February 7th, 2008 by James Koole (1 Comment)
Domain name renewal schemes are nothing new – we’ve been dealing with them for years – but we figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to bring them to your attention once again. A quick Google search brings up thousands of examples.
The usual tactic, known as domain slamming, is fairly basic – unethical companies mine WHOIS records for Registrant information and domain expiry dates. Then, months in advance, they contact the Registrant either by mail or email with a very official looking and sounding document or message that tells them to protect their valuable name by renewing early. A Google Images search brings up a couple of scanned examples.
Of course, when the Registrant sends the cheque or pays by credit card, thinking they are doing the right thing, what actually happens is that a Registrar transfer is initiated. The Registrant will then blindly go through the steps to complete the transfer, again thinking they are doing the right thing to protect their valuable domain name.
Combatting this is really fairly simple. I spoke with Paul Karkas, our Compliance Manager, who has been dealing with this kind of thing for years and has a few recommendations for resellers:
- WHOIS Privacy. This is the absolute best protection. It stops the practice dead in its tracks as there is no way for to contact the Registrant directly. Encourage your customers to take advantage of WHOIS Privacy and the protection it offers. Tucows includes WHOIS Privacy for free as part of our domains package.
- Domain locking. A locked domain can’t be transferred, again, preventing the domain slam. The transfer attempt may generate a support call by the Registrant to remove the lock, in which case you have the perfect opportunity to make sure the transfer is legitimate.
- Communication. Let your customers know about this practice and ensure that your customers know who you are and who their Registrar is. Clearly spell out your communication policies surrounding renewals (i.e. “We never send mail invoices reminding you to renew.”) before the scammers have a chance to spread their mis-information.
The Registrant is only one of the victims in domain slamming. When your customers get taken by fake notices like these, you lose their domain business. But if you take the time to educate your customers, you reap the benefits of a better relationship in which the customer knows that you are on their side, looking out for their interests.
February 5th, 2008 by James Koole (1 Comment)
Bill Sweetman, General Manager, Domains Portfolio, lives and breathes domain names. In fact, while most people were sitting down to watch either a football game, or the ads between plays this past weekend, Bill pulled out his version of a playbook and made notes on every domain name mentioned in the ads he saw.
For those south of the border (or elsewhere in the world, for that matter). I’ll give you a little insight into how the Canadian television system works: Canadian cable companies are required to substitute the feed from the Canadian network showing the Superbowl (in this case, CTV) over top of the usual cable-delivered American network feed (FOX). The net result is pretty much the exact same coverage as you would see in the U.S., but with different ads. It also means that across the country, Canadians pull out old fashioned rabbit ears in an attempt to pull in the over-the-air broadcast feed from across the border so they can see the “real” Superbowl ads.
Bill opted for the Canadian feed and provided this extensive rundown of the good, the bad and the ugly of Superbowl URLs, with some comments:
The Good:
The Bad:
The Ugly:
The MVP:
The Sore Loser:
- www.nestle-bowlblitz.ca – Not only does this feature “the dash of death” but someone forgot to register the version of the domain without the dash. (Please tell me this wasn’t the work of the agency I used to work at!)
Touchdown!
January 17th, 2008 by James Koole (Comments Off)
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?
January 8th, 2008 by James Koole (4 Comments)
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.
January 3rd, 2008 by James Koole (Comments Off)
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.
January 2nd, 2008 by James Koole (2 Comments)
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.
December 20th, 2007 by James Koole (Comments Off)
Here in Toronto, there’s a chill in the air and snow on the ground, which means that the holidays are looming. But before we go off and eat holiday treats and ring in the new year, we have some reduced office hours to tell you about.
The table below lists the department along with any special holiday hours.
We’d all like to wish you a very safe and happy holiday season and best wishes for a prosperous new year!
