According to a press release from Verisign, effective October 1, 2008, the registry fee for .com domain names will rise from $6.42 to $6.86 and the registry fee for .net domain names will increase from $3.85 to $4.23.
This should come as no surprise to those who follow what’s been happening in the domain name industry over the last few years. Just this past October, a similar price increase went into effect, raising the registry fee for a .com from $6.00 to $6.42. Other registries followed suit raising prices across the board for generic top-level domains.
Elliot Noss, Tucows CEO and President called it “a dark day in Internet history.” At the same time, he predicted perfectly what would happen in 2008, saying, “Worse, this now signals a near-annual event that will take place in all major gTLDs. It is simply wrong.” You can read the full text here.
If history is any indication, we can expect other registries to announce similar fee increases.
An article on ecommerce-guide.com today says that eBay will no longer allow digital goods to be auctioned, instead requiring them to be listed using its classified ads format.
It is presumed by ecommerce-guide.com that domain names would fall into the digital goods category. From the article:
“EBay has not provided specific examples of items that are affected by the new policy, but it’s safe to assume that it covers all items delivered through Internet downloads or by e-mail. This includes goods such as e-books, graphics and digital photos, software, domain names, Web site templates, Web hosting and many other types of goods that are sold on eBay in digital format.”
I put the question to eBay support for clarification and was told that domain names were not considered digital goods and sellers could continue to list them for auction. We’ll try and get a more definitive statement from eBay over the next few days.
A check of eBay listings in the domain names category shows more than 3,700 items up for auction right now.
The official announcement from Brian Burke, Director, Global Feedback Policy at eBay says the move is being made to “preserve the integrity of the Feedback system.” Burke says because digital goods can be reproduced at little to no cost for the seller, the potential exists for Feedback Manipulation.
Predictably, there is a good amount of outcry about the change within eBay’s own community forums. Most of those opposed to the change are seeing a source of income disappear quite literally overnight. Some were in the business of selling ebooks, or PDF woodworking plans, for example.
As for the domain names, Bill Sweetman, General Manager, Domains Portfolio, Tucows, says if domain names end up being part of the digital goods category, he’ll be sad to see the listings go. He tells me that eBay auctions is one of the only places where portfolios of multiple domain names can be bought and sold in addition to individual domain names.
We’re pleased to introduce Joey Olson, our new Technical Support Manager. Joey has been a part of Tucows’ wholesale support group since 2001 and brings a wealth of experience to his new role. To help you get to know Joey a bit better, we’ve put together a short video introduction:
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a nice article on the importance of choosing a good name to establish a strong corporate identity. The story highlights some interesting aspects when deciding on a company name and identity. It also talks about the importance of making sure that there is a tie between online presence and the corporate name by way of a solid, memorable domain name.
There are a number of case studies presented to illustrate the value of a good company name, and a couple of good examples where a poor choice of domain name led to problems. In one case, nanofluidics.com, the domain name was often confused and misspelled. In another example, Desert Moon Interactive chose the domain dm-i.com, with predictable results.
While the story focuses primarily on how to pick a good identity, it provides is a good list of dos and don’ts for domain name selection.
To summarize:
Make sure the domain name associated with your company name is available.
Make sure the domain name you select is both memorable and not confusing.
Keep in mind that you may have to go with an alternate name in the event that your first choice isn’t available as a domain name.
At the same time, don’t rule out a name because the exact URL isn’t available. Many users don’t remember the URL, and instead rely on Google to help them find the site they are looking for.
With domain names continuing to play an important role in establishing corporate identity, services like Premium Names that provide the ability to buy domain names in the secondary market will become even more important.
Our Name Suggestion tool, powered by DomainsBot and included free, gives searchers a valuable tool in establishing a corporate identity by giving domain name suggestions based on keyword searches.
Keep in mind that a domain name is more than just a URL. It’s often the starting point for corporate identity and providing tools and services like Premium Names and Name Suggest can be a great help to people looking to build a brand whether it’s offline or online.
In case you missed the news, today is International Day of Awesomeness. It’s the one day of the year where people around the world can celebrate their awesomeness, other people’s awesomeness…everyone’s awesomeness.
You can’t argue with this awesome premise:
“The International Day of Awesomeness is a celebration of awesomeness. People are awesome every day, frequently don’t realize it, and their feats of awesomeness are rarely recognized. We aim to fix that, with a special day to both perform and celebrate feats of awesomeness!”
With that in mind, we had a couple of choices in terms of how we could celebrate this most awesome day at Tucows. We could talk about our own awesomeness, but that could come across as a wee bit arrogant. That would not be awesome. The other choice we have is to talk about how awesome you all are. By you, I mean our Resellers. That would be awesome.
For a wholesale services company like Tucows, Resellers are our lifeblood. We count on you to get out there and sell services, and support customers. And you do. That’s awesome, and we love you for it.
Last week we told you about a number of enhancements we were making to the Tucows Email Service. Much of those efforts focused around making the webmail interface more brandable. Those updates, including the new branding features, are now available in both the Live and Test email environments.
