Domains are cheap and easy to register, and marketing of otherwise low value domains can be so profitable that spammers simply cannot resist the opportunity.
Our favorite example currently goes by the name of “Arthur Simmons” from “InTrust Domains” but the personal and business aliases this spammer users are no doubt very many indeed.
We’ve seen this spammer send domain sales notices from a variety of email addresses, including:
- Arthur Simmons <arthur@dni-domainsales.net>
- Arthur Simmons <arthur@hostingbulb.net>
- Arthur Simmons <arthur@trafficpad.net>
- Arthur Simmons <arthur@spiritedconceptsinc.net>
- Arthur Simmons <arthur@ideathreads.net>
- Arthur Simmons <arthur@alterconcepts.net>
- Arthur Simmons <arthur@valuealmanac.net>
And that’s just a small sampling. The domains used by this spammer are all recently registered, all redirect to the same spam landing pages, and are all easily disposable and thus likely to change in the near future.
Most of the emails claim a business address in Colorado Springs, which could be:
InTrust Domains
4845 Peal East Circle, Ste 101
Boulder, CO 80301
or
InTrust Domains
PO Box 88049
Boulder, CO 80908
The phone number of 303-800-0310 is occasionally published as well.
Regardless of which Arthur Simmons is spamming you today, the pitch always revolves around some new domain name that’s become available and that’s horrifically overpriced:
Click for Larger Image
Amusingly, this spammer adds a statement toward the bottom of the spam to try and convince you that his spam is some sort of legitimate and desirable domain alerting notice, and provides a link to presumably unsubscribe. You can be sure that using the unsubscribe link provided will not unsubscribe you from anything. Instead, we can guarantee you that a spammer like this will abuse your address even more, confident in the proven fact that you not only read your spam, but are willing to click on what could be dangerous hyperlinks contained in your spam.
Related posts:
… since Sunday we get daily spam mails from Mr. Simmons addressed to the new Producer Forum (www.p-forum.org) just set up on the web couple of weeks ago.
Important to know: Its not only spamming. Its under legal aspects much more, its a business practice of Domain grapping which must be understood as unconscionability and unconscionability and needfulness (= illegal business practise via immoral contracts (contra bonos mores)).
Simmons ( appearing to us via dni-domainsales.biz domain) likes to set us under pressure by daily mails announcing to registrate very soon during next days a US TLD *.com (top level domain). But: we are already copyright owner in Europe as the owner of a European domain (and by this registration not only covering the copyright in European Union).
You must know: registrated Domains which cover an international appearance (e.g. by two language site) have global copyright protection regularly.* For example: If somebody would like to registrate coke.in for the national market in India so fare this domain would be available in India (which is no more
) this person would hurt the copyright owner ship of Coca Cola in USA, as they own coke.com already. Clear because of “danger of confusion” so the law/court would argument… (Rec.: Of course the lawyers of Coca Cola registrated coke.com and routed it forward to the official brand name coca-cola.com and of course they same they own coke.in . Such big concerns have internal departments dealing such domains daily within their complexe brand architecture.). So dont try to registrate Gooogle.com just using the benefit from Google.com image. This would be illegal even Google would not need to registrate gooogle.com for protecting their copyrights. So it has to be: some little moral in fair businesses. (Rec.: Of course Google guys registrated gooogle.com because they know that by typing error its clever to offer the user a fowarding to the real domain. And same like with Coke: Google can afford to registrate many thousand domains per year.)
Smaller organisations cannot afford to registrate all TOP LEVEL DOMAIN endings worldwide, too time and cost intensive and its not required. Not at all… as said, so fare no copyright infrightment exist in the real world one single TLD registration regularly protects all other TLD endings, depending on different factors (e.g. size of the business/market).
In our case it is as we use the platform internationally you can see it in the footer of the p-forum.org portal site and we broadcast globally radio/tv we have copyright protection automatically.
——————–
*) IMPORTANT: This should not be a cost free online consulting for law aspects. Contact a local media lawyer who is specialist in brands, patents, copyright issues as (s)he knows the details and will consult you individually in your specific case.
In consequence by advice of our media attorney: we will contact the national NIC inspection authority and inform them about these illegal practices of Mr. Simmons to take away his status as official domain registrant. In your specific case, you should do it, too. Such people have to be stopped.
