Monthly Archives: December 2008

Fri 19th December 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Today We Call Out Jimmy Choo For Attempted Reverse Domain Hijacking: Why Is There No Penalty For This? - Anyone who reads this blog knows we are squarely again blatant trademark infringing domains, the companies and platforms that sell them, and those who buy them. However, we are also strongly opposed to large companies trying to take advantage of their wealth, power and ability to pay large legal fees to basically steal domains they have no right to. He is a case of one such company, Jimmy Choo, the maker of fine footwear made even more famous by Sex in The City. So here’s the story. Jimmy Choo ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
3 Of The 4 Cables Carrying a Internet From Asia to North America Break - Interoute, the internet networks company, reports that three of the four internet sub-cables that run from Asia to North America have been damaged. The cables carry more than 75 percent of traffic between the Middle East, Europe and America. The AP is reporting mass outages in Egypt as of an hour ago. Major sub-sea cables break once a year. So companies have developed a fall-back plan. If one sub-sea cable is out, traffic is re-routed onto a second cable. In theory, a dual break, where both cables ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Barclays: 2009 Ad Market To Be Worse Than Post 9/11; Bright Spot Internet Advertising - According to new report by Barclays, Domestic ad spending is expected to drop 10% next year,  worse than the declines felt in both the 1991 and 2001 recessions. The 10% figure comes a little over two months after Barclays pegged next year’s decline at the considerably lesser 5.5%. Barclays said in 2010, spending should increase 1%. The 1991 recession caused a 1.9% decline, while the 2001 slowdown brought a 6.2% decrease. Barclays’ now predicts that the decline next year, will be far greater ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Analysis: U.S. Government Has Domainers’ Backs - Documents from U.S. Government question ICANN’s actions. You’ve probably read a lot about ICANN’s introduction of new top level domains. Now, as reported over at DNJournal, the U.S. Government is weighing in. Domainers should be happy with its response. I just completed reading the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Commerce responses to ICANN’s plans. These are perhaps the most knowledgeable and well crafted responses to the plan I’ve seen, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Demand Media Wants to Introduce New Domain Names - Demand Media wants to offer new top level domain names using its eNom registrar. The owner of the world’s second largest domain registrar, eNom, plans to apply to ICANN to offer new top level domains. That’s the only plausible assumption based on the company’s one-sided comments to ICANN about the proposed new gTLDs. The comments were filed a couple days late, but are very thorough and cover every module. The company was in favor of every provision that will ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Suggest Companies for 4th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey - Fill in the gaps: suggest missing answers for domain name survey. It’s the end of the year, which means it’s almost time for the 4th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey. Every year after the results are released, I am inevitably am contact by a company asking why it wasn’t listed as an option in a particular category. Starting last year I invited readers to “nominate” a company for each category, and I’m going to do the same thing this time. Please read each ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
BuyDomains Turning on End of Year Sales Pressure - Now might be a good time to strike a deal with BuyDomains. If you’ve had your eye on a domain at BuyDomains, now might be a good time to negotiate a deal. Over the past two days I’ve received four messages from BuyDomains with subjects ranging from “Let’s negotiate a great deal during the final days of 2008!” to “Andrew, call to negotiate great deals in 2008!” It seems like BuyDomains is pushing to get its sales numbers up to close 2008, which means ... read more ...
Thu 18th December 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CADNA Membership Increased 80% in 2008 - The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) announced today that Goldman, Sachs Co. and New York Life Insurance Company are its newest members. CADNA also announced that their membership increased 80% in 2008. “”””This is clear evidence that more businesses recognize the need to speak out about domain name abuse, including cybersquatting, phishing, and domain name tasting. With the support of its member companies, CADNA is eager to address domain name abuses in 2009.””” “”””A ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
More Top .ME On The Auction Block At DomainFest - The .ME Registry announced today five top .ME domains will go up for LIVE auction at DOMAINfest Global ’09 in Hollywood, Calif. DOMAINfest Global ’09 is set to take place Jan. 27-30, 2009, at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. The five .ME domains available are: Contact.Me, Read.Me, Feed.Me, Alert.Me, Save.Me These .ME domains will be available in the LIVE auction, which is scheduled to take place on Thursday, Jan. 29, from 1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST (4:30-8:00 ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
New Poll: More Women Would Rather Go Without Sex Than The Internet - According to a poll by Harris Interactive, spnosored by Intel, of 2,119 adults, found that, 46% of the women  said they’d be willing to forgo sex for two weeks, rather than give up their Internet access. While only 30 percent of the men surveyed were willing to do likewise. For women 18-34 years old, 49% would skip sex rather than the internet, and for men aged 18-34 it climbed to 39%. The same poll also found that 87% said the Internet saves them money. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
PokerHost.net Owner Wins Reverse Domain Hijacking Charge - Russ “Dutch” Boyd gets a royal flush. Dutch Boyd cleans up atthe tables and WIPO. Last month I wrote about arbitration proceedings for the domain PokerHost.net. The complainant — online poker company Poker Host Inc which operates PokerHost.com — seemed to be fudging dates in its filing. The arbitrator agreed, finding in favor of respondent Russ “Dutch” Boyd, and also found Poker Host Inc. guilty of reverse domain name hijacking because of its fuzzy use ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Frank Schilling Tests New Domain Parking Templates - Schilling’s Name Administration tests new parking templates. Mike Cohen of WannaDevelop.com has made some interesting observations about Frank Schilling’s parked domains. It seems that Schilling is testing some new designs. Here’s what a typical Name Administration (owned by Schilling) domain that I come across looks like: You have a relevant graphical header, 5 keyword tabs along the top, a section of either direct ad links or related keywords, related keywords ... read more ...
