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Is Domain Speculation Bust?
The latest Netcraft survey is more interesting than usual, because it reports a drop in the total number of registered domain names, as well as a decreasing number of sites reachable overall by the survey. It's been a traumatic year in the tech world, but the drop in domain names goes back to domain name buy-ups of 1999 (and looks like it will accelerate the same way domain speculation did in 2000). All is not gloom, though, and the number of registered domain names is not the same as the number of active sites. The Netcraft site points out that "as domains bought for speculative reasons are abandoned, we can expect a higher proportion of sites to be active." Read the rest of the survey report for more interesting information on the state of the domain world.
I have seen some companies with literally hundreds of domains registered that are based on their "brand" and in various TLDs...
As budgets get cut, and people wake up to the reality of the net you will probably see these registrations lapse...
I always laughed at "speculating"- like anyone was getting rich buying those stupid names being auctioned off on ebay.... like www.iwzx.com (hey! it's only four easy letters to remember!)
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
All I can say for myself is that I'm glad that bullshit has passed. I will no longer have to worry about having to pay a hefty sum for a domain I want just because it sounds trendy. More power to the people.
Is your company running tools written by ma
Does this mean I should have gone to college instead of buying teenspanking.com?
Seems like nobody made any money and the people that did actually have valuable domains just got sued into the ground. (I am not making any value statement as to whether or not this is right or wrong...)
The rest of us just got annoying spam.
Maybe I'm wrong, though... Does anybody have any stories they can share of people who actually made real money doing this? I mean other than Network Solutions. ;)
Get busy living or get busy dying. Carpe diem.
Example: http://www.melbournecup.com/ The melbourne cup carnival
.au land. When a company is registered, it automatically has rights to its .com.au name over anyone else. It ensures the registered business can have their online presence without having to negotiate around people already there and wanting $$$ for what you already essentially own... (doesn't apply to .orgs and .nets tho)
about a year and a half ago this was a dodgy website for "Melbourne Cups"...
I think domain speculation is going to be with us for quite awhile, but to be honest it really irks me. I hate the whole concept of sitting on something that you know someone else will have to buy off you.
in
Trademarks are a lot easier to enforce as I understand it, than company trading names...
-- Dan =)
There will always be money in p0rn. Don't say that all dot.coms are bust.
Isn't that entire TLD predicated on the idea that companies will have to register their sites with them to avoid having them fall into the hands of speculators?
Not that I'm feeling too sorry for them...
Its somewhat ironic that the drop is happening now, just as getting a domain name is cheaper and easier than ever before. I remember lot too long ago when I went to register my first domain name (www.instinctdesign.com) and the only option was Network Solutions at a wonderful 70 dollars a pop for the first two years. Since the break-up of that particular monopoly I have registered a number more for only ten dollars a year and if you buy in bulk (thank you, I'm not that nuts) it can get even cheaper prices. Odd though that the new TLDs only got a passing mention, sure was a lot of whoopla over what seems to have turned out to be... well, not much.
forma3
I notice Apache still has a commanding lead, but wonder how it would look on an actual machine basis. I know much of the low cost hosts run hundreds if not thousands of websites on one machine.
I also wonder how many of those websites are more or less abandoned and/or derelict websites which are no longer maintained.
IMO, this is further indication that the internet is maturing as a communications medium. Until last year, the net was fairly new and its nature and content evolved every month. I think we are finally beginning to realize what we are going to do with it.
For starters, the days of the ideological, free internet are sadly over. Almost everyone experimented with the free model of the internet and a large proportion of those people failed in their efforts. We have now labelled every commodity with a price, something that will help this medium further.
Then there are the signs that the infant internet is dying. The millions of badly-designed, rearely-updated pages are perishing, and a more well-woven web is taking over. The initial hysteria is gone, most people have already tried their hands at bulilding webpages and have given up due to their lack of talent and/or initiative.
