A client of mine who runs and owns bristolvaleting.co.uk & bristolvaleting.com contacted me recently panicking about a trademark issue. He had been contacted by a company in Hong Kong who told him someone was trying to register bristolvaleting.com.hk and bristolvaleting.cc and he asked me what he should do.
He was genuinely worried that someone was trying to steal his brand and thought that they might be able to "grab" his .com domain name too. But because the email he received was from a company in the Far East he was also concerned about the legal aspects of it.
See a copy of the email below. I've fudged some of the information to protect identities.
Click the image to see a larger versionI told him not to worry about it all and to just ignore the email.
This email is very common and used by many domain name registration business in Hong Kong and China as a sales tactic to get UK, European and US businesses to buy domain names.
As I said to my client, why on earth would anyone in the Far East want to register bristolvaleting as a domain name? It pretty much says what my client's business is - he's a car valeter in the Bristol area. I don't think owning bristolvaleting.com.hk would help him win any more local business!
But many companies do fall for these sales tactics. Make sure you check the source of the enquiry before panicking and don't get puffed into buying anything you don't want.
If you ever need any help or advice with anything Internet related then please get in touch. I'll be happy to help and I won't even charge you! My advice is free.
2 comments:
Thank you for your sound advice, Dickie. It is not easy for non-experts to find reliable guidance in this area.
There is an overlap of business and technical issues in understanding the relationship between branding and internet domain names. On these kind of issues, there are few hard and fast answers and there is a wide range of viewpoints and styles of explanation from a multitude of advisors. To the majority of business people, it can all sound like "mumbo-jumbo"! Also, the relatively low price of some of the remedies offered can be tempting to those who are unsure of their position.
To others reading this: if you are unsure of your ground in this area and are receiving a variety of conflicting advice from different sources, then you will naturally and rightly be cautious, will seek second opinions and will choose you advisors carefully. In this regard, Dickie Armour has a solid long standing reputation in this field. He can relied upon to be completely open with you about your options and I know that he will be happy to explain his advice as it applies in your context.
There are many people who are knowledgeable and skilled in business areas or in technical areas, but in making sound choices in the tricky area where these overlap with the internet, good advice is hard to find.
Dickie, this is what you are extremely good at! Thank you.
John
John,
You are very kind. Thank you for your generous comments.
You're certainly right about this being a tricky area. The Internet and World Wide Web was concieved but some seriously clever people but they were also very technical.
It's this technical aspects that frightens people on Internet related stuff, but you actually don't have to be technical at all to understand the basics.
But anyway, thanks again John; much appreciated.
Post a Comment