Wed 17th December 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Microsoft Issues Emergency Fix For Explorer - According to reports, Microsoft is issuing an emergency fix for a security hole in Internet Explorer that has exposed millions of users to having their computers taken over by hackers. The “zero-day” vulnerability, which came to light last week, allows criminals to take over victims’ machines simply by steering them to infected Web sites; users don’t have to download anything for their computers to get infected, which makes the flaw in Internet Explorer’s programming code so dangerous. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainHack.er in FR and tagged
Polémique sur la libéralisation des domaines Internet - Au mois de juin dernier, l'ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), cette organisation chargée de superviser la gestion des suffixes Internet, avait annoncé la libéralisation des noms de domaines. A ce jour, les TLD (Top Level Domain) sont peu nombreux (.com, .fr, .net...) et pour redynamiser le marché l'ICANN souhaiterait que chacun ait la possibilité d'acheter directement l'extension de son choix. Paul Twomey, PDG de l'ICANN avait alors déclaré : « dès le premier ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Room To Grow: Most US Businesses Do Not Buy Search Advertising - The Silicon Valley Insider, is reporting on a new online survey which showed that 59% of responding small businesses with Web sites still don’t buy search advertising, usually because they worry it will be too expensive or not “the best use of their marketing budgets.” Here are the rest of the findings of a the survey which was sponsored by Microsoft: 59% of small businesses with Web sites don’t currently use any paid search marketing Of those, 90% have never even attempted it. 70% of small ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy To Shut Down Standard Tactics, LLC - Standard Tactics and 60-day lock discussed on Radio Go Daddy. I just concluded my interview with Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons on his internet radio show. It is available for on demand listening RadioGoDaddy.com. Perhaps the biggest news that came out of the interview is that GoDaddy is effectively shutting down Standard Tactics. Parsons said it had about 33,000 domains in the subsidiary and 8,000 that made most of the money. This is lower than I privately estimated ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft, Time Warner, Others Weigh In On New TLDs - A quick synopsis of public comments about new top level domains. The deadline to comment on the latest revisions of ICANN’s plan for introducing new top level domains was Monday. As is usually the case, the big companies waited until the last minute to file their comments. The general consensus is: 1. We don’t like the trademark implications 2. There’s no need to add more TLDs (save for IDNs) as they won’t actually create competition for .com 3. Don’t ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Recognizing a Trademark Domain Name Scam - If you get an email like this, hit the delete button. Let’s take a quick look at a common domain name scam that is very effective. I know it’s effective because over the past year I’ve received e-mails from smart friends who are CEOs of companies here in Austin asking if these emails are legitimate. The scam is a trademark scam, where a company emails you saying someone is trying to register domains that include your trademark, and wants to offer you the ... read more ...
Tue 16th December 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
They Listen: GoDaddy Changes Pricing Policy On TDNAM Auctions - As DomainNameWire.com reported today, Godaddy has changed their minimum bidding policies on TDNAM expired domain auctions after a few posts ran criticizing Godaddy.com for the practice both on Andrew’s site and on this blog. Godaddy now has reduced all minimum prices on TDNAM auctions to $10. Last week DomainNameWire.com pointed out that the practice of having variable starting pricing for TDNAM domains with traffic and PPC earnings were placing Godaddy in a position where it was basically bidding ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Changes Expired Domain Pricing - In response to Standard Tactics coverage, GoDaddy has changed starting bids on TDNAM auctions. Last week I mentioned that GoDaddy was making a change to its TDNAM auctions based on some of my commentary on Standard Tactics. In my commentary I had suggested that, by setting minimum bid prices higher than the standard $10 bid price, GoDaddy was effectively bidding against its customers on TDNAM. In response, GoDaddy has changed how it prices expired domains. All domains ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Domain Sales Booming as Parking Flounders - Despite parking meltdown, Sedo’s sales success keeps it on the right path. AdLINK Group, parent organization of Sedo, recently released its quarterly financial report (pdf). Despite a weak environment for domain parking revenue, the company seems to be holding its own in the current downturn. Sales for the first nine months of 2008 are down 5.4% compared to the same period last year, with sales of EUR 42.4M. However, when you factor in adverse exchange rate ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Answering a Question “What do we do?” - It’s a tough question for domainers. A couple days ago Austinite and online entrepreneur Neville Medhora blogged about a tough question he gets: “what do you do for a living?” “Hi. I’m Neville, I Own A Rave Company.” OK, so he doesn’t really own a rave company. But he has a drop ship site that sells lights that you might find at a rave (or in a dorm room). When I met Neville at an event in Austin earlier this year, I of course asked him what he did. ... read more ...
 
Written by The MediaWizard's Blog in EN
An Insider’s Guide to NamePros - Namepros is the biggest and most popular Domain and Web Forum on the planet. It is a fantastic resource for domainers, web developers, web hosts, designers, seo specialist and anyone else connected with domains and web development. It is an essential stop in the online arsenal of many a smart webmaster. Being a part of the community and using it for selling your services and domains is really easy as the userbase is huge and fairly varied in terms of background, geo location and financial ... read more ...
Mon 15th December 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Is Google Still In Favor Of Net Neutrality Or Are They Working To Get In The Fast Lane - According to a report by the Wall Street Journal today, Google who has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers, known as network neutrality, has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content Google . Network Neutrality under lying principle is that all companies that operated data pipelines, like cable and phone companies, are supposed to treat all traffic the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Push Against “Variable Domain Pricing” Gets Media Attention - Network World picks up variable domain pricing story. Domain owners have been commenting on ICANN’s proposed new gTLD structure including the potential for “variable pricing”, and the technology media is starting to pick it up. Today Network World published a story titled “New top-level domain plan dangerous, too costly, critics tell ICANN” that summarizes criticism of the plan. Although most of it discusses trademark concerns, the story also mentions a ... read more ...