Domaingate Scandal in Florida Congressional Election

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Andy

Ever since “Chad-Gate” in the 2000 Presidential elections, Florida has been no stranger to election controversies. But a candidate’s campaign buying up domains that are names of all the other opposing candidates to spread “disinformation” is probably a first. This is what is happening in Florida’s GOP primary race to replace outgoing Rep. Connie Mack.

Cyber squatting

Cyber squatting

Candidate Trey Radel’s campaign arm “Friends for Radel, Inc.” has purchased domains that should belong to opposing candidates.

For example, chaunceygoss.com, chaunceygoss.net and chaunceygoss.org belong to the Radel campaign, which is using them to put out negative information about opposing candidate Chauncey Goss.

The home page on Chaunceygoss.com accuses Chauncey Goss of living in Washington DC and working for the federal government for the past 11 years and only moving to Sanibel, Fla. just before announcing his candidacy for Congress. This is followed by a link that details America’s debt and fiscal challenges.

No doubt a lot of people get their information about candidates online these days. But here’s the thing – if you search for “Chauncey Goss” on Google, the main sites in the top ten are all legitimate, including gossforcongress.com.

Chaunceygoss.com is not even in top 100, so the Radel campaign is cyber-squatting for nothing in return, in terms of online traffic. They may still be using email to direct visitors to the faux-site, but that would probably make this domaingate scandal an even bigger violation in the FEC’s eyes.

Chauncey Goss, who is the son of former Congressman Porter Goss, has his own website at gossforcongress.com. The Goss campaign is exploring its legal options regarding this cyber-squatting by Radel, and may also complain to the FEC.

Radel has also purchased domains that should belong to other rivals including Brian Owens, Gary Aubuchon and Paige Kreegel.

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google-plus

Google + New Look and The Whitespace

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Emman Alcide

Google has revamped the look and feel of their dwindling social network site that was expected to overthrown Facebook last year but failed in the battle of social site domination. it was even beaten by the newcomer Pinterest which was only launched a few months ago. Google is not giving up the social media by relaunching Google Plus with a new look and what is more interesting is that its new interface uses lots of Whitespace – lots and lots of Whitespace.

So what does the whitespace means for the new design of google + and will it be an integral part of its remodeling? The whitespace is actually a feature of the new google + and it is called Responsive Web Design. The whitespace makes the design adoptive to the browser and automatically adjusts its spacing to fit in the browser and unlike Facebook where it has fixed width and spacing and does not depends on the browser’s layout. Basically, the new Google design changes its layout and re-sizes itself when you maximize or adjusts your browser while Facebook just looks the same.

The question is: What will Google + do with the vast whitespaces? Time will tell. Maybe Google will be adding features time to time to fill up the gaps but according to Google the Whitespace they basically just wanted the social networking site to be responsive to the browser.

Although a lot are skeptic with the Whitespace and doubtful whether it would help google + in the battle of social networking site supremacy I personally think the the responsive browser design is a good idea. I like the fact the Google Plus is more focused on contents rather than advertising like Facebook. I also think that the idea is revolutionary and will also be perfect for websites as well and not just for social media sites which have dynamic contents. It would be a great feature for ecommerce sites and other types of websites to have the interactive navigation and responsive layout like google +. If you have not seen the layout yet then head over to Google plus and maybe it is time to revive your interest to the fledgling social site again.

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Brannans Auction – Good Start or Dud?

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Andy

David and Toby Clements held the first auction for their new domain brokerage and auction house on Brannans.com.

Brannans.com domain auctions

Photo - Brannans.com

The auction, held using proxibid software, had great potential to rock the domain name market but did not really up to the hype.

It left a lot unsold, and that doesn’t mean one of “the lots” put up for sale.

Out of the 184 domains that were available at the auction, all but 8 ended up unsold with the reserve price unmet. California.com, with a reserve range of $3-4 million, was one of the domains whose reserve price was not met.

Digital.com likewise went a-begging with a reserve range of $1-2 million. Also on the list were Connecticut.com, InstantCash.com and MusicVideos.com, all with a reserve price range of $500k – $1 million. Even Redmond.com didn’t find a buyer for the reserve price range of $50,000 to $100,000.

