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But now we have a situation where by posing as a registrar, they can speculate at pennies per year per domain -- which makes it economic for them to sit on vast farms of domains.

You might be interested to know that registrars pay USD6.42 for a .com domain name (USD4.85 for a .net domain name) from Verisign. So a 1,000,000 domain-name portfolio doesn't come cheap!

Setting up a registrar requires a significant up-front security (either actual cash or letter of credit) equal to the number of anticipated monthly registrations x the number of years x the USD registration fee. In addition, you must pay ICANN about $10,000/year for accreditation, and demonstrate at least USD70,000 in working capital. It is not a trivial undertaking.

What many speculators do is "test-drive" domains by taking advantage of the 5-day grace period that Verisign allows before a domain name must be paid for. Even then, a registrar will pay $6.42 to continue to hold onto a domain after the grace period.

OK, let's do some lookups.

First, the USPTO trademark database. "Simpledog" - no hits. "Simple AND dog" - three dead applications for long phrases containing those two words. Definitely not a registered trademark. File your own trademark application if you like. It's easy, the entire process is online, and the fee is a few hundred dollars.

Next, let's try DomainTools.. "GNO, Inc. owns about 22,379 other domains." "1,219,449 other sites hosted on this server." That's a web spammer.

Now let's check domain dispute decisions. Here's Panthers BRHC L.L.C. v. Gregg Ostrick/GNO, Inc. (re "bocaresorts.com" dispute). The owners of a resort hotel in Boca Raton challenged GNO for using "bocaresorts.com" against their trademark "Boca Raton Resort & Club" and domain "bocaresort.com". GNO lost.

Finally, couldn't resist running "simpledog.com" through our SiteTruth system. No street address on the site. No SSL cert. Not in any of the business databases. "Site ownership unknown or questionable."

Yes, that's a web spammer all right. No sign of anything that looks like a trademark or a legitimate business.

"With Steve Jobs' recent announcement of his intention to fight off the independent iPhone developers" - There was never any such announcement. Jobs was talking about SIM unlocking, not software use. RTFA.

"The question worth asking is: How will Apple try to defeat the hackers: Software updates, or lawsuits?" - That's not a question worth asking. Jobs has said it's a "cat-and-mouse" game. That means continual updates, continual hacks, continual further updates, etc.

"Will Apple risk losing its most frequently (ab)used legal tool, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, in order to try and punish the developers of the iPhone unlocking tools?" - Link? Show where they've abused the DMCA, and then show that it's the tool they use most often. I'm betting they use keyboards more often. Hyperbole is NOT NEWS. This site is FOR NEWS. Save the trolling for comments.

"This CNET article explores the legal issues involved in this, which make it perfectly legal to reverse engineer your own iPhone, but illegal to share your circumventing source code with others." - No, it doesn't. It strokes the ego of a graduate student IN A NON-LAW-RELATED FIELD. See Chris Soghoian, Resume, available at http://www.dubfire.net/resume.html.

Furthermore, the submitter is in violation of rights under copyright law belonging to c|net and/or Chris Soghoain; the "summary" takes direct quotes from the c|net article linked by it.

Signed,
140.247.x.x

owns this domain. http://whois.domaintools.com/whyfirefoxisblocked.c om

Apparently he runs some sort of blogads company.

The followup story on Slashdot in a few weeks will be:
Danny Carlton accuses communist firefox users of destroying his reputation and business.

Enjoy,

In the interest of checking, a simple whois request on 34.60.236.180 does in fact come up with the Halliburton Company of Houston, TX. Similarly, a whois for 55.2.86.54 shows the US Army.

I don't know if MS is actually selling out to the US military or to Halliburton, but if the screenshots are doctored, they are, at least well researched.

Check out the whois records for 34.60.236.180 and 55.2.86.54 yourself.

In the interest of checking, a simple whois request on 34.60.236.180 does in fact come up with the Halliburton Company of Houston, TX. Similarly, a whois for 55.2.86.54 shows the US Army.

I don't know if MS is actually selling out to the US military or to Halliburton, but if the screenshots are doctored, they are, at least well researched.