Thus I, for one, am happy at these new state of affairs. I'm not a big fan of paying for content, but that doesnt matter since there are ways of getting around it. I like the better content, the smoother usability and the more complex apps that are emerging today.
Posting messages for the betterment of humanity..
Anyone for www.willcodehtml4food.com? It's now up for grabs...since I'm not really in the Web design/development business at this point I really don't need it anymore. I had it registered at Dotster.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Due to these tough times I am forced to sell Squatter.com, which I have held on to for years hoping to cash in but never had any intention of using.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
I wish my host would keep my site up. its been unavailable since new year's. If they blame Y2K, I'm dropping them.
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
Several weeks ago, I was sent an unsolicited "legalspeak" fax notifying me that I had 24 hours to respond, or I would lose all claim to the (My Company Name).info name. Interesting marketing technique.
:)
I called and pretended to be horrified that I would lose all claim to it, and told them our legal department would be in contact with them immediately to negotiate a settlement. The poor lady on the other end of the phone was conpletely thrown for a loop.
The game is scored by minutes kept on the phone plus 5 points for every repeated phrase, and if you get the marketer to swear, we win automatically.
Needless to say, it was great fun.
But once a few people got rich that way, naturally there was a "gold rush". It's no different than the Florida Land Bubble, the tulip bubble, or a zillion other speculative bubbles.
For that matter, how different is the stock market, with its rumor-chasing mentality? Or modern currency, which is valuable only because you can use it to buy Goods and Services -- which are produced only because they're worth money!
Which is not an argument for going back to the Gold Standard or shutting down Wall Street. It's just a reminder that speculation and fiat are both essential parts of a modern economy.
Thus, no one can sell obvious things like "business.com" for $400,000,000,000,000 or whatever.
business.com sold for -- I kid you not -- $7.5M US in November of 1999. What were they thinking?
-Waldo Jaquith
Always meant to grab nakedbimbos.com, till somebody beat me to it. Now I'm glad I didn't waste $35!
But, also the Anti-Cybersquatting laws that put penalties for people cybersquatting and typo squatting. These penalties made it unprofitable to speculate. I'd like to see a law that would make it unprofitable to SPAM.
Fight Spammers!
It is also possible Joe and Jane Blow don't want to register a domain and having every company with a trademark/product/copyright that even comes close to the domain name from sueing the crap out of them?
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Books? Say what you want about Amazon, it still beats going to a book store (price & selection).
Hammer of Truth
It took them this many years to realize that they were just wasting their money. I'm currently waiting out on a domain because the guy is claiming that he has received bids for $900 for the domain so I have to beat that. I told him, "Sure - send me proof of one claim that I can verify and I will gladly bid higher to secure the domain name." It successfully terminated the conversation.
I think it's really funny that all these nimrods are finally starting to realize that hoarding domain names only works if you get things like 'doctor.com'. I just have to laugh at all those folks who helped keep the registrars business flowing.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Look at GreatDomains.com. Skip the "list prices" for domains, and look at the "recent offers" listings, which are all in the few hundred dollar range. Realistically, that's where the prices are now. And those are offers for ".com" domains. Off-brand domains like ".ws" (Western Samoa), ".tv" (Tuvalu), and ".to" (Tonga) are almost worthless.
ICANN is now starting up a "registry escrow" program to back up the registrars, so that when registrars go bust, the domains don't disappear. It's good that they're thinking ahead. A registrar shakeout is due.
It's over.
In short, instead of having business.com, or linux.com, it's probably best to have content ON business, and ON Linux. People can and will bookmark sites.
-- The unsig...
I used to get six-figure "offers" for my domain (diamond.org) back in 2000.
None of them ever came through, though.
The cash woulda been nice, too
--
There is no hatred more pure and true than that expressed by children.
To: Microsoft Lawyers, Inc.
