Is this spam?

[Springheel]

Got an odd email today. I can't quite figure out if it's spam or not, or what exactly it would be accomplishing if it was. I do own a domain called mindplaces.com, but I can't figure out why I would have to "let them know" anything.

 

(Letter to Head of Brand Business or CEO, thanks)

Dear Sir or Madam,

This is a formal email. We are the department of Asian Domain Registration Service in China. Here I have something to confirm with you. We formally received an application on October 15, 2013 that a company claimed GRPP Int'l Ltd were applying to register "mindplaces" as their Brand Name and some mindplaces Asian countries top-level domain names through our firm.

Now we are handling this registration, and after our initial checking, we found the name were similar to your company's, so we need to check with you whether your company has authorized that company to register these names. If you authorized this, we would finish the registration at once. If you did not authorize, please let us know within 7 workdays, so that we could handle this issue better. After the deadline we will unconditionally finish the registration for GRPP Int'l Ltd. Looking forward to your prompt reply.

Best Regards,

 

[jaxa]

If it is social engineering, there's nothing stopping others from doing it. I now have your name and address. I've gotten a piece of physical mail linked to a domain I had once.

Edited October 16, 2013 by jaxa

[demagogue]

If you really don't care, it sounds like they're saying at the end of the email they'll "unconditionally" create the domain names, I guess mindplaces.cn; though surely they want mindplaces.com too but I guess can't get it if you already own it. But anyway they're giving you a chance to protest the registration of these other domains if you own the trademark, and if you don't protest in a week, they'll take that as tacit permission & make them. Sounds like a "due diligence" thing to do to cover their own asses.

[Springheel]

Even if I cared if someone wanted to make a mindplaces.cn domain, what would my saying so accomplish? If someone is paying them to do it, why wouldn't they do it? Unless they're going to try and get me to pay them to stop it. Just seems strange that they're not asking for any information at all other than a reply.

[stumpy]

apparently its a scam

 

http://www.europeandomaincentre.com/pages/news-room/domain-management-news/hey!-got-an-email-from-china-domain-name-registration-center-asian-domain-registration-service-in-china-the-department-of-registration-service-in-china-etc.#.Ul3y0RDpIqI

[demagogue]

It has the flavor of the scam. But just to answer your question FWIW, if they think you have a trademark over the name Mindplaces, then of course you could try to sue them for using it in a domain name, like if they wanted to use something like MindplacesInc.com or whatever. So I saw the whole thing as asking if you have a trademark claim or some other protest or desire to sue them, and if not then don't reply and they'll do it anyway. They don't need your permission per se; they just want to know if you want to sue them or not, and no reply on your part is your answer (no you don't). The punchline is the same either way though. just ignore it and not worry about it. The fact it might be a social engineering plot is just another reason to stay away.

 

Edit: As for just wanting a reply, of course if you give express consent to them using the name, that's a license & you can't bring a claim anymore. So it's an easy defense for them. If you're silent, they could make the claim it's tacit consent, so you might lose a claim there too.

 

Edit2: Reading that link, it's a scam so screw them. They don't even deserve the dignity of trying to reason out what they're thinking.

[delatroy]

Yeh I get loads of emails like this. Can ignore.

[Jinix]

Just like the old 'carpet baggers' of yesteryear or the slick new legitimate 'bigbrobiz' conjobs of America now - it's just another way to see a fool and his money parted.

 

When you get an email that you are not sure of just copy and paste the main parts or the address into Google search (or the cool new DuckDuckGo search engine) and you'll see lots of other search results that'll let you know about who's sending it.