Mr. Simmons obviously is practising heavily “domain grapping” and “insider dealings” as he or the company behind him has by his/its status as Domain registrant deeper and quicker access to the global domain database and gets easily informations about new registrated domains who are not registrating all domain endings *.com, *.net; *.biz; *.org etc. … (only global concerns can afford it).
Again: People should know that mostly registrating a domain automatically creates a copyright ownership on the name (sometimes only for the domain name, sometimes same for the company name or for the personal family name), so fare the domain name on its own does not hurt former and existing copyrights. Yes, copyright is a very complicated thing.
From case to case specific details decide about the concrete law situation. Anyhow: Internationally domains have copyright protection same on their own as company / brand names. So you could registrate a domain for a pure online shop which has a different name than your business. In our case we are 100% copyright owner. No doubt…
And not enough: Mr. Simmons from Colorado Springs obviously likes to use psychological methods to set new domain owners under pressure by stealing available domain endings (e.g. if somebody registrates the domainname.org he registrates domainname.biz) and warning the owners via daily spamming to offer the identical domain name for sales on the market. That’s an illegal act we can say “similar / close to Mafia business methods” (less in legal terms: contra bonos mores). And nothing to laugh about…
So if you have some similar cases best you contact the national Domain registration authority via Fax letter (emails are not recognized front court) and let them know. The NICs control internationally every domain dealer. For example for *.com it is the InterNIC – http://www.internic.net/ (a registered service mark of the U.S. Department of Commerce).
For other TOP LEVEL DOMAIN ENDINGS see here and check which NIC organisation is relevant for your specific case. Normally each country only has one single central national NIC : http://www.norid.no/domenenavnbaser/domreg.html . Don’t hesitate to inform the authorities about Mr. Aruthur Simmons methods from Colorado Springs and about the companies who are behind him (see P.S.).
Hope that gives more orientation… tks giving attention.
Lothar Maier (aka ElJay Arem)
- Founder of the Producer Forum -.
P.S.: We have been contacted by Mr. Arthur Simons via arthur@dni-domainsales.biz , InTrust Domains PO Box 88049, Coloardo Springs, CO 80908 (Rec.: The domain is routed then forward to http://dnidomainsales.com with official owner: Domain Names International (DBA InTrust Domains), Colorado Springs – 11605 Meridian Market View #124-134, Falcon, CO 80831. Tel.: 1-303-800-0310 – email: support@intrustdomains.com ).
http://www.nic.com/nic/whois/ shows the ownership of these domains registrated by CRYSTAL COAL, INC. and by Moniker ONline Services, LLC. Its obvious that by many participated companies / registrants this “illegal business ” shall be protected against investigations…
Domain Name: DNI-DOMAINSALES.BIZ
Domain ID: D39288723-BIZ
Sponsoring Registrar: MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES, LLC
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 228
Registrar URL (registration services): whois.moniker.com
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Registrant ID: MONIKER2654960
Registrant Name: Moniker Privacy Services
Registrant Organization: Moniker Privacy Services
Registrant Address1: 20 SW 27th Ave.
Registrant Address2: Suite 201
Registrant City: Pompano Beach
Registrant State/Province: FL
Registrant Postal Code: 33069
Registrant Country: United States
Registrant Country Code: US
Registrant Phone Number: +1.9549848445
Registrant Facsimile Number: +1.9549699155
Registrant Email: DNI-DOMAINSALES.BIZ@domainservice.com
Administrative Contact ID: MONIKER2654960
Administrative Contact Name: Moniker Privacy Services
Administrative Contact Organization: Moniker Privacy Services
Administrative Contact Address1: 20 SW 27th Ave.
Administrative Contact Address2: Suite 201
Administrative Contact City: Pompano Beach
Administrative Contact State/Province: FL
Administrative Contact Postal Code: 33069
Administrative Contact Country: United States
Administrative Contact Country Code: US
Administrative Contact Phone Number: +1.9549848445
Administrative Contact Facsimile Number: +1.9549699155
Administrative Contact Email: DNI-DOMAINSALES.BIZ@domainservice.com
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Worth noting that the bbb listing for this company has a Ken Palm as the managing partner. A little research into Mr. Palm turns up this:
http://www.obliquity.com/computer/spambait/domaintasting.html
The number listed on the bbb site for intrust goes into an unconfigured voice mail and hangs up on you.