From: Azathoth, Nyarlathotep and Hastur, Elder Attorneys
Sirs:
Our agents among the mortal herd have brought to Our attention your recent product entitled Windows '95. Therefore We now give you statutory notice of intent of proceedings to be taken against Microsoft by the Many-Angled Ones.
With this suit We will show that Windows '95, and to a lesser extent all of the Microsoft range of products, infringe upon the recognised "look-and-feel" of the Elder Gods, for the following reasons:
Windows '95 is a crawling abomination from the darkest pits of Hell; No man can be in its presence for too long without being driven into gibbering insanity; A cult who worship it exist in secret amongst the mortal herd; Those who associate with it for too long develop common physical characteristics, to wit: pale, clammy skin, bulging eyes, generally unkempt physical appearance, tendency towards nocturnal living, change in diet to that which normal men do not eat (in your case tacos, burgers and Jolt Coke; in Ours, human flesh, Fungi of Yuggoth and the blood of Alien Gods); Mysterious tomes that purport to explain this phenomenon are reputed to exist; they are bound in an unnatural substance and only available at a terrible cost to the user.The Microsoft range of products seek to utterly dominate the world, and force all who dwell there to live in eternal damnation.
As you can see, Our case is very strong, especially when you consider that most judges prefer not to have chittering things with tentacles for faces scoop out their brains and eat them.
We hope that you will consider these points carefully and settle out of court, since it is not Our intention to have your senior partners spend the rest of their mercifully short lives under heavy sedation in a maximum security psychiatric hospital. After all, it was the Lords of the Outer Planes who gave humanity lawyers in the first place.
Respectfully yours,
[Oddly disturbing squiggle in some sort of ichor]
pp. J. Arthur Hastur, LL.B., B.C.L, B.D
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
From the Netcraft survey:
.biz, and increasing internet development in parts of the world, will counter the abandonment of existing domains.
.BIZ address, and I sure don't know anyone who has registered one.
The introduction of the new domains like
Somehow, I doubt it. The new TLDs really don't seem to be working out for anyone -- I haven't seen a single ad or packaging or anything directing me to someone's
I suppose the "we got COM, NET, and ORG, gotta get BIZ!" people like CompUSA might be able to help counter the trend, but I don't think there's enough of those greedy bastards to do it.
Good thing, too. I knew things were getting out of hand when someone squatted my domain.
--saint
I work for a Big Media Company, and when the .tv domain became available for people in the US to buy, we were asked "Shouldn't we hurry and register Big Media Company.TV before someone else gets it?"
Fortunately, cool heads prevailed. We reasoned, a year ago, that the battle was over and .com won. And if anyone dared to put up a site BigMediaCompany.tv that infringed on our trademark in well accepted legal ways, we'd just sue them.
Nobody has ever dared use our "BigMediaCompany.tv" and we saved the $50K that the .tv folks wanted.
Basically, the .tv people were blackmailing the Fortune 500.
Note for the dense: our company name isn't really BigMediaCompany
I think you're pretty broadly speaking for everyone based on your own observations. Personally I love shopping online for items that I won't get more than a box feel anyways: Computer hardware (in the past 4 years the most I've bought offline is a stick of RAM that I needed pronto), home electronics, etc. I'm the type that peruses the various boards finding the best of the best at a particular price point, and it often is the cast that the local ElectroMegaMart doesn't have in stock a model 2732-AV2 so they try to pimp whatever POS they do have. Online I can find specifically what I want, rather than "What they have in stock". Shipping wise I have NEVER had a problem, and 99% of the time it's at the door the next day. The only things I won't buy online are clothes (well..maybe. To be honest I've never thought about it as an option) or a car, but everything else is fair game.
The only reason that so many .Bombs have occured is because of the gold rush bubble mentality, with every marginal, half-rate, low-profit e-retailer burdening itself with all the assemblage that goes along with being public entities (lawyers, CEOs, COOs, CIOs, accountants by the dozens, etc), rather than operating from the ground and growing. It says nothing for the general state of sales on the net (which last I heard continue to grow by the billions), and I think a much healthier resurgence is in store for the coming year or so.
