Domain name marketing ploy?

[Nick C]

I've just found the following email in our spam filter this morning:

Dear Manager:

We are a Domain Name registration service company, which is a professional Internet Domain Name Registration and dispute resolution organization in China.On November.18th,2009, We received HUAXING Investment company's application that they are registering the name "oliverslighting" as their Internet Trademark and "oliverslighting.cn"、"oliverslighting.com.cn" 、"oliverslighting.asia"domain names etc.,It is China and ASIA domain names.But after auditing we found the brand name been used by your company. As the domain name registrar in China, it is our duty to notice you, so I am sending you this Email to check.According to the principle in China,your company is the owner of the trademark,In our auditing time we can keep the domain names safe for you firstly, but our audit period is limited, if you object the third party application these domain names and need to protect the brand in china and Asia by yourself, please let the responsible officer contact us as soon as possible. Thank you!

Looking forward to your reply.

Kind regards
------------------------------
Andy

Oversea marketing manager

Company: YIGUAN(CHINA)IT Co.,Ltd
Tel:+86(0)21 6296 2950
Fax:+86(0)21 6296 1557
web:www.ygurl.cn

We're 90% certain it's spam with the intent of pushing us to purchase additional domain names, but, just to be on the safe side, I thought I would ask those with a greater knowledge for their thoughts...yes that's you.

[marke]

Had loads of these over the years. I have always ignored them. I to assumed that they were just a scam. I don't have any business in China so I probably won't loose much by not registering a .cn domain name anyhow.

[Nick C]

Thanks Mark, it will stay in the spam box then.

I had something similar last week to my personal account, attempting to sell me a .com address because I owned the .co.uk domain with the same name. It was actually beneficial because I wasn't aware that the .com had become available, so I went and purchased it for half the price elsewhere! That company are still emailing me however to tell me it's available!

[Nick C]

Thanks for the additional info Louise. I think what initially made me worry was the mention of a Chinese company registering oliverslighting as an internet trademark, but then reading further you begin to suspect that it's more about domain names. Better safe than sorry, which is why I came to the experts.