It has come to my attention this year that two other businesses related to astrology with Astrolearn in their domain names have lately sprung up around the web.
If it were not for the fact that their customers have been frequently confusing my domain with theirs, I would be content to completely ignore these developments. However, it has lately got beyond a joke.
This past summer, I received a negative review on Google Reviews from an Indian gentleman I have never had any association with, who reported that he did not receive a course he had paid for, a course I have never offered and had not heard of before he mentioned it. I tracked the course in question to one of the other Astrolearns that have sprung up recently, and pointed out his error in response, respectfully asking him to kindly remove his misleading review as he had left it for the wrong business. He did not.
I’ve also received multiple comments and contact form messages from customers for one or more of the other Astrolearns that have nothing to do with my business, and have courteously taken time out of my work schedule to respond to each of these and redirect these people to the correct businesses. But this really does not feel like a good use of my time.
I would therefore kindly ask the proprietors of the website astrolearn[dot]co, whose domain appears to have been newly registered in April 2024, to advise all their customers that they are not associated with astrolearn.com in any respect, and that they should address reviews and complaints for their products only to their personnel.
As yet, I have not had any trouble from customers for an app offered on astrolearn[dot]io, whose domain appears to have been registered for the first time in July 2023, just over a year ago at the time of writing. But they might conceivably also in some cases become confused by the similarity of the domain name to mine in the future. Again, I have no connection with this business, and have never met its directors, nor do I produce any apps.
For the record, Astrolearn.com has been live as a website since the summer of 2014. It was also a registered business in Sweden from early 2014 onwards, and the branding is prominently featured on the DVD and CD ranges I produced in that era. The domain name is one I’ve personally registered and reregistered for over 20 years since the Spring of 2004 when I first had the vision for my website.
While it is true that the concept of astrological learning is a generic one, and Astrolearn is an obvious contraction of this, I do believe reasonable steps should be taken by other businesses that have since sprung up with web presences with the same name as mine to avoid their customers confusing their brands, websites and reviews pages with mine, and to make clear that their businesses are not in any way associated with mine.
Philip Graves, December 4th 2024
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