Dusty Cables dot com

Do not trust Google ads

February 25th, 2009. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.

I love Gmail.  I use it with Chrome, so there currently is no ad-blocking going on like you can do with Firefox.  The Google ads are context-based, of course, so you usually see ads relative to the email you are viewing.

Click for full size image

So I was viewing a thread update email from the Safer Networking Forums about an issue with Spybot Search & Destroy, a legitimate and very good anti-malware program, when I noticed no less than four “ads” for malware junk purporting to be Spybot.

WTF Google?

These days we are dealing with it (Chinese domain scams, that is)

June 26th, 2008. Published under Uncategorized. 1 Comment.

For the sake of privacy, I have changed the domain name in question to “DOMAIN” in the messages below.

In early April I received the following message:

From: Hayee.zhao [mailto:Hayee.zhao@shundajishu.net.cn]
Sent: Tue 3/25/2008 8:27 PM
To: –removed–
Subject: DOMAIN-Intellectual property rights (To CEO)

Dear CEO,

We are the domain name registration organization in Asia, which mainly deal with international company’s in Asia. We have something important need to confirm with your company.
On the March 25, 2008, we received an application formally. One company named “Lunyu AP Company” wanted to register following
Domain names:
DOMAIN.info
DOMAIN.cc
DOMAIN.asia
DOMAIN.mobi
DOMAIN.tw
DOMAIN.com.tw
DOMAIN.cn
DOMAIN.com.cn
DOMAIN.net.cn
DOMAIN.org.cn
DOMAIN.asia
Internet brand keyword:
DOMAIN
through our body.
After our initial examination, we found that the keywords and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. These days we are dealing with it. If you do not know this company, we doubt that they have other aims to buy these domain names. Now we have not finished the registration of  Lunyu AP Company yet, in order to deal with this issue better, Please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

Hayee zhao

TEL: 00852-3059 3057     00852-8122 6293
FAX: 00852-3059 3080    00852-8125 7328
Email: Hayee.zhao@shundajishu.net.cn
Web: http://www.star-east.hk

I passed it on to the owner of the company who owns DOMAIN.com, and I think the ball was dropped.  Anyway, today I receive another, very similar message:

From: kevin [mailto:kevin@woneasy.cn]
Sent: Tue 6/24/2008 10:28 PM
To: –removed–
Subject: DOMAIN Intellectual Property Rights[TO:CEO]

Dear Manager,

We are the domain name register center in Asia, which mainly deal with the domain name registration and dispute internationally. We have something important need to confirm with your company. On the Jun. 24, 2008, we received an application formally. One company named “SafNetwork Service Limited” wanted to register following:

Domain names:
DOMAIN.asia
DOMAIN.cn
DOMAIN.com.cn
DOMAIN.com.hk
DOMAIN.com.tw
DOMAIN.hk
DOMAIN.in
DOMAIN.tw
..etc
Internet Brand Name——” DOMAIN  ” through our body.

After our initial examination, we found that the internet Brand and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark.These days we are dealing with it. If you do not know this company, we doubt that they have other aims to buy these domain names. Now we have not finished the registration of SafNetwork Company yet, in order to deal with this issue better, Please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

Kevin
Sponsoring Registrar: Asian Internet Domains Register Dept.
Tel:   +852-3075 9838              Fax:  +852-3177 1510
Email: kevin@woneasy.cn     Website: www.oneeasy.hk

Confidentiality Notice. This is a letter for confirmation. If the mentioned third party is your business partner or distributor in ASIA please DO NOT reply. We will automatically confirm application from your business partner after this audit procedure. we have to notify you, and our registration organization are not responsible for any dispute questions about trade mark, intellectual property nor patent after they succeed in registration. hope you can understand. thank you.

Experiencing deja vu, I searched my email and found the older one.  Then I noticed these came from two different sources.  This has “scam” written all over it.  Googling for common text (I chose “these days we are dealing with it” because the phrase cracks me up) reveals a number of articles and blog posts about this scam (here is one in particular I read).  It seems this began in 2007, but apparently is still making rounds.