organic Placement within search engines Generate more clients by more control over market Better Company Branding and Name Recognition Makes your prospective clients feel more secure. Offering more resources and information to your Target Market Sincerely, Huge Names Inc 122 S Michigan Ave Suite 1200 Chicago, IL 60603