Domain Owl

Remember all those people who said the domain name game was falling into disuse and only a few big players would or could afford to be around this time this year? Well, all that conventional wisdom can be thrown out the window with a review of the news from the domaining landscaper of today. Some if it sounds new, some it sounds familiar. If it sounds like you’ve heard some of the news before, it means you are a card carrying domainer.

Make no mistake, the big names still govern the world of domains, and when Frank Schilling vends his millionth name or Google tries to partner with Skype, the headlines are about search engine movings and shakings. Yesterday Google was trying to establish specific infrastructure to take over the online world with categorical strategy, yet in the face of antitrust probes Google is suddenly a baby-faced child with no evil intentions whatsoever.

Online privacy has become an increasingly thorny issue, with major hackings taking place one servers in a disturbing frequency of instigation. When the ICE gets involved in domain names and hosting issues, commerce has arrived in the domain sector. The issues continue to make domainers wonder how much say they should have in their own industry. New precedents are being set every day for how domain name portfolio owners should make decisions about their names in the context of laws and ICANN regulations..

ICE claims that because servers are located in the United States, the material and code on those servers operates under American governmental jurisdiction. United States law enforcement has been in the news recently seizing potentially hackworthy servers, which should be more than enough to make rogue coders and sniffer system operators go dark. But does this mean clients of less than savory websites will simply seek out web hosting that is globally redundant? This makes the “redirect” of any webmaster to placing the hosting and domain name on separate servers of critical importance.

Some domaining debates will never grow old. Where does the value potential of country code top level domains really lie? Can peer domain name appraisals and monetization assessments be trusted? Do language barriers between character based alphabet lexicons interfere or enhance search engine results? Does a premium domain sale commission equal highway robbery? How far from cybersquatting is copyright infringement, and how much is a domainer liable for finding out? The argument over the efficacy of parking programs evolves endlessly and further again.

The perspective that domaining is an investment commodity market becomes more concrete when news about domain name sale commissions cloud the actual profit from any resale or auction purchase. Every domainer has to burn through a learning phase where backlink checkers, affiliate programs, web hosting complexities and comparative auction returns get examined. The fact that a modern domain name owner might have to wade through news feeds, purchased clicks, and paid posting is now a norm.

Domainers are now specialists in SEO, short names, numericals, and typo names. The establishment of a keyword domain name or a brandable domain can still make news when it resells in an auction frenzy. Flippa, SEDO, Godaddy and WhyPark are the talk of the domaining town. Traffic and parking programs have gone from performing a sidewalk shuffle to requiring approval to introducing innovative options again. Are domainers the customers of parking companies, or vice versa?

The exotic fringe of today’s practicing domaining professionals dance through a maze of traffic control, statistics manipulation, and illegal practices experimentation.Will the day come when actual Internet “Coast Guards” patrol the Web, actively chasing down smugglers of illegal clicks? International law works well in theory but when does a website operate in international waters?

Domainers may need to become astute in setting the deal terms in place when multiple continents are involved. The good news is that ideas become fresher and minds become more open to new website and domain based concepts as business online every day. Given the success of many nonsense words that became global brands that control online commerce today, the ability of anyone to select and leverage a domain name is now just a registrar shopping cart away.

Who knew that one day the Internet, not the sky, would be the limit?

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The domain world is like both the sports world and the business world, where the big names make big news and the legal ramifications and business parameters change at any moment. But recently the doings of the domain bigwigs, as well as the business restrictions and legal shifts associated with domain name trading and purchase and auction sales, have caused long term market watchers to re-estimate the current market for name trade potential.

Monte Cahn suing Moniker/Oversee is an eye-opener, unless one considers the ramifications of pouring one’s hearts-blood into an enterprise during critical business cycles of the domain game and then having the rewards twisted out of all regard. The encomiums that followed Cahn’s exit of Moniker could hardly have been garnered by a self-serving coterie intent on cementing future lawsuit goodwill.

