In our earlier post we wrote about the practice of domain kiting and domain tasting.  Other common tricks, such as Network Solutions’ practice of “front-running” (using customer search strings to pre-emptively register domain names before customers can get them), reflect the growing competitiveness in the domain name industry.

One more thing to watch for: a number of outfits such as AsiaDNR, or China Net Technology Limited, are sending “helpful” notices to Canadian domain name owners.  These notices appear to be from an official Asian registry and purport to notify owners that they are providing a service to protect the owner’s rights because someone else is trying to register “example.cn”, “example.hk”, “example.asia” … and ten other variations.  It’s just one more form of spam.

This practice is not new, but seems to be more common in the past six months.  It is best to ignore these notices.  I don’t know of any legitimate registrars who provide this kind of “helpful” service.  Decide whether any of the variations are of use to your business.  If you are a local Canadian operation with no plans to expand into Asia, then you may conclude that none of the Asian top-level domains will make sense for your company from a business perspective.  Even if you decide you need an Asian domain name presence, go through a legitimate registrar, such as AsiaDNS or Webnames.

Calgary – 14:01 MST