Good point. I'm reminded of a bit of California history. Few, if any, 49ers got rich mining gold. But that was not true of he people who sold them supplies!
Tell that to the mail-order industry. Heck - even the Home Shopping Network might enjoy a good giggle over it.
Hmmm, p0rn... isn't "bust" largely the point?
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Anyone else find it absolutely fascinating that Network Solutions' policies, even well after the buyout by Verisign, still affect the 'internet economy' greatly. I mean, just their original monopolizing option of making people buy a two year registration caused us to have a major fallout after that time period. It's always seemed odd to me that companies can have that much effect and general will over the economy and society as a whole.
I would hold judgement about E-business for another ten years before pronouncing it mature. Technology can only move as fast as people's ability to learn and take it for granted. Remember a lot of people still do not have computers or internet access. Those of us fortunate enough to work in the IT industry often forget most of the world doesn't percieve the internet the same way.
We'll know when the internet has matured when everyone takes it for granted. Just like cars, trains, telephone, bicycle and planes.
And if your activity isn't big enough to justify spending that much, is it big enough to require a top-level domain name? Second level domains are much cheaper -- many presence providers throw them in for free. If your hobby is boondockcountyhistory.org, does it really matter if you have to use boondock.goodhost.com? In fact, it would save a lot of hassle over major, and even minor, domain names if more people did that.
Note that movie studios no longer bother to even contact the squatters who've grabbed ArnoldKillsAgain.com, finding they can make do with ArnoldKillsAgain.net or even bigstudio.com/ArnoldKillsAgain.
You may be inclined to answer "If you aren't on 80, you aren't a Big Player" but that's bullcrap. They count all those "build your own site" pieces of crap, plus everybody who forgot to turn off Personal Web Services. Why not me, too?
324006
Flamebait -- The Netcraft data is related to the story on domain speculation.
Netcraft's methodology is to count by host name, not by sever. Therefore, a squatter who has 100 domain names pointed at a single "Buy This Domain" page counts a 100 times in the survey. Due to the popularity of Apache at ISPs and and other hosting environments, this grossly inflates the apparent popularity of Apache in the survey. As small time or 'unused' domains disappear, you should see the Apache continue to decline.
(After I typed all of that, I actually read the Netcraft report: The drop has had particularly evident impact this month at the popular registrar register.com, which has seen the number of registered but unused sites parked at futuresite.register.com drop by 300k, accounting for the drop in Apache numbers this month.)
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Oops -- Typo city -- I wan't accusing the parent of Flamebait, just questioning the original moderation.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Agreed, if you're talking about picking up a handful of specific textbooks, or a few mass-market paperbacks from your favorite authors - particularly if your favorite author isn't mainstream popular and/or isn't writing franchised s/f, which is all the brick-n-mortar chain stores seem to carry. (Since Borders owns Walden's own Brentano's, there's three choices wrapped up for you.)
Although few shopping experiences (for me anyway) quite match walking into a privately-owned used/vintage bookstore and picking up paperback fiction at a buck or two apiece, stacks at a time. Great way to catch up on books you've been meaning to read without paying $7 or so each.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
What is disturbing is that as the names expire, the registrars (register.com) do not put the name back in the pool of available names. Rather, they sit on it and force people to pay up to $200.00 to register it. This goes against fairness and this practice must stop. The only way to stop them is to sue them. It seems that the only theing they understand is a court order. Perhaps there is a smart lawyer out there who can make a class action lawsuit to force the registrars relinquish the names they are squatting on and force them to pay the resitration fees rather than getting a free ride on holding the names and extorting people to register it.
Interesting that the curve shoots up as Gartner tells people to ditch IIS.
