Ask HN: Chinese domain name registration center, maybe scam?
2 bryanrasmussen 4 8/28/2025, 8:18:23 AM
I got the following email, it seems like a scam in some way but not seeing it. What do I need to be worried about here?
>We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China. We received an application from Kai Rui Ltd on August 25, 2025. They want to register " nissestyrelsen " as their Internet Keyword and " nissestyrelsen .cn "、" nissestyrelsen .com.cn " 、" nissestyrelsen .net.cn "、" nissestyrelsen .org.cn " domain names. But after checking it, we find " nissestyrelsen " conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, so we send you email and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China or not?
Here's the site: https://nissestyrelsen.dk/
I don't really have any plans to do anything in China with it.
But what is the point?
Making money by selling you a bunch of domain names that you don't need.
If any of your org's managers want to play it safe by spending the money, remind them that there are hundreds of TLD's, to run up the annual cost of that strategy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_dom... And that registrars for most of those are free to "receive applications" for close variants of your domain name. And to develop subscription "monitoring services". And other upsells.
(And no, I would not trust your email's claim about "an application from Kai Rui Ltd on August 25, 2025". Even if technically true - it'd be trivial for that Kai Rui Ltd to be tiny shell company, which did nothing but send out thousands of such "applications" every hour.)