The eight domains which did find buyers snagged a total of $34,000. The one which got the highest bid was BalletShoes.com, with a reserve price of $5,000-$10,000, which sold at $13,250. The winning bid for BoozeCruise.com was $8,250 (reserve $5,000-$10,000) while hu,net which did not have a reserve price was sold at $6,250.

There are two ways to look at this first auction on Brannans.com. You could appreciate the fact that Brannans managed to put up such high quality domains for sale that buyers didn’t have pockets deep enough to bid for them. This bodes well for the future, as more deep-pocketed buyers and sellers gravitate towards Brannns.

On the other hand, the practical results – $34,000 in auction proceeds, is really on the lower side given all the hype. If it continues like this, the next domain up for auction will be Brannans.com.

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Network Solutions Promo Code

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Alex

Just wanted to share this with you guys real quick, I found a great Network Solutions Promo Code to get a big discount on domain names from Network Solutions. So if you are in the market to buy domain names (and if you are reading this blog, you probably are) you should check out this deal, it’s only going on for a limited time, but they are offering domains for just $6.99, which is cheaper than any other deals I have seen lately. I particularly like this deal because it’s with a company I already know and trust, after all, Network Solutions was the first domain name registrar.

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stpaddypromo

It’s St. Patrick’s Day!

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Emman Alcide

So, How many domains did you purchase today? That is the question that friends always ask me after St.Patrick’s day and I also ask the same question to them for during St. Patrick’s day the domain and hosting promos are just so awesome it feels like a leprechaun just throw some golden coins at you. I remembered last year, I think I got 5 domain names for only 0.99 cents a month.

It doesn’t mater whether if you are an Irish or not, St. Patrick’s Day is fun to celebrate. The parades and the discounts at malls and department stores are amazing and people are always looking out for it. For the past days, I actually been scouring the net for some domains and hosting discounts. I found a couple of domain providers which gives decent discount as a promo for the St.Patrick day and you can see the discounts right at their homepages.

One of the domain name provider that gives great discounts for their St. Patrick’s day promo is EuroDNS, a european focused domain name provider which obviously handles the usual .uk and .ie domains. Although you can find cheaper .uk domains in GoDaddy and namecheap compared in EuroDNS, their .ie offering this week is really cheap. Ireland’s official domain extension is .ie and they are usually pricy to get but you can get is with a promo code in EuroDNS for only 18 euros.

I was actually expecting to see a St.Paddy day promotions at GoDaddy’s homepage and other top US based domain and hosting companies just like last year but I was a bit disappointed to see none of them capitalized on the much awaited holiday. Although, I was able to find really cheap domain names from GoDaddy on their .me domains and using GoDaddy coupon codes I was still able to slash up to 20% discounts on some .com domains. You really don’t need a holiday when it comes to coupon codes from GoDaddy for it is year round. You just sometimes need to be a little patient in finding some coupon codes.

Anyways, If you are interested in getting yourself an .IE domain then you got a pot of gold from EuroDNS but for me I passed because I have no use for it. I decided to purchase though using a coupon code at GoDaddy a .me extension and a .org from namecheap domain provider today.

Happy St.Patrick’s Day Everyone!

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VeriSign DNIB – Internet Bulging With Over 225 Million Domain Names

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Andy

As per the latest Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) published by VeriSign, 5.9 million domain names were added in the last quarter of 2011, pushing the total worldwide count across all domains to over 225 million.

VeriSign DNIB

VeriSign DNIB

The 5.9 million names added during the 4th quarter represent a 2.7 percent growth, and this is the fourth straight quarter with over 2 percent growth. This makes 2011 a huge year with a 10 percent domain name growth.

More than 20.4 million domain names have been registered since the fourth quarter of 2010. The high rate of growth has pushed the .com and .net TLDs to 113.8 million names, with a massive 7.9 million additions during the fourth quarter of 2011.

There was no change in the order of the top 5 biggest TLDs, which remain .com, .de, .net, .uk and .org. In terms of country code top-level domains (ccTLD), of which there are almost 300, the top 5 new registrations were for .de, .uk, .tk (Tokelau), .nl and .ru.