Microsoft's server market share is at its highest level ever, with much of the increased share coming from Apache.
That's NOT what Netcraft actually said.
"The drop has had particularly evident impact this month at the popular registrar register.com, which has seen the number of registered but unused sites parked at futuresite.register.com drop by 300k, accounting for the drop in Apache numbers this month."
In other words the drop in Apache numbers was actually due to lack of registration renewals at Register.com, NOT due to any gains by Microsoft.
If you look at the percentages based on ACTIVE sites, Apache actually INCREASED share this month, from 61.88 to 63.34, +1.46, while Microsoft increased at a much slower rate,
26.40 to 26.62, or +0.22.
Lest anyone claim that Apache's share is inflated by inactive sites compared to Microsoft, the Netcraft survey shows the Apache share for total active + inactive to be lower than the active share, while Microsoft's share adding inactive sites is HIGHER than it's active site share. This clearly Microsoft's numbers are inflated by a large number of inactive sites.
In fact, if you look at total number of active sites for the past THREE months, IIS has actually declined, while Apache has increased .
I've never heard this. Please cite evidence to support your claim.
Thanks,
Matt
me@mzi.to
First of all, everything's fairly logical and shouldn't shock anyone. The economy's contracting, negative growth, and that means companies are getting smaller, firing workers, or going out of business all together if their fundamental's weren't solid (remember a rising tide lifts all boats, but the tide isn't rising.) So they have fewer people, need fewer technical support people, and perhaps put those programming projects on hold. In general it would seem a recession hits techs hard. That being said, the free-fall in the stock market that started drying up all the venture capital began about 2 years ago this April. If memory serves just about all the domains are rented for two years, at least it was the way it was done two years ago. Since things haven't turned around, no one will be renewing them. Remember, a great deal of dotcom names are tied to company names. If they don't exist anymore they too will go away. And if the economy stagnates, or continues to go down there will not be new registries. Personal sites may fill in the gap, but how many web developers can their be in the world 10 million? How many of them don't already have their own personal pages? So it is not a rosey outlook at all. However even though the internet is doomed to be smaller in this sense, it doesn't mean that this has anything to do job prospects for techies (or mean that the internet will implode like a reverse big bang). Whatever has failed, will lose their registry. Also remember most of those "dotcoms" took out TONS of domain names (at least the one I worked at did) figuring the cash to roll it out would follow. My feeling is that we work in an elastic sector and when the companies go back to making server and software purchases they will have to hire people to utilize them, regardless of how many domains exist in the world.
As small time or 'unused' domains disappear, you should see the Apache continue to decline.
Actually, Apache's percentage of 'active' domains is significantly higher than for all domains. Apparently it's Microsoft that is inflated by inactive domains, not Apache.
What is it that caused this surge in Microsoft web servers? And what is it that causes these clueless dweebs to ignore the substantial risks of employing Microsoft web servers?
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase
it's still going on..
Intelligent Life on Earth
Well, I don't understand how the current "top level" registry functions, but I cannot see how this could be possible? Perhaps the slimeball "registrars" are just taking advantage of some "grace period" in the hope that the registrant is unaware of it?
.info or .biz flavors of my current domains. Those assholes in Oregon are #1 on my hit list!
The ones that *really* piss me off are the wannabe "registrars" (resellers) who scour the master registry and then send me email (to never-used contact email addresses) warning that I need to "act now" to register the
A significant improvement would be if ICANN (or whoever) would just occasionally test the contact information on domain records to insure it's validity?
NetSol was bad enough - now we have a thousand "independant monopolies". Of course, the "government" would only make things worse if they get (more) involved - it's up to us to fix this! If it requires a road trip to Oregon, so be it.
:|
I think that companies like networksolutions and etc have to have right to drop domain name if it's not active in 2 months. Not sure if the really care but hey!
