Before going futher, here’s a copy of their email to me:

Dear novo-ops:
We are Shanghai Chooke Network Information Technology Co.,Ltd,which is the domain name register center in China.I have something need to confirm with you.
We have received an application formally.one company named “Wanda (China) Investment Co.,Ltd” applies for the domain names(www.novo-ops.cn www.novo-ops.com.cn etc.),and the Internet keyword(novo-ops) on the internet July 31,2009.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.

Kind Regards,
Alex.Tao
Tel: +86-21-62416070
Fax: +86-21-62597835
Email:alex.tao@chooke.org.cn
Shanghai Chooke Network Information Technology Co., Ltd
website:www.chooke.org.cn

At first glance, it appears as if some domain speculator in China is trying to register versions of my domain name under the .cn top level domain. It’s awfully nice that the good folks at Shanghai Chooke Network Information Technology are looking out for me.

Of course, the fact they are trying to register “novo-ops” with a hyphen, rather than “novoops” without a hyphen, is the first clue that this seems a little less than authentic.  Also suspicious is their claim that this supposed company is trying to register my “Internet keyword”.   That’s mildly amusing; I suspect that would be a good pause for concern if such Internet keywords actually existed. Lastly, I know of no registrars that do any such checking before allowing the registration of a domain name. None. Zip. Nada.

A little research on the Internet seems to reveal that the purpose of this scam is to scare domain owners into registering additional domain names. So, if you get such an email, I’d recommend filing it with all the other domain name registration scams that have come before…in the trash.

If you’d like to read a bit more about this scam, here’s a couple of other good links…

• Mark Turner Dot Net – AsiaDNR and the domain name scam
• Unfiltered – In This Morning’s Inbox: Clever Domain Name Spam