Contracts & E-Commerce
Client Alert | 2 min read | 09.30.09
Other sections of this issue:
Privacy & Data Protection | ISP-Liability & Media Law | Contracts & E-Commerce |
Electronic Communications & IT
Greedy domain name vendors, mainly based in China and Hong Kong, are responsible for one of the Internet’s latest money-making scams. If your name or company appears on a trade mark or a company record that can be found on the internet, you may be targeted.
Introduction
Chinese domain vendors buy lists with email addresses of executives of Western companies and look for trade marks. Then they try to get the name and email address of a senior representative of the targeted company. If they can not find any, they simply use the info@email or use a generic email that they find on a website to send their deceptive email to.
Working method
Pretending to be a domain name registrar, the swindlers write to trade mark owners to inform them that a third party is about to registrar a domain name in China that incorporates the trade mark owner's IP rights. Kindly they offer to registrar the domain name on behalf of the legitimate trade mark owner in exchange for an unspecified fee. By outlining short deadlines they force the worried trade mark owners to prompt into action.
How to respond to these deceptive letters?
Although there is no such a third party that is interested in registering a Chinese keyword in a Western company's name and no company trying to register the names, a number of unwary trade mark owners have fallen victim to the scam.
If you are ever targeted by these fraud, there is absolutely no rush to react. Please ignore their email or reply with a firm rebuttal using a one-liner, like:
"We will not be registering any domains through your services. Please note that the terms that you select are close to/match our trade marks. We protect our trade marks".
Contacts
Insights
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25
On November 7, 2025, in Thornton v. National Academy of Sciences, No. 25-cv-2155, 2025 WL 3123732 (D.D.C. Nov. 7, 2025), the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) retaliation complaint on the basis that the plaintiff’s allegations that he was fired after blowing the whistle on purported illegally discriminatory use of federal funding was not sufficient to support his FCA claim. This case appears to be one of the first filed, and subsequently dismissed, following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the creation of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative on May 19, 2025, which “strongly encourages” private individuals to file lawsuits under the FCA relating to purportedly discriminatory and illegal use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in violation of Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025). In this case, the court dismissed the FCA retaliation claim and rejected the argument that an organization could violate the FCA merely by “engaging in discriminatory conduct while conducting a federally funded study.” The analysis in Thornton could be a sign of how forthcoming arguments of retaliation based on reporting allegedly fraudulent DEI activity will be analyzed in the future.
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.19.25
