Geoffrey Jennings, co-owner and corporate counsel at Rainy Day Books, Fairway, Kans., reported the bookstore recently received an e-mail "that touched a particular nerve with me. Intellectual property and related litigation happen to be my areas of interest."

The message, from Shanghai Chooke Network Information Technology Co., Ltd, "the domain name register center in China," claimed that it had "received an application formally, one company named 'Tengfeng (China) Investment Co., Ltd' applies for the domain names (www.rainydaybooks.com.cn www.rainydaybooks.asia etc.), and the Internet keyword (rainydaybooks) on the internet Mar 17, 2009. We need to know the opinion of your company because the domain names and keyword may relate to the copyright of brand name on internet. we would like to get the affirmation of your company, please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible."
 
Jennings responded by noting that the "company in question has no affiliation with our company. We will immediately litigate any infringement of our trademark through ICANN and/or US Federal Court."

The subsequent reply threatened that if the owners of Rainy Day Books ever wanted to do business in Asia, they should consider acting to protect their company and would be given "priority to register these domain names."

In his analysis of the exchange, Jennings observed that this "is an attempt by would-be cybersquatters to preemptively generate revenue from existing website operators. See powells.cn, borders.cn, bn.cn, etc. These domains have already been seized by entities unknown in Asia. It would appear that this company wants to generate revenue by registering and 'protecting' domains for U.S. businesses. This may or may not be legitimate, but their tactics suggest extreme caution in communicating with them. In all likelihood, any payment to them would be the tip of a nightmare. If anyone wants to register foreign variations on their web address, there are far more legitimate companies to do business with. My suggestion is to ignore any such inquiry entirely."