VeriSign estimates that 88 percent of .com and .net domain names actually resolve to a website. This is important because when a domain name resolves to a website, it makes a huge positive impact on the renewal rate.

Of course, there are nuances here to consider, such as whether it is a single page or multi-page site. Single page sites are often under construction place holders or brochure-ware, parked pages, and parked pages for generating ad revenue. None of this is of much help in terms of motivating renewals on a long-term basis.

But at present, it looks very rosy with fourth quarter renewal rates went up to 73.5 percent. Domain name system query load during the fourth quarter was 64 billion, with a peak of 117 billion. That’s 8 percent higher than the daily average during the same quarter in 2010.

In short, sale of domain names is booming, renewals are booming and the number of people visiting websites is booming. Can’t ask for more…

Read the full March 2012 DNIB for Q4 2011 at verisigninc.com.

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US Claims Right to Shutdown Any .Com Domain

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Andy

What seemed like a routine cat and mouse game between federal United States agencies and illegal online websites has blown up into a huge controversy over how much control the US maintains over the internet.

The whole controversy began with the U.S. pursuit of Bodog.com, which is run by Canadians and registered in Canada.

It’s an online betting site, which is illegal in the US, meaning that they cannot take bets from or make pay-offs to US citizens.

But they were indicted for doing just this, and the US initiated proceedings to shut them down. One would assume that the US would go to the Canucks to ask them to get the Canadian registrar to shut down the site.

But the US took a shortcut and went straight to Verisign, which has the contract from ICANN to manage the .com and other generic top-level domains (gTLD). Verisign complied with the US “request” and changed the Name Server records for Bodog.com so that the site now redirects to a takedown page, instead of the server hosting the pages put up by the owners.

Wired.com looked into this subject in a little more detail to see if this was standard operating procedure in such cases, and it turns out that the official position – as stated to Wired.com by a US customs enforcement spokeswoman, is that the US reserves the right to seize or shit down any .com, .net and .org domain name if it is in violation of US law, regardless of the law in the country where the site is registered.

Way it works when they want to shut down a site is that the US usually serves court orders to Verisign, which manages .com, .net, .cc, .tv and .name, and to the Public Interest Registry, which manages .org domains. Both are based on US soil in Virginia, and so is ICANN, which is based in Marina del Rey, California.

In case you have a site at risk and want to back up your large files, there’s a service called YouSendIt.com to store and share large files. I just used this YouSendIt.com Promo Code to get a free trial.

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Web Construction

Domain Name Disputes and Its Nature

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Emman Alcide

A domain name dispute occurs when there is a complainant of an existing domain. Usually, it involves violation of trademark such as confusion or high degree of similarity with the domain name and a trademark of an existing brand or company. Domain name disputes is rampant due to cybersquatters who registered domain names with similar names to top brands or person in order to use it for profit through PPC (pay-per-click), adult content or link exchanges.

Just like with my previous post, about Microsoft filing a case against the UK-based internet company and its number of domain containing the name “bing” and using it in gaining profit through PPC. When it comes to domain names, it is not enough that you are the first person to register that domain name, trademarks are protected even in the internet and if your domain name shows that it has been used in bad faith and it leads confusion or with high similarity to an existing trademark then Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) steps in to settle the complaints on a domain name.

So what are the factors UDRP considers in taking actions of a domain dispute:

  • Whether the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights.
  • Whether the respondent has any rights or legitimate interests in the domain name (for example, the legitimate offering of goods and services under the same name).
  • Whether the domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith .

The UDRP consists a panelists of experts in domain and trademark settlement and it involves an extensive administrative process in determining the result of the dispute. the panelists decision is in accordance with the law and the domain holder/owner is being ordered to return the domain name to the trademark owner if the complainant has been found to right with his accusations but in the case if there has been no bad faith found or similarity of trademark or a generic domain name then the domain holder can retain his rights to the domain names.

An example of a generic domain name would be “dogfoods.com”, you will be having a hard time convincing the panelists of UDRP of a domain dispute but it does not mean that your case will not heard. Common domain disputes are those belonging to celebrities and popular companies. If you are planning in using a trademark as a domain name without permission then it is wise not to do it at all because it can end of waste of time and money and you might be asked to give up all the rights of the website once the trademark owner discovers it.

