COM.DE—Germany’s new TLD—is now available for General Registration. There are no local contact or German residency requirements, and anyone can register a COM.DE domain name. If you are doing business, or are planning to do business in Germany, now is the time to get your COM.DE.

If you have any questions about COM.DE, contact your Safenames account manager or call Safenames customer service at +44-1-908-200022 or +1-703-574-5313. Existing customers can register within their Safenames account: https://idp.safenames.com/login.aspx.

If you receive an e-mail or a postal letter entitled “Final Notice of Domain Listing”—or a similar renewal notice from an unknown company—please disregard it; it’s a scam. The sender is attempting to get you to unknowingly transfer your domain(s) to another registrar or worse, steal your money. There are so many (too many to list) domain name related scams circulating the Internet these days, targeting unsuspecting registrants. Scammers are mining the WHOIS database searching for businesses and individuals that will pay for “expiring” (wink, wink) domain names—and these people pay because they simply don’t know any better and are afraid their domains will actually expire. It’s important to disregard any correspondence you receive that includes language such as “domain name search engine registration,” “search engine registration,” or “must renew.” All legitimate domain name renewal communications will come directly from your registrar. If you are a Safenames customer your account is likely on auto-renew and no action is required for the renewal of your domains. If you ever have any questions about materials/correspondence you receive, contact your Safenames account manager or call Safenames customer service at +44-1-908-200022 or +1-703-574-5313.

The registry for .QA (Qatar) launched the General Availability period over the weekend (Sunday, September 4^th). Domains are being awarded on a first come, first served basis. Now is the time to order your .QA domain(s) if you: (1) are doing business or plan to do business in Qatar; (2) would like to register a vanity domain for quality assurance testing; or (3) want to host a question and answer page on your web site.

You can place orders from within your Safenames IDP account now. Applicants are not required to provide company registration information, trademark documents or local contact presence. The only requirement during General Availability is that the domain be at least 2 characters in length.

Phase 2 of the COM.DE launch, the Landrush Period, will begin at 5:00 pm CEST July 25, 2011 and continue through 5:00 pm CEST August 26, 2011. The Landrush is open to any company or individual wishing to register a COM.DE domain name where that domain name was not previously registered or applied for during the Sunrise Process, or excluded by the Registry. If two or more Applicants submit an Application during this phase for an identical domain name, the allocation of the domain name will be determined by auction in which case, only the Applicants who have submitted a Landrush request will be allowed to participate.

The COM.DE extension has no German local presence requirements. Additionally, the registry will not withhold any premium names, or one-character or two-character domains from being registered.

During the Landrush period, it will be $570 to register a COM.DE.

If you have any questions regarding COM.DE, you may contact the Safenames UK office at +44 1908 200022 and emeasales@safenames.net, or the Safenames US office at +1.703.574.5313 and nasales@safenames.net.

The Sunrise period for .QA domains and the Arabic Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) extension .قطر begins July 18^th.  Safenames is directly accredited with the Qatar Domains Registry (QDR).  Previously, only COM.QA, NET.QA and ORG.QA were available for registration and each required a Local Contact presence in Qatar.  Now any company doing business in Qatar can register a domain in .QA or .قطر without having a local presence. 

Safenames recommends that companies doing business in Qatar should have their BRAND.QA domain and their BRAND .قطر domain.   Alternatively, .QA domains can be used to present a Question & Answer web page or to present a Quality Assurance test site.

Registration Requirements:

In addition to having documentation for a nationally recognized trademark, registrants must also:

• Order a domain that is three (3) characters or more.
• Ensure that the first and last character of the domain name is a letter, special characters are not permitted at the beginning or end of the .QA or .قطر domain name.
• Ensure that their domain names do not containing words, abbreviations, or phrases that are potentially offensive, obscene, indecent, or contrary to the Qatari Law or Islamic morality.

Sunrise Registration Fees for the Initial One (1) Year Registration:

• NIC Fee: $100
• Sunrise processing fee: $150

If you would like to apply for a .QA domain or a .قطر domain, you may order online through your Safenames IDP account.  You may also contact Safenames in the UK at +44 1908 200022 and emeasales@safenames.net, or in the US at +1.703.574.5313 and nasales@safenames.net.

If you received an e-mail from a Chinese company stating that another company has inquired about registering your brand in country code domains like .CN, .TW, or .HK, — YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  We have received many calls from customers who are concerned about these types of e-mails because thy often find their way to an executive’s inbox. “Selling fear” is a common tactic used by these dubious companies.  In fact, even registrars are not immune to these deceptive e-mails.  Safenames just received the following e-mail:

=====================================================

Dear Manager,

(If you are not in charge of this please transfer this email to your President or appropriate person, thanks)

We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On June 27, 2011, we received an application from Hanxing company requested “safenames” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China?

Kind regards,

Bruce Cheng

Bruce Cheng

Registration Department Manager 

Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road, 
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China

Tel: +86 216191 8696 Mobile: +86 182219 51605 Fax: +86 216191 8697

Web: www.yiguangov.org
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What Should I Do If I receive a this email or a similar one? 

First, do not panic.  Second, do not contact the registrar sending the e-mail.  Another company is not actually “applying” to register a domain name with your brand.  Cyber squatting is a common practice in the .CN, .HK, and .TW top-level domains.   Domains are registered at the time they are ordered; there is no application period.  Unlike the Sunrise Period of a newly launched TLD, there is no approval process to give trademark holders a chance for a domain that has been ordered. 

Is There Anything Positive about These E-mails?

Yes, this e-mail is an excellent reminder to protect your online brand(s) and review your company’s domain registration practices.  You should contact your Safenames account manager to review your global domain name strategy and decide if registering additional country code domains would allow you to improve the marketing of your products and services regionally and protect your global web traffic.    

If you would like to discuss a global domain strategy, you may contact the Safenames UK office at +44 1908 200022 and emeasales@safenames.net, or the Safenames US office at +1.703.574.5313 and nasales@safenames.net.