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Apparent Fraud: Domain Name Survey

I suppose there is a small chance that the following is genuine.  

But it looks like this guy is spamming all domain name contacts trying to get 
info to set himself or his company (PEWC Telecommunications Co. Ltd.) in 
the domain name reselling business.  Why am I suspicious?

(1) Anything that says "this is not X" has a high probability of being X.
(2) The message was sent from Hong Kong (hkstar.com), not from the ITU.
(3) He got IANA wrong.
(4) It just smells like the kind of questions you would ask if you were 
looking for people interested in selling their domain name with a thin
venier of disguise. And then there is the stuff in there about the domain 
name "gold rush" how the "study group" has found that  all existing domain 
name re-sellers overcharge for their services! 
(5) It doesn't have lots of other obvious questions you might ask to, 
for example,  help out the IAHC.  Like how many TLDs you think would be 
reasonable or if  only one more TLD was being created, what should it be, 
etc.
(6) Reading this guy's resume at http://home.hkstar.com/~pewc/daniel.html 
you find it says "entreprenur" all over it and mentions his ITU address 
and that he reads ITU TIES (apparently an ITU publication) but gives
no indication that he currently holds or has even held any position at the
ITU.  Yet if he had, I would think it would be prominently listed. 

I suspect his guy is just abusing his ITU email address to pass himself off
as an ITU Reseasrch Assistant while abusing the net with unsolicted email to
drum up business and that the ITU and hkstar.com should cancel his accounts
immediately and the ITU look into their policies on opening accounts for 
people as name@itu.ch. If the ITU wants to set up mail accounts for 
non-official people, maybe it should be name@unofficial.itu.ch or 
something...   (I'm contacting other parties by direct mail.)

Donald 
=====================================================================
Donald E. Eastlake 3rd     +1 508-287-4877(tel)     dee@cybercash.com
   318 Acton Street        +1 508-371-7148(fax)     dee@world.std.com
Carlisle, MA 01741 USA     +1 703-620-4200(main office, Reston, VA)
http://www.cybercash.com           http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html

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From: daniel.chun@itu.ch
To: "Internet Domain Name Survey" <daniel.chun@itu.ch>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 11:16:24 +0000
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Subject: Domain Name Survey
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Nov 29, 1996				   Domain Study  Group

Dear Domain Owner and Administrator,

This is not a junk e-mail, you receive this e-mail because you have been carefully selected
from InterNIC's WHOIS database to respond to a survey conducted by a voluntary study
group in parallel with various initiatives from bodies including  International Telecommunications 
Union (ITU), Internet Society (ISOC) and Internet Assigned Numbers Association (IANA). 
Due to the phenomenal growth of the Internet, the authorities have acknowledged the high 
demand for domain names. In September 1996 alone, InterNIC has received 75,213 applications
for registering for second level domain names including .COM .NET .ORG .GOV and .EDU

In the Internet universe, the gold rush for domain names is happening, there are individuals
speculating domain names and  there are various ISPs or individuals involving themselves
in trading and brokering domain names. 

Examples of such can be found in the following sites:

	www.domainmart.com
	www.bestdomain.com
	www.domaindealers.com

Our study group has found that typically, these services charges the Domain Owners a
one-time sign up fee of US$10-$100 and then they charge a commission of 5%-25% of 
the transaction value of the domain name. This amount could be very high if the domain 
name transaction involves high stake (eg. For a sale value of US$25,000 10% commission
will be US$ 2,500). Furthermore, we also observed that the charges for the services provided
are not necessarily equitable to the cost of delivering the service. In another words, the service 
delivered for a US$500 transaction and a US$25,000 is the same.

In light of the situation, this study group would like to conduct a survey which require 
you to reply to this e-mail.

Please put a cross (eg. X)  in the underlined area to indicate your response.

1. Are you one of the following ?
__   	Domain owner		
__ 	Domain administrator (eg. technical, billing, administrative contact)
	
2. Will you offer your Domain for sale ?
__ 	Yes				
__ 	No				
__ 	Depends on Sale Value			

3. What price do you think your Domain is worth ?
__ 	Priceless					
__ 	USD 0        < P < USD 1,000		
__ 	USD 1,000 < P < USD 5,000		
__ 	USD 5,000 < P < USD 10,000		
__ 	USD 10,000  < P				

3) How will you go about selling your Domain ?
__ 	Through Domain Brokers		
__ 	Personal Selling  			
__ 	Directory Services (listing, public forum)		

If this study group propose a Directory Service to the authorities to provide a forum, 
similar to a database service (eg. InterNIC's WHOIS database) for Domain Names on 
non-profit making nature. This will help promote the value of domain names, and promote
 growth in the use of domain names and yet indirectly imposing control mechanism to the
 brokering of domain names by establishing an open forum. This will promoting the value 
of transacting domains without involving in the transaction itself thereby collecting high 
commission.

The cost of providing the service will be compensated by a one-time nominal charge to
 fund the ongoing research, development and administration of the web site and services.

4. What price level do you as a Domain Owner and Administrator do you 
believe is acceptable (For your information,  InterNIC currently charges US$ 50
 one-time fee for domain registration)
__ 	US$ 5   - US$ 10	
__ 	US$ 11 - US$ 15		
__ 	US$ 16 - US$ 20		
__ 	US$ 21 - US$ 25
__ 	US$ 25 - US$ 30		

5. What service level do you see as important for this Directory Services
__ 	Web User Interface and Functionality		
__ 	Bandwidth of the Directory Service		
__ 	Effectiveness of selling your Domain		
__ 	Please suggest  _____________________________________


6) Will you be willing to pay by credit card ?
__ 	Yes
__ 	No					


7) If answer to 6 is Yes, Which method of giving your card details do you prefer ?
__ 	by Internet email		
__ 	by Internet Commerce 			
__ 	by fax				
__ 	by ordinary mail			

8) If No, what other methods do you prefer in settling payment for the service?
__ 	by cheque					
__ 	by wire transfer				
__ 	Others, please suggest  ___________________________________


We dearly appreciate you taking time to complete this survey, we will anticipate to 
collect most of these responses before Christmas. And we will forward any subsequent 
compilation of the survey results probably in January 1997. If there is any other comments, 
please forward it to my address at ITU.

Cordially,

Daniel Chun
Research Assistant
Internet: daniel.chun@itu.ch