Check out the whois records for 34.60.236.180 and 55.2.86.54 yourself.

They change their name because windowsvienna.com has already been taken.

Oops, windows7.com and windowsseven.com have been taken as well!

I'm sure those who named new version of Windows are not smart enough to register domain name prior to announcing it.

They change their name because windowsvienna.com has already been taken.

Oops, windows7.com and windowsseven.com have been taken as well!

I'm sure those who named new version of Windows are not smart enough to register domain name prior to announcing it.

They change their name because windowsvienna.com has already been taken.

Oops, windows7.com and windowsseven.com have been taken as well!

I'm sure those who named new version of Windows are not smart enough to register domain name prior to announcing it.

The site's Whois history information is available from a site that archives that info. It costs $15 per month.

They show Whois changes on 2007-03-11, 2007-07-03, 2007-07-04, 2007-07-05, and 2007-07-06. So if anybody needs to prove anything, the truth is out there.

The where and why are left to corporate choice and chance. We know from http://whois.domaintools.com/facebook.com that facebook.com is in Palo Alto, was created in March of 1997 and 38% of recent visits to it are from the U.S. That's a 50 state demographic. Using this, the demander or user numbers can by no means be broken down into regional outputs because there are inherently minimum amounts of transparency in corporate business models.

I get a sense that what developers want is regional solutions to local, cultural issues which present themselves as technological challenges that can span across national borders.

I think facebook is better as a template or framework to copy and reuse for some physical district made up of people ( a village ) then use in a centralized social networking site like NewsCorp/Rupert Murdoch's myspace. Yet is it really possible to copy and reuse a facebook API? That depends on if both the API framework and contributing programmers use and review demand-based[1], clean open architectures. The reusability and openness are a critical why part to this complex social equation for open source programmers, engineers and economists.

[1] - Remember the phrase, "The customer is always right?"

Contract transfer is complex. In general, you can sell an asset, like a loan due you, but not an obligation, like a loan you owe. There's something called a "bulk transfer of a business" in the US, where one business takes over another, both assets and liabilities. But that's not what happened here. GoDaddy didn't acquire RegisterFly, nor are they taking on RegisterFly's liabilities (like the class action suit).

The point here is that domain owners who find themselves with GoDaddy as a registrar probably aren't bound by GoDaddy's terms, which include "You agree that You will not transfer any domain name registered through Go Daddy to another domain name registrar during the first sixty (60) days from its initial registration date", unless and until they actually buy something from GoDaddy.

But GoDaddy is a reasonable business, and a BBBonline member, so this probably won't be a problem most of the time. Trouble will probably be related to domains where RegisterFly screwed up the domain ownership info so badly that it's hard to demonstrate ownership.

Although it's a paid service, there's a useful tool in that situation. DomainTools has their own copy of the WHOIS database, including the history of changes, and you can buy access to that.

Yeah, and the Swift Boat Veterans use Apache.

It's like the world is upside down!

Please engage sense of humor before flaming. Sheeze.

ICANN had already invoked the "provide backup copy of registrar data" provision of the Registrar agreement, which requires that, on demand, any registrar provide ICANN with a backup copy of the registrar's data in a standard format. RegisterFly didn't comply.

That data isn't lost, though. There's a source of backup WHOIS data. Try DomainTools, which maintains copies of all WHOIS and DNS data. So if you need to prove domain ownership after RegisterFly shuts down, there's a way.

A quick whois at gandi.net shows that while yootle.com and yootle.net are taken, you can still get .org, .info, and several others.

That whois also reveals something else -- Yahoo! didn't get the .com and .net, as far as I can tell. You would think they'd have thought of that before announcing the name of their new online currency... checking Domain Tools' whois shows that the .com has been registered since 1999, and the .net since 2005. Neither is an active site.

Yeah, that

(It was only five years ago, after all.)

Also, the whois page on it has this to say about it:

Created: 1997-09-14

For more info:

http://whois.domaintools.com/spamhaus.org

I should think they are transfering or in the process of the domain name to a non-US based register as we speak.