The big impact of the February Domainer Flu Outbreak (dubbed the Playboy mansion DotCom malaise by some) seemed to be the proof that domain industry news was in fact media worthy, but the mainstream media still does not absorb and reflect domain name industry news accurately or assess its importance and relevance efficiently. What is this opaque banner between the media and general public and the domain industry? Is it only visible when one is outside the domain world?

A full week after initial reports were coming down the domain blog pike, network news, even in local areas was slow and sloppy. The attempts to cover the story , even with competition of global tabloid saturation on every Hollywood street corner, was clumsy and often inaccurate. For those looking to expand their B2B media offerings, thinks about delivering a new pipeline to broadcast media sources unable to decipher the terms, importance, or relevance of domain news to their own lives and commercial enterprises.

Domain name professionals are still weighing the value of the dot-co market. Godaddy certainly has made the introduction of a dot-co domain name into the portfolio cost friendly. Godaddy continues to sponsor entry level domainers into the name game by providing discount coupon codes. These dotcom name purchase codes, the recent feature .co registration discount, and the .info cost reduction are mighty incentive when crafting a domain development plan or business agenda for monetizing a name. These savings can really add up to domain name holders with sizeable portfolios.

It’s unsettling to realize that the domain world has been around long enough to mystify and alienate would-be industry buyers and potential players in the domain space. The battles for real estate on the domain name corporate playground show testimony to the fact that this is valuable territory to acquire and own.  Changes continue apace in the online and domaining world.
Online security is no longer a buzzword but a vulture circling over the shoulder of every webmaster.

Denial of service attacks for the Barcelona DomainFest event and the subsequent cancellation resonate with the mobile phone hacking scandal in the UK and the “Hacktivism” website hack of the PBS website in the United States. Until forthright security measures for data, hosting, and website architecture layers are followed, hacking will continue as a fact of life,  as online malice spares none. There seems to be a measure of dissonance that cognitively persuades technology officers these threats are not real, and it is a salutory effect of the many hack reports that gives webmasters worldwide a chance to correct their online security and programming integrity omissions. Will they take the chance?

Some changes are long overdue. Rick Latona’s website actually looks like a website brokerage now and not a watch shopping cart. The doings of ICANN continue to amaze Internet passersby and dubious domainer onlookers. To see Frank Schilling offer parking services is not a surprise, but my expectation is that the parking market is long diminished (except for the Whypark engine). The reluctance of some domainers to develop websites that function as new media and communication portals, with provision for any level of visitor interaction, is a long standing weakness of many domainers.

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I have to obey my conscience and speak out about .Co. I do not believe its appeal warrants the onslaught of spending the major tld sponsors have thrown its way, nor do I believe any name has the resale potential of a dot com, with very major exceptions.

From time to time hidden values in domaining can crop up, but I do not think .co is one of them. The default placement of Godaddy’s of .co as the first choice was a laughably transparent action, but not a useful one for me as a Godaddy customer.

If you aren’t hearing this message from other domainers, bloggers, registrars, and online experts, consider the source. The promotion and marketing bandwagon has been out for .co for quite some time. The dot-co ccTLD properly denotes a Colombian entity or site. But what SEO value does .co offer customers? I have yet to see any .CO name smack the Google, Bing, or Yahoo search indices with a whammy.

Godaddy and many other registrars want you to know they love .co. Where did the need to puff up the Columbian domain market come from? This might have something to do with the fact that ICANN held its major conference there recently, and to get the big domain sponsor money behind .co, it had to make a case for prevalence of .co resales. Except I do not see the level of interest in .co legitimizing any investment.

Most registrars do not even support .co in their premium auction resales and registrar support sales programs. That’s a big hint right there. Maybe big portfolio buyers want to take a risk, and maybe copyright holders to better TLD’s and guardians of trademark protection want the coverage. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Every day another UDRP or WIPO case makes the news. This (insert your country name of choice here) is suing the owners of that one (insert generic name with other ccTLD) for rights. So there really isn’t a new market for fresh .co names, because the law in domains right now basically protects the original dot com domain name holder from any cross-TLD squatting.

One has to do a lot of evangelizing when marketing and selling a domain name, and the heavy lifting of breaking in new domainers doesn’t get easier with the .co hornswoggle. The unwieldy cargo of the dot.co cause is an unnecessary one. The Super Bowl commercials and Joan Rivers aside, where is the long term investment value? For me, currently .co is a speculative buy.