Keep the net clean for our children:)
IIS 4 is installed in NT 4 by installing the option pack, and the default page is a "Hello, thanks for installing the option pack" type page. It means it's a stock machine that's probably busy spreading trojans.
A big reason that there just aren't many domain names available any more is is Network Solutions, when a domain that they serve as registrar for expires, Network Solutions hold it for themselves. Rumor is that they were going to auction off all of their illegally collected domains at one point, but that still hasn't happened. Network Solutions is currently squatting on several domains of mine that I had let expire.
Plus who is going to pay for their domain name from some squatter when you can get your lawyer to kick their head in for a fraction of the price?
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
No seriously..
shortland.st
She's a big Shortland Street fan and I happened to stumble onto the ".st" TLD when I was reading another slashdot article. So I registered it for her, set up PHP nuke, and gave it to here as a christmas present. Bugger all hits so far but a bit of blatant traffic-whoring here on /. might help.. haha..
(For those who don't know.. Shortland Street is a New Zealand made Soap Opera which has been on the air for about 7 years now.)
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
This may be a bit off-topic, but if domain names are supposed to go back into the public domain after the original registrants?
Network Solutions lists an owner of a few domain names I've been eyeing as expiring over three months ago, but they are still not available to be registered? Anyone have any ideas on how long a registrar can hoard a lapsed/expired domain name? Is there any process that I can pursue with ICANN to get some satisfaction on the matter?
evanchik.net
How can anyone verify the veracity of this without the domain name? I could type that up just as easily as you could. If you post the name, perhaps we can get to the bottom of this. At the very least, email it to me.
Thanks,
Matt
me@mzi.to
The author Ann Rule does not have the domain annrule.com because someone registered it way back in 1996. The person who got it tried to shake her down for some bucks; she instead registered annrules.com. annrule.com goes to some sort of celebrity portal.
.org name, 2-letter or no.
There was also the odd case of peta.org. Some guy registered peta.org, and set up a web site: People Eating Tasty Animals. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the somewhat more famous group with the initials PETA, objected to this. They contested the domain name and Network Solutions yanked the domain and handed it over to PETA.
Then there was my own sad story. I looked into who owns the domain name qv.org, and found that a web hosting company is sitting on it; they offered me a chance to take it over for a mere $1000. "It's one of the rare remaining 2-letter domain names," I was told. I suspect it will be a long time before anyone pays them $1000 for a
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Paul
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
It's curious how Security Space has Apache striding ahead for the last 4 months, while Netcraft does the opposite.
It appears that Security Space doesn't fall for the IE is IIS spoof mentioned elsewhere, or else one or the other web site has an agenda.
At $8 a year I have about 100 domains. We use them for evilemail so they just don't sit, but not enough of you have registered for a chetrocks.com email addresses...
We get offers every so often for the more popular domains but nothing over $500. And no one ever actually says, yes I am sending the money.
We own istillhateyou.com and I thought having ihateyou.com would be cool. I emailed the idiot who runs the 'site' - aol address - he emailed back an asking price of $25,000. I will just wait. We have picked up more than a few domains from people who just didn't renew them, but even that is getting harder to grab with crap like verisign's snapback program.
Chet
Of course, the "government" would only make things worse if they get (more) involved - it's up to us to fix this!
Um, who do you think it was that invented the DNS system? Who do you think ran it before NetSol and gave domain names out for free?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
go daddy lets you get .com/.net for like $9 or something, namebargan (which is basicaly register.com without DNS server hosting and web based admin for it) is $8. .biz and .info are even less, but you generaly have to get 2 years to start.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
All this time, the person who posts *BSD is dying says the latest netcraft survey shows BSD is dying. And the latest netcraft shows no BSD, Linux or other OS. I've been lied to! BSD is NOT dying!
Certainly not, in fact, according to Netcraft...
The top 10 servers with the highest average uptime are *BSD's. All servers on this list are Unix, mostly a BSD, some IRIX. There are no Linux or Microsoft servers.
