by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of the one and only Atomic Tango LLC (at least for now)…
Nothing about the email set off my usually hypersensitive B.S. detector. It had landed in my business inbox with the subject line, “Confirm: About “atomictango” registration.” I didn’t recognize the sender’s name, Gerry Gu from p-xi.org, but emails from strangers are common in business, so I opened it and the message seemed friendly enough…
(Mail to the brand holder, thanks)
Dear CEO,
Sorry to bother you inexplicably. We are a China’s domain name registration supplier, and there is one thing we would like to confirm with your company. On September 17, 2013, we received an application form online from a company called “FengXing Investment Co.,Ltd” who wants to apply for some domain names and brand name related to “atomictango”. In order to avoid confusion and adverse impact on your company, we need to verify whether this company is a subsidiary of you or did you authorize them to register the related brand name and domain names? Currently, we have not formally accepted the application of that company, we need to get your company’s confirmation. Please give us a timely response within 7 work days. So that we can better deal with this case. Thank you.
I responded that I had never heard of FengXing Investment Co., and I had not given anyone permission to apply for domain names using “atomictango.”
The reply from Gerry Gu was almost instantaneous: some application forms and a sales pitch to register “atomictango” in China using different web suffixes (the portion of the URL right of the dot: .ch, .asia, .hk, etc.). I deleted this second email without downloading a single form, but now I suspect that atomictango.ch, etc., will soon be registered.
So why didn’t I play ball?
1. I never download forms from companies I don’t know, and I definitely never give them my credit card number. The grammatical errors in the email also didn’t inspire confidence. (Lesson to international marketers: [intlink id=”5807″ type=”post” target=”_blank”]it’s critical to create a strong brand[/intlink] before pitching strangers.)
2. I’m not Coca-Cola, so I don’t have the resources to register my name in every country and with every possible top-level-domain. Indeed, in 2012, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) initially approved 1,574 new top-level domains, including .blog and .pizza. (Hmmm, AtomicTango.pizza — now that’s a business venture I could sink my teeth into.) That’s just the beginning. I suspect someday there will be unlimited web suffixes, and not even Coca-Cola will be willing to register every single one.
3. I don’t do business in China. My .com can serve any Chinese enterprise that wishes to contact me, as this incident demonstrates.
4. “Atomic Tango” is not unique. There’s a French punk band with the same name (they popped up after I started my agency). Maybe now there will be a Chinese punk band with the same name. At least I hope so.
5. Even if you register your name with someone, there’s no guarantee that they’ll protect it — [intlink id=”5506″ type=”post” target=”_blank”]as I discovered with Twitter[/intlink].
Is there a risk? Absolutely. And that risk is part of doing business in a world where anyone can impersonate anyone else online with a few keystrokes. With my limited resources, I’ll have to live with that risk and carry on with just AtomicTango.com, while letting everyone know that AtomicTango.anythingelse is not me.
No reason to let that bother me inexplicably.
A family friend is a young celebrity. (Logan Lerman) Out of curiosity I checked out his Facebook page(s) and Timeline. He had one legitimate page as a public figure, and his own personal page. In addition there are over 1,000 pages that are not his and over 100 fake Timelines – all with multiple likes from fans that don’t know this.
Looks like popular culture has migrated from “be yourself” to “be someone else.”
A classic scam spam these days, all originating from China. I receive them at least once a month. Another, similar scam are those pretending to be the European trade mark office, or official representative thereof, offering renewal service, using an address / bank account in Brussels, London or Madrid. I would guess that they do a decent business…
I got this email and I do have business with Chinese companies, so I did think it was weird I was getting this. But I thought it was strange that a registrar was so worried about my company, so I googled the first sentence of the email and found this page – thank you for posting this.