Archive for: October, 2007

Tucows @ ISPCON

Tomorrow marks the start of ISPCON Fall 2007, a major conference for internet service providers and hosting services. We’re going to have a number of people there: our VP of Product Management and Marketing, product managers, developers and our communications. Come on over, get to know both us and our services!

ISPCON runs from Tuesday, October 16th to Thursday, October 18th at San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California.

Tucows Presentations and Sessions

30 Rapid-fire Website Wins, Guaranteed (Wednesday, E4, 8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.)

See the master in action! Ken Schafer, our fast and furious VP of Product Management and Marketing will fire off 30 ways to improve your site to better drive your business and give you an “unfair advantage” over the competition. This conference comes with Ken’s guarantee: “If, at the end of the session, you don’t feel you have at least five techniques that will improve YOUR site, Ken will personally assess your site and give you five ways to improve it!”

Email Nightmares: Tales from the Edge (Wednesday, F2, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.)

Join Product Manager Kim Phelan as she talks about the nightmares of provisioning email — from the guy with 100,000 messages in his inbox to the mom using her “unlimited” email account to store thousands of digital photos. She’ll talk about some of the edge case horror stories that we’ve seen in our experience as an email provider and tell you why outsourcing email could be one of the best business decisions you can make.

Our Booth

Tucows Squishy Cows We’ll be at booth 302, which is pretty easy to spot from the exhibit floor entrance. We’ll be in the front aisle — just go left as soon as you go through the entrance. We’ll be more than happy to give you a demo of our email service, talk to you about any of our services and we’ll also have t-shirts and squishy cows on hand for you to take!

Map showing Tucows’ booth location at ISPCON Fall 2007

Conference Coverage

Eye Watch this blog for reports and updates from ISPCON — we’ll be blogging from the conference with coverage of our events from our communications team.

Thoughts on the Domain Name Price Increases

I wanted to share some thoughts with all of you on a dark day in Internet history. On October 15th the price of a .com will increase by $0.42, marking the first price increase in the history of the modern Internet. Worse, this now signals a near-annual event that will take place in all major gTLDs. It is simply wrong. My full comments in the public forum in Puerto Rico in June are here.

While I do think Verisign has shown a lack of stewardship of this key public resource, I lay the primary blame for this on ICANN staff who put this forward and on ICANN board members who voted for this (it should be noted that the vote was 9-5. One of the closest in ICANN annals). As I said in Puerto Rico, shame on you. We all, all of us involved in the ICANN process in any way, owe the Internet public because of this.

It is important that we do not use this as a sign that ICANN, the idea, is failing. We should not confuse bad execution with bad strategy. The role of ICANN as an example of truly global, not International, governance is important. The role of ICANN in keeping the Internet free from government control and by that the predation of special interests is vital.

And it is a challenging environment. There is a debate inside the Registrar constituency right now, effectively re-fighting a battle that was already won, but sloppily implemented by staff. Many of you (the “you” here is our customers) will have already dealt with the end-user problems created by Go Daddy and Network Solutions in their “interpretation” of transfers policy in the name of “security”. For me this is simply deja vu.

Service providers, there is something you can do. Something important. There has been a process of GNSO reform going on inside of ICANN for the last 18 months. The GNSO is the primary policy-making body in the ICANN process. They are the ones charged with making policy for gTLDs. The board only has the power to ratify policy. Staff only has power to enforce and interpret policy.

Inside of the GNSO there has been something of a stalemate for the last few years. One of the chief reasons is that the Internet Service Providers Constituency (“ISPC”) has consistently sided with the Intellectual Property Constituency (“IPC”) on things like whois access and new gTLDs. I have been in and around the ISP industry now for 13 years and the ISPC does not look like any ISP assembly that I know.