The top 9 servers with the all time highest uptimes are *BSD's. All up to 34 consists of mostly BSD's and some IRIX, Linux is at 35, W2K makes the list at 48 with 806 days vs 1342 days for the top BSD. However, the two W2K servers that made this list have an average uptime of 8 and 36 (48'th and 49'th) and 22 and 65 current uptimes. The top 9 BSD servers have an average average uptime of 973 days and an average current uptime of 1005 days.
The top 16 servers with the latest highest uptimes are *BSD's. All servers on this list of 50 are Unix servers. Linux and Microsoft servers did not make this list. Only BSD and IRIX appear on this list of current record holders.
This is accurate at the time of my posting.
So, these dorks that state "BSD is dying", are making some pretty bold statements. Why would sys admins around the World all of a sudden drop the World's most reliable network OS?
With the incredible stability of FreeBSD, awesome platform coverage of NetBSD, extreme security of OpenBSD and sheer beauty of MacOS X, perhaps Linux and Windows are "dying". PS, I am a hardcore Debian lover and user, but I also love to use the BSD's and I am not a blind zealot. Just stating the facts. What I am saying is, take my "Lin and Win dying" remark as seriously as you take the fricken "BSD is dying" cut'n'paste jobs (dont!).
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
I agree completely. Pick just about any meaningful domain name out of the blue and find that it's probably got some lame, generic "portal" parked there, with an announcement that the domain is for sale at GreatDomains.com. It's allowed, or at least tolerated, for registrars to sit on huge numbers of domain names for their own greedy ends. Domain squatters aren't doing anything constructive to justify their land grab; there's no legitimate comparison to the homesteading of the early United States frontier. Though I'm a Libertarian and don't like to propose taxation other than in exceptional cases, I believe that tax policy could serve a useful role here:
.com, .net and .org domains.
* Charge an up-front $10/yr domain tax on all existing
* Allow a simple, refundable tax credit for up to three registered domains (with proof of payment) on each tax return.
* Use funds collected to reduce the much-disliked USF tax on every phone bill.
I'm also open to ideas on a fair and practical way to exempt non-citizens from the tax on registration for a limited number of domains.
Of course another solution would be for ICANN to wake up and stop being the driving force behind the creation of these problems.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
It's now being glommed onto by *#@(!$ thieves, more's the pity. And the bartender's work has disappeared. Wish I knew where to find it--it did well for me back in school:-)
How about this.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
"optimum.com" is available there for £25. If anybody cares.
Some jerk is trying to sell GodBlessAmerica.org on Ebay, for $250,000 to $1,000,000. 14 minutes to go in the auction, and no bids.
As I've often seen proclaimed on the internet, unsolicited faxes are illegal and can earn you some cash. Might be worth looking into.
Communication is only possible between equals
Actually there is the junk fax law as the definition of computer will match any computer with a modem and printer attached to it.
I assume you refer to 47 USC 227, which requires "a regular telephone line" in the communication chain and thus excludes spam sent from a user on a cable modem service to a user on a cable modem service.
Then get the company that writes the software under contibutory infringment.
Some of these spammers run Free software packages such as Sendmail or Postfix under FreeBSD, Linux, or Cygwin. A judge would laugh your suit out of court on grounds that the mail packages have substantial non-infringing uses.
Will I retire or break 10K?
But sometimes you may not feel that whatever you have to say is particularly worthy of such a boost (but you also don't feel like posting anonymously), so that's what the checkbox is for.
For some time back in November, the "No Score +1 Bonus" checkbox did not work for many Slashdot readers. Thank gosh it's fixed now.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It does not require the use of the phone line for transmission in this case.That loophole does not hold if you have both a cable modem and regular modem connected to the machine. See 47 USC 227 (b)(1)(c):
Fight Spammers!
I went to the site and got the following error:
Error!
