The Scare Tacticz

I get an email or phone call from a nervous friend, entrepreneur or small business owner about once a week telling me they’ve received a notice that someone is trying to register their trademark or company name as a domain name. “What should I do about this?” I get asked in a panic.

Anyone who has registered a domain name has probably received one of these notices before.

These notices typically appear in two forms:

The Scare Tactic

Sender: Usually an Asian or European entity, and more recently a entities from Las Vegas and other U.S. cities.
Some of these happen to be domain registrars; others don't appear to be a valid company at all.

Method: Typically by email.

Message: "We have received an application for a domain name which is similar to one you own or is one of your trademarks, so we thought we would let you know so you have the first chance to register it through our company, before the a cybersquatter gets their hands on it".

Purpose: A clever marketing ploy using a scare tactic to fool you into registering domain names.

The transfer notice disguised as invoice from a Domain Registry

Sender: Private companies named “The Domain Registry of…” a certain country.
(Note that the Canadian Internet Registration Authority of CIRA is the official Registry of the .CA domain name.)

Method: Typically by snail mail. The mail looks like an official invoice from an official department of the government.

Message: Renew your domain registration or it will expire in the near future. It's easy, just fill out the term of renewal, your billing information and sign it. The catch is that this deceptive “renewal form” is actually an unsolicited domain name transfer agreement that can result in the transfer of your domain away from your registrar of record to a registrar that engages in deceitful business practices.

Purpose: A practice called "Domain Slamming" that attempts to trick domain name registrants into transferring their domain(s) to a different registrar.