Domain names

Whois study shows 77 percent of domains have dodgy registration info

February 17, 2010

I’ve written a story for The Register about a new report [pdf] regarding the Whois system for domain registration data. We all knew that Whois was a mess, but it’s good to have some facts and figures that show what a mess it is. Here’s hoping this gives the endless, intractable discussions within ICANN about [...]

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UK government says Nominet EGM changes enough to get it off company’s back

February 5, 2010

A quick update to my earlier post about voting to ensure that the .uk registry isn’t regulated by the government. The top civil servant at the Department for Business (BIS, formerly BERR, formerly DTi), David Hendon, has sent a letter [pdf] back in response to a letter [pdf] from Nominet’s chairman Bob Gilbert saying that [...]

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My first story in three years – Oversee’s auction scandal

February 4, 2010

So I’ve written my first news story is what I think is three years. It’s on The Register and is about Oversee’s auction scandal following a discussion with CEO Jeff Kupietzky at Domainfest last week. Here go: Domain auction house wrestles with alleged shill I held off journalism while in my job at ICANN – [...]

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How much do you love.info?

January 27, 2010

Enough to pay $12,000 for it? I just got the results for the Domainfest first-day auction, described as “very strong” by Oversee’s main on the ground, Mason. Certainly looks better than last year, which was a bit of a wash-out. Is this another sign the economy is finally picking up? Anyway, of 73 domains, 49 [...]

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Adam Epstein wins Domain-pitch-fest

January 26, 2010

Just an update on my previous post – Adam Epstein from AdMarketplace won the first round of the PITCHfest. The winning idea – pubMarketplace can be found at, well, pubMarketplace.com. There is a flyer in the Domainfest bag about the service. It advertises itself as “Bringing the Power of Search to Content Publishers” and offers [...]

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How d’you like my shiny thing? – Domainfest 2010

January 26, 2010

Whenever you hear editors decrying the death of newsprint – and the Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger did exactly that this week – there is always someone who points out that online advertising has jumped x percent in the past year and is now worth xx billion. And the response is always: but that remains only a [...]

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Domainfest 2010 begins

January 26, 2010

I’m off to Domainfest 2010 in Santa Monica this morning, hampered slightly by a dreadful cold. Should be interesting – this morning they are experimenting with almost a TV format and having people pitch new product and service ideas for increasing website traffic and revenue to a panel of experts who will tell them what [...]

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Why the new gTLD process is going off on another wrong tangent

December 28, 2009

I’ve just submitted a response to an ICANN public comment period asking for feedback on a model that would allow people to send in “expressions of interest” for new Internet extensions like dot-com or dot-info. Broadly, ICANN is putting a system in place that would allow anyone to apply for their own Internet extension (known [...]

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Leaving ICANN, off to greener pastures

October 15, 2009

I am leaving my job as general manager of public participation for ICANN on 25 November. Yesterday, the COO sent round a note to staff; this morning I find myself elevated to the point of wanting to dance. Whenever I leave a job, I get the feeling of a weight being lifted off my shoulders [...]

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Google Voice and the rise of locationless people

October 11, 2009

I’ve got a Google Voice number. It’s +1 415 937 1451. Although that appears to be a San Francisco telephone number, what happens is that I am able to cause that number to redirect to whatever other numbers I want – which means that I am now longer wedded to a telephone number and I [...]

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