IDN registrations through intimidation?

Fri Oct 31 11:21:44 CET 2008

Dear all,

I am not sure whether this is of any interest for the NCUC but this is what happened to a student of mine. He registered the domain name http://www.braeheadfoods.co.uk/ on behalf of a company which is located here in Scotland. The term Braehead merely represents a location with a quite popular and busy shopping centre here in Scotland but it is not by any means well-known around the world. (I have added at the end of this email their communication)
My student received an email from a Chinese registrar claiming that another company Sefar Soft Inc. is looking to register the same SLD in China urging my student to register them first. Sefar Soft Inc. most probably doesn’t exist (I conducted a google search on my own) and it looks like the Chinese registrar is seeking to intimidate my student in order to proceed to various domain name registrations under the Chinese gTLDs or ccTLDs. This is not the first time I have heard of something like this (something similar has happened to a friend of a friend).
I think this is quite worrying as now with the IDNs and the expansion of registries and registrars some sort of control should be maintained by ICANN as they will continue to try and attract customers through intimidation. This is something that I think should be addressed by us as representatives of non-commercial users.

Konstantinos

Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis

Lecturer in IT&T Law, Panellist,
Chair Membership Committee,
Global Internet Governance Academic Network,
University of Strathclyde,
The Law School,
141 St James Road,
Glasgow G4 0LT.

tel:+44 (0)141 548 4306
fax:+44 (0)141 548 3639
email: k.komaitis at strath.ac.uk
http://www.law.strath.ac.uk/staff/bio_sharepoint.aspx?id=75

From: andy.zhang [mailto:andy.zhang at china-dnr.hk]
Sent: 28 October 2008 01:33
To: Braehead Webmaster
Subject: Re: Re: URGENT_Notice of disputing “braeheadfoods” domain name in China

Dear Stephen Grant,

Thanks for your confirmation. If you have no any relationship with “Sefar Soft Inc”, then it must be a pre-empt company who want to register your domain names. We hereby suspect the company "Sefar Soft Inc" is your competitor and intend to enter Chinese Market by imitating your brand, or "Sefar Soft Inc" is a domain grabber and speculator.
Thus their representative in China submitted this application through our body so we can not get in touch with them full-face, this just our conjecture. But as per the open registration principle as "who is the first, who is the owner" in China, we do not have any right to reject their application. So our duty and incumbency is informing you about this issue as you are the holder of "www. braeheadfoods. com".  If your company consider those Domains are not important at all and " Sefar Soft Inc." register and use those names will not brings any negative effects to your company ,we suggest that there is no need wasting lots of time and energy to process this matter. If your company consider those Domain names are very important to your company and very necessary to be protected that we shall apply the priority of registration for your company and register those Domain names under your company's name.
Nevertheless this need you and your company cooperate with us.
In addition, please inform us your company's decision of this issue. If your company do need to register those Domains in China we will transfer an formal Application Form and fill out finished return to us by Fax or via E-mail. If not need, we will pass the registration of “Sefar Soft Inc” unconditionally. Of course we will esteem your any decision also. Thanks for your cooperation.

Best Regards,

Andy

andy.zhang，andy.zhang at china-dnr.hk<mailto:%3c!--AID_FROMADDRESS_BEGIN--%3eandy.zhang at china-dnr.hk%3c!--AID_FROMADDRESS_END--%3e>
2008-10-28
----- Original Message -----
From: Braehead Webmaster<mailto:webmaster at braeheadfoods.co.uk>
To: andy.zhang<mailto:andy.zhang at china-dnr.hk>
Sent: 2008-10-28, 00:28:48
Subject: Re: URGENT_Notice of disputing “braeheadfoods” domain name in China

Hi Andy,

"Sefar Soft Inc" are not a business partner or subsidiary company of
ours and as such we would not like them to use our trademarked name and
second level domain in the suggested domain names. Could you please
advise me on how you wish to proceed.

-Stephen Grant
On behalf of Braehead Foods Ltd

andy.zhang wrote:
> Dear CEO,
> We are the department of registration service in China. we have
> something need to confirm with you. We formally received an
> application on Oct. 24th 2008, One company which self-styled “Sefar
> Soft Inc” are applying to register “braeheadfoods” as internet brand
> and domain names as below :
> braeheadfoods.asia
> braeheadfoods.cn
> braeheadfoods.com.cn
> braeheadfoods.com.hk
> braeheadfoods.com.tw
> braeheadfoods.hk
> braeheadfoods.in
> braeheadfoods.net.cn
> braeheadfoods.org.cn
> braeheadfoods.tw
> braeheadfoods.com.vn
> braeheadfoods.co.in
> After our initial checking, we found the internet brand and these
> domain names being applied are as same as your company's, so we need
> to get the confirmation from your company. If the aforesaid company is
> your business partner or your subsidiary company, please DO NOT reply
> us, we will approve the application automatically. If you have no any
> relationship with this company, please contact us within 7 workdays.
> If out of the deadline, we will approve the application submitted by
> "Sefar Soft Inc." unconditionally.
>
> Best Regards,
> Andy Zhang
> Senior Consultant
> /Tel:00852-31781989Fax:00852-31758227
> Website: /www.87global.hk <http://www.87global.hk/>
> /Address:UnitA,5/F,Max share Centre,373 King's Road North Point, Hongkong/

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