Web 2.0.11562 beta

The good folks at ICANN met this week in Marrakech, Morocco. They wanted a less comfortable location than the Wellington, NZ site where they met last time, or the Sao Paulo, Brazil location for their next meeting. One thing that happened there was that the “Domain Tasting” practise was attacked, as it has become a vehicle for abuse via controlling names without buying them and for trademark typo-squatting and the like. Who is controllng these names without paying for them? No, not the domainers who usually get blamed for things – certain registrars who are acting like unpaying registrants. Registrars try out names they suspect may have type-in traffic, or residual traffic from previous websites, and test their value with PPC ads. If they turn out to be lucative they will (eventually) renew them, meaning they never get back their $6 deposit from Verisign.

Bob Parsons, from GoDaddy is the most vocal opponent of this, saying that there’s been 32 million names used but not paid for as resut. Nice going Bob, now how about changing the industry’s most abusive specific behavior, GoDaddy’s hostile policy of not allowing transfers for 60 days after a change is made to the WHOIS record.

The largest registrars are in dire need of reformation. They control expired domains for ever longer periods of time, extorting huge fees from legitimate registrants whose names have lapsed, and continue to find new ways to monetize names without adding any value for registrants. Some proposed schemes are so mind-numbing it’s hard to believe anyone could think they were even viable, let alone a good idea. Unfortunately I think increasing regulation is what the future holds for registrars, who will begrudgingly pass along the increasing costs to registrants.

Found this tutorial – this guy posted an abridged version for you to check out free. Try it, you’ll see it’s good! Only works for major languages, since it suggests Babelfish, but the ideas are valid in theory regardless of language.

Probably a good time to comment on namedrive.com also – service for IDNs seems good, although the ads themselves still need to be in native character set. I know, I know – it’s coming.

What a well deserved outcry Doug Isenberg’s commentary on CNet elicited from domain speculators. Mr. Isenberg is a lawyer with GigaLaw.com, and more importantly a WIPO UDRP panelist. This means that he is sometimes the person arbitrating domain name disputes.

One problem with his opinion piece is that he equates domainers with cybersquatters. Even if all cybersquatters consider themselves to be domainers, it is certainly NOT fair to brand all legitimate domain name investors as somehow squatting on trademarked names. No one condones the registration of trademarks and service marks. Domainers have known for a long time that this is a poor investment strategy; they are businessmen first and foremost.

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Congress seems eager to scrap the “Network Neutrality” that allows us all to get mediocre Internet for mid-range prices. Big moneyed corporations apparently think this is the time to fund the next campaign season (or maybe it’s always the right time?)

It’s more than short-sighted to think that further limiting the Internet experience of those unwilling to pay more is not going to hurt us. Already we get really watered-down broadband where the upstream speeeds are abysmal. Now we face the prospect of commericial sites enjoying fast speed and shoestring budget sites being slow and unresponsive. Jill Sobule summed it up well with her cohorts, playing this GREAT TUNE in the amusingly named Broadband.

Their webpage: http://www.savetheinternet.com/broadband.html

There seems to be a building frenzy over the upcoming public “land rush” registration period. After an impressive crescendo of money chasing .eu names this spring, .mobi looks poised to surpass it. If industry insiders are right there should be a couple million names registered by the end of this summer, making .mobi one of the top five domains in the market.

Why does .mobi have such momentum? It’s because the big players in the telecomm and mobile device industries are so hot for this sponsored TLD. It’s thought that if the phone manufacturers make some small changes to the browsers used in these devices, .mobi will be the default site served up when a user simply enters a word into the device.

The .vn ccTLD has languished, racking up only 17,000 sales since it’s launch in 2001. This compares to .com which has well over 50 million registered names. Registrations have been restricted to third-level domains only until now. The “opening up” of second-level domains represents a mid- to long-term investment opportunity that we believe will yield substantial returns for those not adverse to risk.

Here is the schedule for the launch of second level .vn registrations:
• 1 June (2006) – Vietnamese trademark holders (already active)
• 15 June – Applications from non-Vietnamese trademark holders
• 1 July – Applications from the pre-registered (like Boca Names)
• 4 July – Open to public – first-come, first-served

I tried to register one trademark name today and found, much to my chagrin, that the going rate for early trademark registrations is apparently $200. That is a lot to ask for names that may not have a real market valuation for another 2 or 3 years!