Domain Name Question?

TheBoffin

I have purchased some domain names last year (.com / .net / .org / .co.uk / .ie) in relation to an ongoing project.

I have had a demanding letter from a company in the USA advising me to transfer the domain names to them by a certain date and they would cover my "reasonable" costs for doing it.

Do I have any legal obligation to do this for the domain names or is it scaremongering?

I have a company registered in UK and IRL for both .ie and .co.uk names.

Any advise is much appreciated.

Moonstar

It's rubbish, they're trying to make a quick buck.

Try to do some research on the company first to gauge how valuable the name might be to them, then double your price and see what they say :-p

Montallie

The only thing is, could there be a trademark problem with your name?
Even if there is, you would need to suss it all out before you agreed to anything like was in the email. You may need to get legal advice from people who know about domain names. Most of the big domain forums have lawyers attached to them and the ordinary members seem to be very knowledgeable. I would recommend DNForum.com, NamePros.com, DomainState.com (there is a membership charge for the first one).

There is also something called reverse hijacking, where companies try to take domain names without having to pay for them. So if this is not just a simple scam letter, you definitely may need to take advice.

Sometimes when you register a name, you will get a letter (or email) from another group asking you to go over to their registry. The tone of the content is often as if it were legal, and then you will see, somewhere, a line in tiny print saying that you are not obliged to follow this letter (email). So read it all over again very carefully before you think about taking any action. Hope it works out for you.

fcolor

This company might be a scammer that wants to snatch your names. If they appeared just like that you don't have to pay attention... unless there is a legal issue, an International trademark and etc.