Lawyers and cybersquatting

Can I just say how much I love my attorney right now?

I LOVE MY ATTORNEY!

Not just because she is a she (which is a plus because I love to see fellow chicks succeed)
but because she is really good at her job!

Over the last couple weeks I have been caringly, mildly harassed by a someone claiming to be a domain registration company in Hong Kong. They sent this very concerned e-mail saying that they had been contracted by this Holdings Company to buy versions of my domain names and Internet Brand. (stylease.com.cn, stylease.name, stylease.info etc.) They let me know that they were contacting me to "give" me the first opportunity to buy these various domains before they register them for the other company.

Well it smelled of fraud the second I read it. But something said, well, maybe there is something to it.

So it sent me on a little research journey that has come to the events that happened today. A cease and desist letter from my attorney to this guy, who it turns out IS part of a huge fraudulent mass of unsolicited e-mail campaigns to extort big bucks out of people who fall for the bit and buy up the various versions of their domains to protect themselves. Part of me fell for it, but because I am a research hound I looked as deeply into it as I could. Never mind that I have 20 other things I needed to do today... But this became important because I wasn't sure if the brand I have been working so hard to launch, was in jeopardy of being deluted due to its growing equity. Well, in a way, yes it is. So I may hire a Internet Brand Protection Company in the future to watchdog this stuff but in the meantime, I found out that there is no need to pay this clown to secure the domains this SECOND... but

I learned a new word today CYBERSQUATTING. It is the practice of this exact thing and it is highly illegal. There are great resources out there to protect you or at least offer legal leverage. Clinton passed a federal law in 1999 called the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. It even has a clause in there to protect you against foreign squatters even if you don't know who they are! Sweet.

So hopefully this legal letter will shut this guy up and I can get back to work. I imagine he will go find some poor, reactionary sucker to bilk $$ from since I clearly am too much of a pain in his butt at this point, threatening legal action.

And here is the other thing, being the glass-half-full kind of person I am... This little episode flagged the need to obtain an international registration for my brand, not just the US version.

Hopefully this post served someone well. I'll bill you for my time. :-) Nah- knowledge is free here at Stylease.