Thanks to Kayla Fleming for the festive squishycow picture!
| Department |
Dates and Hours |
| OpenSRS Support |
December 25, 26, January 1:
9:00am – 5:00pm (EST)
|
| Hosted Email Support |
Regular hours |
| Platypus Support |
December 25, 26, January 1: Closed
December 24, 27, 28, 31: 9:00am – 5:00pm (EST) |
| Payments |
December 25, January 1: Closed
December 24, December 26 – 31: minimum staffing |
| Compliance |
December 24 – January 1: Closed |
November 20th, 2007 by James Koole (Comments Off)
Tucows headquarters is in Toronto, Canada. So, while our American friends to the south are digging into Thanksgiving feasts, watching giant balloons make their way through New York City, enjoying football and officially kicking off the Christmas shopping season, we’ll be open for business as usual.
Tucows Reseller support, Platypus support, Payments, Sales and Compliance will all be operating on regular hours on Thursday and Friday.
Have a safe and enjoyable holiday!
p.s. thanks to Flickr user ♥ellie♥ for the photo and for releasing it under a Creative Commons License.
November 8th, 2007 by James Koole (Comments Off)
Bill Sweetman, Tucows General Manager, Domain Portfolio is out in Vancouver this week for a marketing conference known as “DM Day.” The DM stands for direct marketing, and the conference is presented by the British Columbia Association of Internet Marketers. Bill was asked to talk domains and gave a well-received presentation titled, “Domain Name Karate: The ‘ancient’ art of maximizing and defending your domain names.”
Warren Frey of Techvibes was there and gives a nice summary of Bill’s talk on the Techvibes blog. You can read about it here.
And while I’m on the topic of Bill and domain names, our man Sweetman was down at Traffic in Miami a few weeks back and talked to a few of the movers and shakers in the domain industry. You can listen to those interviews by way of his podcast series, “Marketing Martini.” Not surprisingly, those can be found at http://www.marketingmartini.com/. So far Bill’s posted chats with Monte Cahn, founder and CEO of Moniker, Phil Corwin, legal counsel to the Internet Commerce Association and Peter Lamson of NameMedia.
You can listen right on the website, or subscribe to Bill’s podcast series in iTunes via this link.
October 16th, 2007 by James Koole (Comments Off)
One of the highlights of ISPCON (for me at least) are the keynotes. They provide a chance to hear some of the biggies in the Internet sector present their case on a variety of topics. The speaker for the first keynote of this ISPCON was Dave Schaeffer, CEO of Cogent Communications Inc. who spoke on the topic, “Neutrality’s Linchpin: Is bandwidth a commodity?” Schaeffer brought some strong opinions on the topic of net neutrality, and spoke a bit about the unique approach that Cogent has taken to providing Tier I network service.
Cogent is known around the world for very aggressive pricing and a unique approach that treats bandwidth as a commodity product. Cogent is the largest ethernet service provider in the U.S., and consistently ranks in the top five worldwide.
Schaeffer’s main point was that there needs to be a separation between the network and the application layers. So access providers should focus on providing high-quality Internet access to consumers, and not concern themselves with how the network is being used.
On the flip side, application providers, those building services that do things like provide video via the Internet, or voice communications, should focus solely on building the best possible applications without having to worry about competition from the access providers, or worrying about having their packets de-prioritized.
Schaeffer’s take on net neutrality boils down to this – provide more than enough bandwidth and each and every packet is treated as important as opposed to spending time and money trying to determine which packets need special treatment.
In his opinion, core network providers need to focus on providing high-quality bit transport at low costs, with no concern for how the bits are being used. For access providers that means coming to terms with a change in the business from selling a service over a dedicated network (like television channels or a dial-tone and minutes) to selling access to the Internet alone.
It means a pretty big shift in the communications sector, where access providers like the cable companies and telcos have been used to providing high-margin services through their networks while attempting to prevent other services from competing using that same network.
All in all it was a compelling discussion that kicked off ISPCON and will most likely kick-start some conversations at the bar and around the show floor in the coming days.