But so many big names have hopped on the .co bandwagon, you might say. Yes, and they all have connections to a very tight network of big dollar, deep pocket domain buyers who may one day be looking at one of their five figure names on the auction block and want the very best of intentions coming their way. These domainers can afford to splash out big. But Mr. Small Biz or Mr. Weekend/Hobby Domainer doesn’t need to drink that Kool Aid.

Maybe this isn’t the right economy to furnish domainers with a flabby TLD that can’t carry its own weight. Too much spin and in-your-face promotion simply emphasizes for me how much I don’t want a .co domain name. But to say that .co pre-empts dot com for domain lookup and selection is horse puckey. This TLD may have its day, but that day has not yet come.

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ICANN switched the June meeting from Jordan to Singapore, proving that (as I have long suspected) ICANN members must have elevated Frequent Flyer miles to enjoy than us common folk. I can’t even figure out how I would look across the aisle to a Middle Eastern person with the polarization of races and nationalities due to world politics at present. ICANN has the resources to hold the meetings online anyway, I am not convinced of the merit of these trips around the world.

Demand Media, a global player in the domain name registrar market, posted fourth quarter earnings and operations financial results. The surprising thing is, the operation of any registrar can be changeable with the market. The time was when everybody was throwing up a shingle trying to be a registrar, outpacing every competitor with gimmicks, clever marketing, and real value. But now you’re likely to see mere templates overlaid with old registrar subcontractors shilling for renewal income.

But Enom, one of Demand’s biggest flagship registrars, still has eleven million domain names. That’s a big chunk of the parking market right there. I’d like to know how many of those names are parked in programs other than those hosted by Demand Media. That might change some of those financial reporting numbers of the parent company this time next year.

Well, ICANN certainly raised a few eyebrows by cutting their sponsorship fee in half. But speculators remember when they doubled it, so it’s hard to feel the love on that. The rising concern over whether or not Triple Z adult TLD marketing and commerce will be appealing, let alone feasible is rising in the mainstream domaining industry. But will the Triple-X TLD bring a new breed of domain name buyers and sellers into the market?

The release of foreign country code top level domains has been an interesting experiment for the domain world, yet most investors and auction analysts still confirm that dot com is king. Generic names now popping up in the ccTLD spaces may be more subject to being targeted by WIPO actions or UDRP arbitration as a nice reward to the owners for their labors. Domainers have to keep an eye on their legal budget and their

I read an interview with the President of WIPO. The contention that copyright and trademark infringement protection is universally applicable eludes even the most conservative of domainers. Witness the endless logroll of headlines which tout cases that follow one case logic one domain name, and another individual set of standards the next. One thing is always a truism, cement the primary base of investment resources in the dot com for best returns.

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At this very moment your domain name could be underway to be sold somewhere online. Without your knowledge. Think it can’t happen? One of my colleagues in the domain firmament was flabbergasted today to learn that his domain name (and website) were being vended by a well-known auction site.

One catch: he still owns the domain name.

This can happen in the world of domain name buying and selling and sadly it happens more often than one would think possible. A lot is going on at any time online and it is almost impossible for a domainer with even a few dozen names to keep abreast of everything pertaining to each name taking place. Of course, the fusillades of daily spam don’t help. I am willing to bet some clickjacking or password guessing combined with some clever timing to release the name while owner was busy elsewhere.

Thus all the more reason to vigilantly update sites daily or as often as possible. Weeding through the spam and offers and solicitations for hosting products and suchlike, a domainer can quickly get tired of seeing important notices and notifications because of the sheer volume of the broadcasts. Hosting companies are so notorious for sending out offers and prompts and reminders and advertisements a domainer is practically immune to opening their email.

And that’s when the domain name pirate strikes. It’s a good bet the pirate of any domain name knows your IP address and can track your activity by a login or posting activity somewhere. Just Google someone’s IP address or their corresponding user name with their email and sooner or later a trail forms. What is not so clear is how liable a registrar or auction site is for hosting a sale of a name clearly in dispute of ownership.