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The JetbluePark.com Redirection Kerfuffle

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Andy

Last year on March 29, 2011, the Boston Red Sox announced that JetBlue Airways Corp. was being given the naming rights for their stadium at Fenway South in Fort Myers, Florida. One of those who heard this announcement on the evening news was Fort Myers resident Eric Engelman.

So the next day Engelman bought jetbluepark.com for $8 on GoDaddy.com. Note that the stadium hadn’t been officially named when he bought the domain.

Normally this wouldn’t be a big story by itself. The funny part is that Engelman redirected the jetbluepark.com to the Yankees’ home page. Now this would be cause enough for an all-out war of words in the media if it had been done by a Yankees fan.

But Engelman says he’s more of a Cubs fan and has nothing against the Red Sox and nothing much in favor of the Yankees. Since he bought the domain before the stadium was named and he is not benefiting in any way, there’s not much of a case for cyber-squatting either.

The sum of it is that Red Sox business executives have egg all over their faces while the Yankees are getting a whole lot of pleasure out of the kerfuffle with no downside since neither they nor their fans are responsible for the purchase or redirection.

Now only two question need to be answered. Why didn’t the Red Sox buy the domain in the first place, and what are they going to do about it now?

As for the first question, they seem to be absolutely clueless about the value of domains. Sam Kennedy, executive vice president and COO of the Boston Red Sox, didn’t even know about the redirection until it was pointed out to him by the media after the story went viral. JetbluePark.net is also taken, by a real estate company in Naples, FL. It is obvious that the Red Sox management didn’t even realize that they should have got hold of these domains before naming the park.

The answer to the second question is more complicated, because Engelman is not really a squatter, has not made any money off it and it was all a joke – in good taste too. The only way the Red Sox or the MLB can get hold of it now is to be nice to Engelman and request him to hand it over, or make him an offer he can’t refuse.

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ipv6_ready_logo

Are You Part of the IPv6 Global Change?

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Emman Alcide

The World IPv6 is already set on June 6, 2012 but as early as last year ICANN and other other agencies concerned with the rapid growth of internet has been conducting IPv6 prelaunch and campaigns and top companies has already switched to IPv6 and dropped the ageing IPv4. The question now is are you aware or your companies IT team on the global IP change that is to happen this coming June?

IPv4 was able to provide IP addresses up to four billion but the current population now is more than 7 billion so surely there will be a shortage of IP addresses. Another thing is that most internet users has more than one device like a laptop, a desktop, smartphone, tablets and even console games which requires separate and different IP addresses. Definitely IPv4 will not be able to handle the rapid growth of internet users and thus IPv6 must be implemented.

Just last month, almost 6,700 IPv6 networks were publicly routed on the Internet and more to come in the coming months and also Internet service providers, web companies and home networking equipment manufacturers around the world are asked to permanently enable IPv6.

The major challenge is getting everyone ready for the big change, IPv4 is running out and it is essential that the internet community must play their part. If you work in an internet service provider company or even work as a web developer, there are steps in which you can help yourself and your company be ready in the coming IPv6.

Here are a few steps that can be helpful:

1. Appoint A Project Manager / IT in-charge – It is essential that the company appoints a team head to oversee the changes from IPV4 to IPv6 and its effects in your services. If you are providing web services and your hardware and network are not in compliance with IPv6 then problems will arise.

2. Talk To Your ISP – Probably as of now your ISP provider has switched to IPv6 but they will not tell you about it yet. It is the best thing to call them and ask them regarding the changes from IPv4 to IPv6.

3. Identify the Hardware and Network Infrastructure To be Upgraded – You can call your manufacturer and inquire for upgrades and the latest IPv6 compatible hardware and network components. Since IPv6 has been the buzz in the internet comunity, your manufacturer has probably upgraded all their products to IPv6.

There are only 4 months left before the big switch to IPv6 and most of us probably have not even heard of IPv6 but it is essential that we are aware of it for a simple glitch in the system can cause a major problem in the industry and the global change from IPv4 to IPv6 is not just a simple glitch of a system.

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