The following errors have occurred:
The maximum number of registered users for the demo version has been surpassed
Current System Time: 01/02/2002 6:59 pm
Use your browser's back button to try again.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
That's different - namezero gives you the name for FREE, only they retain ownership.
Thanks,
Matt
me@mzi.to
I have no problems with that, Apache running more than 60% of active Web sites is a fine success, isn't it?
I'm more afraid that the introduction of Web services will be a disadvantage for Apache. One must never underestimate Microsoft, and shouting "Apache wins! Apache wins!" doesn't help to assess the situation realisticly.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
If you still don't get it, try running uptime (1) on a Linux box that has been up for over 497 days.
How strange then, that the three Linux servers noted in the max uptime list, all have max uptimes of well over 800 days. Perhaps that FAQ is old.
Before you rant that I am an uninformed bsd cheerleader, perhaps you should have taken note of my attempt at wit regarding "Linux and Windows dying" in my post, and bear in mind that Windows 2000 is not limited by the 497 day uptime roll.
At least an "uninformed cheerleader" has an open mind compared with the anti-bsd trolls. My post was in defense of BSD, being some of the Worlds most stable servers compared with the likes of W2K and even edging out IRIX, and seeing Linux servers on the max list at 800 days, I have to wonder why there are'nt more there. : )
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
I'm more afraid that the introduction of Web services will be a disadvantage for Apache.
.NET framework.
Hmmm why? I see nothing in the current concepts or implementations of Web Services that give Microsoft an advantage of any sort over Apache. In fact the availability of lighter weight implementations like XML-RPC that can be harnessed by programmers without making large conceptual investments that Microsoft technologies require seems to me to point to an advantage for Apache. Recent publications on sites the The Server Side also seem to indicate that the Java crowd is adopting the concepts of Web Services without buying into the
And due to the bundling with the newer Windows OSs and the forced upgrade cycle they might even be successful with this strategy -- when something is already available it's hard to substitute it with an alternative, even if it's technologically better. Witness IE.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
Millions of outrageously crap domains like 'cyber-cuff-links.com' and 'xflmp.org' were indeed bought up by dim corporations, starry-eyed garage dingbats, and freelance hoodlums--and those poor beasts will be put down. However, if you're going to start a company (as humans wilt in their pesky will to survive), in ANY trade category--not just tech, then the intuitive dot-com and website are cost-of-entry. This is a fact, unless you sell hotdogs off of a cart, and wish to continue so to do. Just try picking a new company name and finding 1) a 'brandable,' aka not-conspicuously-dumb-sounding, dot-com that 2) has no other users to give you trademark problems in any of the one or two other countries rumoured to be on Earth, and 3) which doesn't mean 'armpit' in German, etc. You're looking at a steadily smallering pool of names held tight by lifer speculators who aren't going under as quickly as you'd like. The most pallid and porridge-assed will definitely weather this recession. Half because we believe dot-coms are profitable, and half because our collections are made of five fervid years of all-nighters. We'll sell all of our pre-4/2000 toys, steal kidneys, whatever, just to stay at the wheel, and sorry, but another fun-seeker will just take up the slack if we die (or worse yet, expire). Resent us? Dot-coms are (effectively) property, to be sold and resold, used and reused. People are given to selling property for profit--this is not Reuters material. I don't go up to your front door and say 'Hey, you're not using that spare bedroom, Satan. Howzabout me and my irrationally self-righteous boyfriend moving in?' It should be evident that speculators, not all of whom are TM infringers (very few actually, since 11/99's ACPA), are the only reason that there are any worthwhile dot-coms open for purchase at all. Most smart, sizeable corps own thouuusands of domains in a standard and quite affordable policy towards sucking market share and snuffing future competitors. Every domain one of their minions dreams up over the years, or any which are passingly relevant to their trade (or your future business idea)--all into a black hole. So stop yer preening, and if you're tossing that dot-com out with the bathwater, I'm buying.