I have been advocating change in the GNSO reform discussions. In Lisbon in March and again in Puerto Rico in June I have advocated a recasting of the ISPC. My position is that it should be a constituency for companies who stand between the “contracting parties” (ICANN-speak for Registrars) and end users. Most of the industry calls these people resellers (an old OpenSRS anachronism). They have no place or voice in the ICANN process right now and they need one. We have been trying to advocate their interests (your interests) for years. You can do a better job of it than we can.

When it comes to transfers, to whois and to most issues of DNS policy they (YOU!) are a voice that needs to be heard.

My advocating is the easy part of the battle. The harder part will be to actually have some of you folks do it. So take this as a plea to storm the ramparts! Now! In the next couple days we will post more about the ISPC, what can be done, and how to do it here. The time commitment is VERY small and the impact can be very large. Just ask George Kirikos what a little effort can accomplish in the ICANN process!

Hours for Canadian Thanksgiving, Monday October 8th

Thanksgiving scene with dog, cat and squishy cows

Monday, October 8th is Canadian Thanksgiving, which means that our headquarters in Toronto will be operating on holiday hours. Here’s a schdule showing which departments will be open:

Department	Hours on Monday, October 8, 2007
OpenSRS and Platypus Support	Via phone and email: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. EDT (6:00 a.m. – 2 p.m PDT, 1300 – 2100 UTC) Via pager: Any time
Payments, Sales, Compliance and all other departments	Closed

Department

Hours on Monday, October 8, 2007

OpenSRS and Platypus Support

Via phone and email:
9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. EDT
(6:00 a.m. – 2 p.m PDT, 1300 – 2100 UTC)

Via pager: Any time

Payments, Sales,
Compliance and all other departments

Closed

Our normal hours will resume on Tuesday, October 9. Have a safe and enjoyable holiday!

Be master of your domains to avoid problems

In an infamous episode of the American sitcom Seinfeld, comedian Jerry Seinfeld asked the question, “Are you master of your domain?” Of course, he wasn’t quite talking about domain names, but the question is a good one, none the less.

When it comes to domain names, it’s important to treat them as valuable assets and nothing less. While maintaining a presence online isn’t expensive ($10 per year for the domain name, plus about a few dollars a month in hosting costs), websites are often in reality important tools worth far more than those limited costs might indicate.

Every now and then I get a call from someone who has “lost control” of their domain name. The story usually goes something like this: the person on the phone didn’t know much about the Internet but needed to get either a basic website online, or needed to have an email account with a personal customized email address for their business. The person asked an Internet-savvy friend to register the domain name and get hosting arranged. To save time and to avoid any hassles, that well-meaning Internet-savvy person simply registered the domain name (sometimes in their own name) and got the site up and running. No worries, right?

To quote Seinfeld again, “Serenity now! Insanity later.”

What generally happens is this: a year passes by and the domain name expires. At this point, the person who thinks they own the domain name calls to find out why their site is offline. They haven’t received any renewal notices because the administrative email address is either incorrect, or they don’t have access to it.

Getting the site back online then turns into something of a complicated task. In many cases the “owner” of the domain has no idea where the domain was registered, let alone the username and password required to change the administrative contact information.

Of course all of this could be avoided had the person treated the domain name as something of value and ensured that they understood the process and maintained control. Here’s some tips to ensure that domain buyers are well served and will be “masters of their domains.”

For domain buyers: If you are registering a domain name, do some research to make sure you understand the process, what you are getting for your money and what your responsibilities are.
For tech-savvy friends: If you are registering a domain name for someone else, don’t. Instead, take the time to explain why it’s a bad idea. By all means, walk the person through the process, but make sure you explain that they have certain responsibilities to ensure the domain remains theirs. Make sure to register the domain in the name of the owner, and make sure relevant information like URLs for control panels and the all important username and password are given to the domain owner for safekeeping.
For domain name sellers and hosting companies: Make sure you’re doing a good job explaining domain buying process, and ensure that you communicate the differences between hosting and domain names. Explain the importance of guarding usernames and passwords, and most importantly, of keeping Whois information and that all important administrative email address up to date.