--
But why did Microsoft pay
$$$ earlier this year for
my domain ?

i looked up their domain and it came back with 32 other results..

http://whois.domaintools.com/embroideryprotection. org

http://www.domaintools.com/reverse-ip/?hostname=em broideryprotection.org (requires free regsitration)

i looked up their domain and it came back with 32 other results..

http://whois.domaintools.com/embroideryprotection. org

http://www.domaintools.com/reverse-ip/?hostname=em broideryprotection.org (requires free regsitration)

From TFA:
"To update the credit card information details for your order, please select this link," the message instructed, directing people to a "spoof site" with an illegitimate sbcdslstore.org (not .com) Web address.

A personal website is one thing -- you might grab the .com and leave the .net and .org to whoever wants it. But wouldn't you think that a major company would think to grab sbcdslstore.org before setting up a nationally-advertised site at the corresponding .com? sbcdslstore.org was created on August 26, for crying out loud -- even if it only just dropped, surely AT&T should have been ready to scoop it up. And the .net variant was only registered this past May. Geez, if I can snag a previously lost domain name, surely Ma Bell can do the same?

Well, at least they've learned their lesson and scooped up the other major extensions... as, of yesterday. What was that story about a cat, a bag, and a barn door?

From TFA:
"To update the credit card information details for your order, please select this link," the message instructed, directing people to a "spoof site" with an illegitimate sbcdslstore.org (not .com) Web address.

A personal website is one thing -- you might grab the .com and leave the .net and .org to whoever wants it. But wouldn't you think that a major company would think to grab sbcdslstore.org before setting up a nationally-advertised site at the corresponding .com? sbcdslstore.org was created on August 26, for crying out loud -- even if it only just dropped, surely AT&T should have been ready to scoop it up. And the .net variant was only registered this past May. Geez, if I can snag a previously lost domain name, surely Ma Bell can do the same?

Well, at least they've learned their lesson and scooped up the other major extensions... as, of yesterday. What was that story about a cat, a bag, and a barn door?

From TFA:
"To update the credit card information details for your order, please select this link," the message instructed, directing people to a "spoof site" with an illegitimate sbcdslstore.org (not .com) Web address.

A personal website is one thing -- you might grab the .com and leave the .net and .org to whoever wants it. But wouldn't you think that a major company would think to grab sbcdslstore.org before setting up a nationally-advertised site at the corresponding .com? sbcdslstore.org was created on August 26, for crying out loud -- even if it only just dropped, surely AT&T should have been ready to scoop it up. And the .net variant was only registered this past May. Geez, if I can snag a previously lost domain name, surely Ma Bell can do the same?

Well, at least they've learned their lesson and scooped up the other major extensions... as, of yesterday. What was that story about a cat, a bag, and a barn door?

From TFA:
"To update the credit card information details for your order, please select this link," the message instructed, directing people to a "spoof site" with an illegitimate sbcdslstore.org (not .com) Web address.

A personal website is one thing -- you might grab the .com and leave the .net and .org to whoever wants it. But wouldn't you think that a major company would think to grab sbcdslstore.org before setting up a nationally-advertised site at the corresponding .com? sbcdslstore.org was created on August 26, for crying out loud -- even if it only just dropped, surely AT&T should have been ready to scoop it up. And the .net variant was only registered this past May. Geez, if I can snag a previously lost domain name, surely Ma Bell can do the same?

Well, at least they've learned their lesson and scooped up the other major extensions... as, of yesterday. What was that story about a cat, a bag, and a barn door?

From TFA:
"To update the credit card information details for your order, please select this link," the message instructed, directing people to a "spoof site" with an illegitimate sbcdslstore.org (not .com) Web address.

A personal website is one thing -- you might grab the .com and leave the .net and .org to whoever wants it. But wouldn't you think that a major company would think to grab sbcdslstore.org before setting up a nationally-advertised site at the corresponding .com? sbcdslstore.org was created on August 26, for crying out loud -- even if it only just dropped, surely AT&T should have been ready to scoop it up. And the .net variant was only registered this past May. Geez, if I can snag a previously lost domain name, surely Ma Bell can do the same?

