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By: James Koole on January 17th, 2008
Posted in: Industry News
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A couple of very interesting domain name news stories surfaced this week. One was the news that Rick Schwartz sold the name iReport.com to the American cable news channel CNN for $750,000. The other surrounded a rumored forthcoming Apple product called the MacBook Air.

The iReport.com sale raised some eyebrows because of the big money involved, but also because these types of sales are often handled privately and this one was decidedly public, revealed by Schwartz himself. The move towards more transparency in the domain industry was welcomed by some as an important change for the industry as a whole.

Meanwhile, buried in the hype surrounding the Macworld Expo and the yearly keynote address by Apple CEO Steve Jobs was a little domain name story I picked up on. For those who somehow missed the announcement yesterday (not likely around the Tucows office, home to a small, but proud group of Mac fanatics), Apple brought forth it’s latest creation in the form of an incredibly thin notebook computer they call the MacBook Air.

As every good marketer knows, the domain name is a very important part of any product launch. But Apple is in a bit of a bind. With so many people watching every move the company makes, and speculating about new products months and even years before they ever see the light of day, Apple can’t exactly register something like macbookair.com and expect that no one will take notice.

So they didn’t.

Instead, a Mac fan site, MacRumors.com bought macbookair.com and a number of variants in the days leading up to the big event. They simply put a redirect on the domain and pointed it at Apple.com. In a post to its website, MacRumors fessed up and even offered to hand over the name to Apple if they wanted it.

It’s an interesting twist on cybersquatting when fans of a company grab the domain in advance and then offer it up for cost, rather than for ransom. What do you think the chances of the same thing happening with a Microsoft product are?

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By: Ken Schafer on January 9th, 2008
Posted in: Industry News
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As James mentioned in yesterday’s post here on the Tucows Blog, Network Solutions Inc. caused quite a furor when they confirmed that they are “front running” (registering domains based on domain searches done by potential registrants).

After a contributor to Domain State broke the story, it was covered on Techmeme, Digg, Slashdot, and a host of individual sites and blogs, etc. and so on. Heck, it even made USA Today.

To be clear, Network Solutions officially denied they were front running:

Although Network Solutions does temporarily register a site a customer searched for, spokeswoman Susan Wade denied there’s anything nefarious afoot. “Network Solutions is not front-running,” she said. Network Solutions holds the domain for up to four days, during which time a customer can register it only from Network Solutions and after which it again becomes generally available if unregistered, Wade said. But that feature, she said, is a “pre-emptive” measure to protect customers–from front-runners. That’s because front-runners can tell when a customer has searched for a domain at Network Solutions, for example because Network Solutions then must check availability at other sites when a customer searches, Wade said.

Respectfully, this is spin. As many of those up in arms about this have pointed out, Network Solutions is effectively saying “we’re pre-emptively front running to help prevent others from front running”.  My guess is most people would say “thanks but no thanks”. I’m concerned however about an aspect of Susan Wade’s statement that others haven’t made much of, namely that registries are involved in Front Running.

“This search data is captured at the various registries. We believe there are registries and/or Internet service providers that may be selling this data to front-runners. So, by holding domains searched on Network Solutions, this pre-empts the search data being captured,” she said.

If Network Solutions has evidence of registries  - or any service provider for that matter – actually being involved in front running, I urge them to share this information with the Internet community so that we can all make sure that these people are called out for the practice and our customers can be told to avoid them in the future.

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By: James Koole on January 8th, 2008
Posted in: Inside OpenSRS
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In light of some very recent events in the domain name market, we thought now would be a great time to again call attention to why taking your time, and doing your research when choosing your Registrar is so important. The advice applies both to Resellers and to Registrants as the impact of making the wrong choice can, and will, be felt by both.

The “recent events” I’m referring to is the practice Network Solutions was found to be engaging in whereby they would immediately purchase available .com domains that were searched for at their website. While this practice is commonly referred to as front running, Network Solutions has since responded, and have said they instituted this practice as a way to protect potential Registrants against front running by ensuring that the domains they searched for remained available for purchase. We’re willing to give Network Solutions the benefit of the doubt in this case.

Tucows applauds any attempts to protect Registrants from the less scrupulous members of the Internet community.

While Network Solutions registers names searched for at their website, and parks the domain with a holding page, it should be noted they do not attempt to monetize with PPC ads, or otherwise prevent the purchase of the domain in question. However, at this point, potential Registrants are effectively forced to purchase the domain from Network Solutions for a period of four days at which point the domain is dropped.

Read more about it here, and here, if you wish.

I spoke with Adam Eisner, our Product Manager for Domains and he reiterated the underlying values we hold at Tucows.

