Josh Bourne ⬥ 14 November
I’m currently at the INTA Leadership Meeting in Florida and as promised, the event is proving to be an excellent opportunity to exchange thoughts and discuss issues with industry leaders. I’ll just take a moment here to share some of the information that has come my way.
As some of you may remember, we mentioned a type of spam attack that attempted to scare companies into purchasing country code domain names and Internet keywords in a past Weekly News Brief. These emails falsely inform the trademark owner that a third-party individual has expressed interest in buying those same domain names. The spammers often insert a phony deadline to create a false sense of urgency in hopes of prompting trademark owners to react quickly. The domain names offered for sale are exorbitantly priced and the company being solicited may already own some of the names in question.
The people that I have talked to at the conference have the distinct impression that, while the emails all look somewhat different, the people behind these emails are connected through one central marketing office. From their experiences, when you complain to one perpetrator, all of the emails stop.
The last time we mentioned this scam, Sarah Deutsch, Vice President & Associate General Counsel for Verizon Communications, Inc., shared her advice on what people can do to help put an end to this fraudulent practice. With this new information, it seems as though it would be worth taking the time to do the following; it may do even more to deter spam than we originally thought:
- Alert the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the email that you received. The FTC has been known to take decisive, effective action against spammers in the past.
- Notify the proper authorities in the country from which the email originated. Foreign governments may have the jurisdiction and enforcement options needed to shut down these scams at their source. Many of the fraudsters appear to be located in Hong Kong. Complaints can be directed to the Hong Kong Office of the Telecommunications Authority Web site.
- Send a cease and desist letter to the spammer, letting him know that you are aware of his scam and demanding that he cease sending unsolicited communications to your company executives.
Stay tuned for more from sunny Florida.
Tags: cease and desist letter, country code domain name, domain names, Federal Trade Commission, Florida, FTC, Hong Kong, INTA, Office of the Telecommunications Authority, Sarah Deutsch, spam attack, Verizon Communications Inc., Weekly News Brief