This is the dilemma many domainers face when they register a name. If privacy is not purchased, then any working online operator can limp their way to some kind of hack or pose a sale if the domainer is busy enough not to notice. Many domainers watch the droplists and deleting domains auctions for just this reason. Being on good terms with your registrar and knowing their terms of Service doesn’t hurt either.

Keeping track of domain name activity that has been pirated started many years ago, when hijacked popmail addresses and phantom spam campaigns spouted reams of “reply -to” spam aimed at astonished webmasters who’d never even used their inboxes. I personally have had important emails topped out of my administrator email account only to find the limit reached. On a 100 GiG mailbox that’s a lot of spam.

What’s even more frustrating is that if a sale is reached via the fake auction listing, the third party “Buyer” becomes part of the mix. As a buyer in good faith, if he parts with hard earned cash for the name, is he entitled to it if the registrar ever sorts matters out? For a lucrative domain name with marketed traffic and keyword density with a site up, that’s a significant loss to the owner of the name, who wasn’t even listing the name for sale in the first place!

Virtual records are all very well, but printed purchase receipts and domain transfer records with renewal dates and expiration projections can work to demonstrate original chain of title to a domain name. It then becomes the registrar’s responsibility to disclose why they released a name not unlocked for sale by owner. Domain locking is enabled for just this reason. The IP tracking of the registrar or hosting company should underscore this utility.

One final point: if you go into partnership with another domainer or sponsor for a site or name project, keep a record of the email communication where rights and titles and participating profit percentages and shares of the enterprise are clearly spelled out.These can be handy reminders when project leads forget where their enterprise is going or where it came from.

Every development deal is its own ship sailing to a unknown destination. Online webmasters and site operators need to helm their own vessel. Attention to detail is key. Backups and records of performed work are advisable, especially when billing is ongoing. Clarify deal points with partners and keep track of time and billable hours spent contributing to the project. A hosting company will have records to confirm your login time and access.

To keep all your domain names in the batter’s box, review the lineup from time to time. Keep renewal date checks current and know all the procedures to transfer or billing inquiries ahead of time. View the traffic hits as RBI’s and police site errors. (Hostnames may form some kind of infield fly rule). If your domain names are playing every inning, they can’t go AWOL. This way, when it’s time to have a time out and call the umpire, you have all your ducks in a row.

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Webinar Surveys Whois Requirements, Past and Future
Date: 04/09/2010

What has the GNSO previously recommended that Whois should be able to do, and what other standards or capabilities will Whois need in the coming world of IDNs and new gTLDs?

In May last year, the GNSO Council tasked Policy Staff (with the assistance of technical staff and Council members as required) to collect and organize a comprehensive set of requirements for the Whois service. GNSO Council asked that these requirements reflect known deficiencies in the current Whois service and also possible requirements that may be needed to support various policy initiatives that have been suggested.

The Staff has complied with the Council’s task, compiled an initial report, and now seeks consultative input from the ALAC, ccNSO, GAC and SSAC. One of the report’s lead authors, Steve Sheng, ICANN Senior Technical Analyst, is offering a webinar to brief the community on the report and to respond to questions. The paper, entitled “Inventory of Whois Requirements – Initial Report,” is available now from the ICANN site [PDF, 668 KB].

Who should attend? Any community member interested in Whois policy work is welcome. Members of the ALAC, ccNSO, GAC, GNSO and SSAC are especially encouraged to participate.

Date and Time: To accommodate the community’s diverse schedules, the hour-long webinar is offered twice:

* Tuesday, 20 April 2010. 17:00 UTC
(10:00 Marina del Rey, 13:00 Washington D.C, 19:00 Brussels)
* Tuesday, 4 May 2010, 06:00 UTC
(09:00 Riyadh, 11:00 Islamabad, 15:00 Seoul, 16:00 Sydney)

Prepared content will be identical at both sessions. (Live audience questions may vary.) The webinar is offered in English.

How to Register. To participate in the live event, specify which session you’d like to attend in an email to the GNSO Secretariat. Participation details will be emailed back to you.

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