Verisign aggressively markets .com in India

Verisign, the custodian of the .com domain extension, is aggressively marketing its .com extension in India by emphasizing that bigger profits are possible with a .com website.

The company has launched a new initiative called Be A Leader With .Com in India and has several case studies to show how a .com web site has helped businesses thrive on the internet.

Verisign is aiming to showcase to its audience the following benefits of a .com website:

• Competitiveness: A .com domain name is one of the most popular across many geographies and industries.
• Reputation: Many of the biggest and best corporations around the world use and promote their Web sites with a .com extension.
• Customer traffic: A .com domain name is by far the most likely extension to be tried out by visitors from type-in traffic.
• Creates a positive perception: A .com domain name suggests that you are serious about doing business and lends credibility.
• Establishes longevity: .com is one of the oldest extensions and suggests a well-established presence on the Internet.
• Improved visibility: A .com domain name gives you the right advantage in a populated online landscape. Today’s search engines are geared to recognise .com. For example if you type mydomain into a search bar without worrying about the ‘www’ or the .com, you will end up at http://www.mydomain.com.

Israel.com sells for $5.88 million!

Another geo domain, Israel.com has been sold for $5.88 million to an unidentified buyer by its previous owner, Joel Noel Friedman, a 46-year-old Jewish American who bought the domain name originally in the year 1994.

The domain auction was managed by one of the leading domain name registrars, Moniker.com.

The new domain name owner has apparently parked the domain with SmartName.com hoping for some quick ROI (return on investment) through click monetization considering the interest the domain is currently generating in the cyber world owing to the publicity of its high profile sale.

This domain name sale is yet another example of how the business of domaining is on a roll with the booming virtual real estate market. A few prominent sales reported earlier this year include the $10 million sale of Fund.com, $2.6 million for Pizza.com and $1.7 million for DataRecovery.com

Also, another premium domain name America.com is up for sale and is expected to fetch record price.

Domain Names costlier! .org hiked by 10%

Public Interest Registry, the registry for .org domain names, has notified ICANN that it is increasing the wholesale prices for .org domain names by 10%. The annual wholesale price for .org domain name registrations will be $6.75, slightly below the $6.86 rate that .com domains are expected to be available at later this year. As the profit margins are thin on domain registrations, the price hike will pinch not your favorite domain registrar’s pocket but yours!

Public Interest Registry has given no rational for the price increase to ICANN. As far as I can make out, it has the most obvious business interest in its mind – profits!

One can’t really blame Public Interest Registry for thinking about ways to increase its profits. After all, it has monopolistic control over the .org domain names! In fact, when .biz registry NeuStar raised prices last year, it was belligerent enough to state the reason for the price hike as – everyone else was doing it. What bullshit!

Also, there are talks that Afilias is all set to hike prices of .info and that NeuStar is already planning another hike in .biz prices.

I have always believed that this whole system of ICANN and domain name registries is rotten to the core. They all have a cartel of sorts. Why does the government allow such monopolistic market conditions to emerge? I wish some intelligent guy in the US will hire good lawyers and file a lawsuit against all this!

Why am I mad? Well, the simple reason is that I have loads of domains that I need to get renewed every year and even now it is quite a lot of money I have to spend. With the price increase it will be a whole lot of new burden.

Yes, yes… I know… you will ask me to monetize the domain to sustain themselves. But bro, monetization doesn’t work on its own. It requires a lot of time, skills and effort, which again costs money. A domainer like me is not a programmer or web designer or an SEO expert. To hire them, I would need to spend money. Domaining is getting costlier by the day. Tsk… Tsk…

if I keep it spending on sustenance, when do I get to enjoy it? 😀

Network Solutions takes down site against Islam

US based domain name registrar Network Solutions has reportedly taken down the promotional website of a 15-minute film that is said to be derogatory to the religion of Islam.

The domain name and website, which belong to a Dutch lawyer and filmmaker Geert Wilders, have been taken offline after Network Solutions reportedly received complaints about the offensive nature of the film.

The film is said to have described the Islam as “the enemy of freedom” – a statement that is worrying Dutch officials about possible violence, similar to the results of the controversy surrounding Dutch newspapers’ publication of an illustrated depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

I wonder if this move will be able to stop Mr. Wilders from releasing the full version of his movie as he says he will do within a month’s time. If no other domain registrar or web hosting company allows him to do it, he can always put it up on Youtube and other similar sites that have enormous visitors every day.

Supposing that Mr. Wolders does this and even if subpoenas were served to Google for taking down the objectionable videos from its subsidiary Youtube, millions would have already seen the video and that serves the purpose of Mr. Wilders. Not to mention the enormous amount of publicity this issue has already garnered.

150 million+ Domain Names registered

Verisign has issued its latest report on domain name registration confirming that that number of registered domain names crossed 150 million in 2007. The report further states that during the fourth quarter of 2007, our good old Internet grew by nearly 33 million domain names!

Wow…. domain names are sure getting in vogue with more and more people viewing it as a profitable business 😀

I can tell you by experience that registering domain names could become an addiction with no certified remedy if not checked in time! 😉

But at the same time, the major share of the pie is taken by the .com domains and .net domains, which crossed the number of 80.40 million domain name registrations at the end of 2007, representing a 24% increase year over year.

New .com and .net domain name registrations were seen as growing at an average of 2.5 million per month in the fourth quarter 2007 for a total of 7.5 million new registrations.

Whatever anyone says, it is the domain registrar community that is benefiting the most from this tide in domain name registrations!

WikiLeaks gets a new lease at life!

At least, better sense and justice prevail!

A federal judge on Friday allowed whistle-blower site WikiLeaks to resume operation in the United States, a week after ordering its U.S.  hosting company and domain registrar to shut down and lock the renegade’s site from the internet.

The judge conceded the futility of attempts to censor information, in this instance private banking records, after it has been posted to the internet.

The judge signed an order last week that effectively took down the WikiLeaks site in the United States and also locked the WikiLeaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar.

– Wired.com

For those who came in late, WikiLeaks is a true whistle-blower website that published thousands of leaked documents. The web site was ordered to be taken offline in America after a suit was filed against the site posting allegedly stolen documents containing individuals’ banking records. The documents suggested that a Cayman Islands branch of a Swiss bank was helping customers practice money laundering and tax evasion across the globe.

Now, the banks in Switzerland must be getting the jitters as the pressure on them to be more transparent will be increased!