We work to uphold the rights of Registrants. That means, for example, not putting 60-day locks on domains when a Registrant makes a change to their WHOIS information effectively locking some into a renewal and blocking domain name transfers to other Registrars. That also means having a clear, defined policy surrounding expiry and redemption periods. You can read ours here.

Specifically on the subject of domain tasting, Adam stated that Tucows works to prevent domain name tasting by charging our Resellers a monetary fee on domain name registrations that are cancelled within the five-day Add Grace Period (AGP).

In addition, Tucows does not engage in front-running. Adam is clear on this point: Tucows doesn’t use WHOIS query data or search data from our API to front-run domain names. You can trust our WHOIS and domains lookup search boxes.

But following the rules is just part of what we’re doing to make the Internet better. Tucows has, and continues to work to shape Internet policy with the rights of resellers and domain name registrants in mind. We’ve long been active at ICANN and we’re continue to work to shape domain name policy with the expressed goal of making the Internet better for its users. Next month we’re off to New Delhi, India, for the 31st International Public ICANN meeting.

Ross Rader, our resident policy guy (officially the General Manager of Retail Services) has worked tirelessly in the areas of WHOIS Privacy reform, to name but one example. Elliot Noss, our President and CEO, was one of the people at the forefront of the fight against Registry price increases last year.

Last May, Elliot wrote an extensive article for this blog titled “Questions to Ask Before You Pick Your Domain Name Registrar.” We reference that post regularly as it provides a wealth of information that Registrants can use to educate themselves about how to evaluate potential Registrars before they make a domain name purchase.

Thanks to Flickr user Joe Nangle for the photo and for releasing it under Creative Commons.

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By: James Koole on January 3rd, 2008
Posted in: Reseller Resources
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As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about how to protect your domain names from theft, I’ll point you to a blog post by Bill Sweetman, our General Manager, Domains Portfolio, over at the Canadian Marketing Association’s blog. In that post Bill suggests a domain name related New Year’s Resolution.

I’ll add to Bill’s comments and suggest that while you’re running a WHOIS query on your domains, you should see if you have WHOIS Privacy enabled. If not, enable it and then set those renewal reminders as Bill suggests.

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By: James Koole on January 2nd, 2008
Posted in: Reseller Resources
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Over Christmas there was a well-publicized case of domain-hijacking that gained some worldwide media attention when David Airey had his domain, www.davidairey.com, stolen. The story was a familiar one – a domain thief gained access to a domain holder’s email account (in this case, a Google GMail account) and then used that account to gain control of the domain name and transfer it to himself.

This story had a happy ending and the domain was returned to its rightful owner thanks to, in this case, Go Daddy, which was the receiving Registrar in the fraudulent transfer.

At Tucows we’re actively engaged in the battle against online fraud including domain name theft, phishing, and spam. When domain name thefts are reported to us, our Compliance Team acts accordingly to assist with retrieval of domains where possible.

I talked to Paul Karkas our Compliance Manager. There are a couple of tips to avoiding domain name theft he suggested all domain owners and resellers learn:

1. Use WHOIS Privacy. It can protect you to a certain extent from this kind of theft. If the administrative email address that is listed with the domain name under WHOIS is exposed, then a potential domain thief has two pieces of information he needs – the domain name, and the email address used to manage it. The thief can then gain control of the email address, and then use that email address to gain control of the domain by having passwords emailed to himself. WHOIS Privacy offers some protection because it prevents the domain thief from finding out what the administrative email address is for the domain name.

2. If you can avoid it, don’t use free, web-based email addresses for your administrative contact. In this case, a security flaw in GMail allowed the hacker to gain control of the email account of the domain holder. Likewise, having your entire domain portfolio under a single administrative email account is another mistake. Never mind having one domain name stolen, if a thief gains control of your email account, he could steal your entire portfolio of names.

3. Your domain name is worth more to you than you might think. It may only cost you $10 a year to register the domain, but take a moment to imagine what the cost would be if you had to change domain names tomorrow. It could be as easy as reprinting business cards, or as difficult as re-branding your entire company.

4. Chose your Registrar wisely. Look for a Registrar with a solid Compliance team and a good record within the industry. They’ll have policy and procedures in place to protect you against domain name theft, and in the event your domain is taken from you fraudulently, you stand a better chance of getting it back with a solid registrar. Our CEO, Elliot Noss, has talked about this in the past. You can read his “Ten questions to ask before you pick your domain name Registrar” post for more information on how to make an informed choice.

If you do one thing today, make it this: activate WHOIS privacy on your domains. At Tucows, we recognize the value of WHOIS Privacy, and we include it free with every domain name sold.