Well, at least they've learned their lesson and scooped up the other major extensions... as, of yesterday. What was that story about a cat, a bag, and a barn door?

From TFA:
"To update the credit card information details for your order, please select this link," the message instructed, directing people to a "spoof site" with an illegitimate sbcdslstore.org (not .com) Web address.

A personal website is one thing -- you might grab the .com and leave the .net and .org to whoever wants it. But wouldn't you think that a major company would think to grab sbcdslstore.org before setting up a nationally-advertised site at the corresponding .com? sbcdslstore.org was created on August 26, for crying out loud -- even if it only just dropped, surely AT&T should have been ready to scoop it up. And the .net variant was only registered this past May. Geez, if I can snag a previously lost domain name, surely Ma Bell can do the same?

Well, at least they've learned their lesson and scooped up the other major extensions... as, of yesterday. What was that story about a cat, a bag, and a barn door?

don't you know that www.wrightly.com has also been registered by google? http://whois.domaintools.com/wrightly.com

Every nation should have representation based on the number of servers hosted in it's soil, amount of bandwidth generated, etc.

If they did it by registered domain names (IPs), Tuvalu could finally pass Sierra Leone, Grenada, Liberia, Somalia and French Guiana as a major world power!

And when you pick a name, buy it immediately, as the registrars are known to watch the queries for domain names, and if they see a good one, they'll grab the domain themselves and then offer to sell for a lot more. So today you find reallygooddomainname.com and it's available, but tomorrow it might not be -- tomorrow they want $1000 for it.

Certain registrars and resellers are notorious for selling "recent inquiry lists" to domain kings. I actually lost a domain name this way a few years back, after checking availability. It was very unlikely that specific domain name, which was meant for a personal site for a family member, could have been picked by accident by someone else with the same two-day period (while I was mulling it over).

After that experience, I became very cautious about where to check domain name availability. OpenSRS used to be good for a simultaneous WHOIS search and check of availability, but now they have this annoying captcha. At NameCheap, an Enom reseller which I've used for years for most of my small collection of domain names, I've never lost a prospective domain name after an inquiry and subsequent mulling, although apparently they did recently decide to keep as a "pay for click" empty parked domain name one that I decided to drop as superceded (for a business idea) by a more relevant term. I've not had problems either with GANDI, but haven't used them for new domain names for years.

There are undoubtedly many decent registrars and resellers, and a few bad ones run by slimebags, just as with any type of business.

By the way, a great place to check information on ownership of a domain name is here. Basic membership is free with a simple registration (use fake information and a throwaway email address if you are more comfortable with that), and they have lots of neat tools even for free memberships. Just make certain you only use it for domain names which you know are already taken, because the people who run it are in the business of reselling domain names, and giving them ideas isn't good.

...and tell this blogger that googlewildspeculation.com is still available.

Sometimes I worry that so much of my data is so freely available, but then I always remember that people routinely provide even more when advertising their business or service. But even so, what do you guys think? Should I take some of that data off the net?

I guess your post was tongue-in-cheek, but the domains are registered to the same physical address and the IPO is discussed in their press room on vonage.com.

http://whois.domaintools.com/vonageipo.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/vonage.com
http://www.vonage.com/corporate/press_releases.php ?PR=2006_05_08_0

I guess your post was tongue-in-cheek, but the domains are registered to the same physical address and the IPO is discussed in their press room on vonage.com.

http://whois.domaintools.com/vonageipo.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/vonage.com
http://www.vonage.com/corporate/press_releases.php ?PR=2006_05_08_0

a few 'typos' that redirect to google:
www.thedinnerpartynetwork.com
www.titanium-spork.com
www.robot-dinosaur.com

find more at
http://www.domaintools.com/reverse-ip/?ip=66.102.7 .99&hostname=www.google.com&normal_search=IP+Searc h (bugmenot^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H member login required)

If it is, these guys are clearly aiming for international business, because any British person could tell you that businesses operating inside the uk always go for .co.uk domains.

That being said, there are a few mentions of being in the UK on the first page.

The best part so far has been seeing how they've dealt with the challenge of materialising something as abstract as software licences into a picture for a logo. What the hell is that thing?