Last week a a number of members of the Tucows abuse and compliance teams were in San Francisco to take part in the 12th General Meeting of the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG).
MAAWG brings the messaging industry together to work together to combat things like spam, virus attacks, denial-of-service attacks and other forms of abuse. Tucows is a supporting member of MAAWG and is committed to working with the MAAWG community to tackle the important issue of messaging abuse.
I sat down with Garrick Lau, who is responsible for IT Security and Compliance at Tucows, to talk about MAAWG, what we learned at the Meetings, and what Tucows is doing to combat abuse across its platforms and services.
Garrick explained that abuse continues to be a significant problem worldwide. While spam appears at the surface to be a nuisance, at its core it is a very serious issue. Criminal groups use spam and phishing attacks to steal identities and money, and perpetrate all manner of fraud against unsuspecting victims.
Earlier this month, ICANN pointed to Asia, and China as a substantial growth area for the Internet. Not surprisingly, Garrick tells me that China is home to the most bot infected computers on the planet (about 29% of bot-infected computers worldwide, according to Symantec). In terms of numbers, spam continues to hover in the 80% – 90% of overall email traffic on the Internet. Malware continues to rise – up by 25% of late. In short, abuse is getting worse and will likely continue to do so as the barrier to entry for those looking to get involved is almost non-existent.
MAAWG has been trying to get Registrars involved for some time and we’re happy to step up to the plate to play our part in combating abuse where and when we can. Garrick says this commitment was met with appreciation from other MAAWG members and he’s pleased with the valuable support and input that’s already been sent his way.
One of the tasks Garrick and our abuse staff undertook was to rewrite and formalize an email anti-abuse policy. You’ll find that policy and a number of others linked from the footer of our websites. Tucows is also looking at measures like Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) and considering email authentication and its implementation across our email and domains platforms.
Being a part of MAAWG gives us a voice in this important issue. But even more valuable is that it gives us access to the invaluable experiences and insights of other MAAWG members. As we are within ICANN as it relates to domain and Internet policy, we’re excited to do our part as an active participant in MAAWG.
The Internet co-operated this morning and I was able to get a Skype call going between Toronto and New Delhi, India where Adam Eisner, our Product Manager, Domains, has been participating in the 31st ICANN General Meeting. Adam and I had a brief chat about what’s been going on at the meeting this week including a bit about the experience of being in New Delhi.
Adam has promised a more extensive report on what happened at ICANN once he gets back. Expect that sometime next week.
Just a few weeks back we wrote about the sale of the domain name ireport.com to CNN which netted an impressive $750,000US for domainer Rick Schwartz. This week we have the reason why CNN was willing to pay big money for the name – they plan to launch iReport.com shortly as an online destination for user-generated news.
It speaks to the value of the brandable domain name — a domain that will stick in the heads of users and doesn’t necessarily reflect the purpose of the site it anchors. Think Flickr.com, Gizmodo.com and BoingBoing.net as opposed to onlinephotos.com, gadgets.com and quirkystories.net. iReport probably had little value in terms of direct navigation, but as a brand, it’s a clear winner for CNN.
MediaWeek reports that CNN uses only about ten percent of the user-generated iReport content it receives. Those reports include everything from test, to photos and video of breaking news as it happens. iReport.com will provide a home for all that content (and, presumably, ads to go along with it).
There’s no word yet on just when iReport.com will launch and the site currently shows a simple “under construction” notice.
The 31st International Public Meeting of ICANN gets underway in two days. Both Elliot Noss, our President and CEO, and Adam Eisner our Product Manager for Domains are making the long trip to New Dehli this weekend for the meeting.
Tucows continues to actively participate in ICANN as we have since 1998 when ICANN was formed. That participation gives our Resellers a voice in policy discussions and represents just one way in which Tucows works to help people unlock the power of the Internet.
In a release, ICANN said that it is fitting that the meeting is held in India as both India, and the Asian continent are at what Peter Dengate Thrush, ICANN Board Chairman, describes as, “the heart of the Internet’s future.” Dengate Thrush points to the huge population of India and notes that Internet penetration the the country is only about five percent, but growing fast. That potential growth is illustrated by the fact that a single percentage point increase represents 11 million people.
We’ll provide as much coverage as we can of the ICANN Meeting right here on the Tucows Blog. If the stars and planets align just right, we hope to do some audio reports from India as well.
Full details, including links to live video and audio webcasts, session schedules, and more can be found at the ICANN website.
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A check of eBay listings in the domain names category shows more than 3,700 items up for auction right now.
MAAWG brings the messaging industry together to work together to combat things like spam, virus attacks, denial-of-service attacks and other forms of abuse. Tucows is a supporting member of MAAWG and is committed to working with the MAAWG community to tackle the important issue of messaging abuse.
The Internet co-operated this morning and I was able to get a Skype call going between Toronto and New Delhi, India where Adam Eisner, our Product Manager, Domains, has been participating in the