by Tim on May 17th, 2013

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has recently been in the news a little more often than usual.  This is possibly due to the future release of the new gTLDs but may also be as a result of other developments. The following are five significant developments that could affect a number of people who run websites.
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by Tim on May 9th, 2013

domain names

One of the first questions a prospective new website owner asks is, “What type of domain should I get? Should I get a .com, .net, or .co extension?” Well, the answer is really dependent on the industry you work in, but in most cases, registering your name with all three of the .com, .net and .co is in your best interest for the following reasons.
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by Jake Neeley on May 2nd, 2013

Domain names generally cost very little these days. However, if you are a serious Internet marketer or entrepreneur and want a highly desirable domain name, it could cost you millions of dollars.

Domain names of various extensions are often historically sold in auctions and private sales throughout the world.

“The domain brokerage business is heating up as more and more domain owners turn to sales as a way to replace PPC revenues that evaporated in recent years,” said Ron Jackson, DN Journal. “Those newly motivated to sell joined an already sizeable contingent of domain investors who had always put sales first, resulting in a flood of new business for experienced brokers that had a track record of success.”

Here are the three most expensive domain names sold:

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by Jake Neeley on April 11th, 2013

Neustar, the operator of the .Biz domain registry, recently notified the International Corporations for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that it will raise the cost of the.Biz extension domain name registrations to $8.63.

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by Jake Neeley on April 4th, 2013

Google, Mozilla and Microsoft have recently had major concerns regarding a fraudulent digital certificate that could allow any online criminal to impersonate the Google domain.  This issue was first detected over the 2012 Christmas holidays and while there were no major catastrophes, it is still an issue that needs to be addressed.

When Did This Happen?

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by Jake Neeley on March 29th, 2013

In a case that blurs the lines between copyright law and domain registration, Disney pursued the rights to 13 domain names that were being held by a GoDaddy customer and was successful in obtaining the rights to all but three of the domains referred to in the claim.

The domains that avoided Disney’s grasp all had “Aladdin” in the name, which brings into question how someone was able to defeat Disney, even partially, for the rights to domain names that reference a notable Disney series.

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by Jake Neeley on March 25th, 2013

Xbox gamers have long been awaiting the release of a new game console. Actually, gamers have been speculating on it for more than a year now. Still, there is no response from Microsoft, leaving everyone waiting expectantly.

That may be about to change. Microsoft could soon offer a response to the recent Sony announcement of the soon to be released Playstation 4. Sony made a beautiful demonstration of their new game console at the well-publicized PlayStation meeting. Since then, game lovers have been a bit surprised at the lack of response by Microsoft. Now, there may be news! Microsoft has offered a slight hint as to a new Xbox release. Just recently, a company called U.S. Techs, a Microsoft associate responsible for the Microsoft E3 events, registered a new domain called XboxEvent.com.

This registration offers an ever-so-slight indication of a future Xbox console announcement. But on the other hand, it may also just be a huge consumer prank.

What Does This Mean?

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by Jake Neeley on February 28th, 2013

Domain Growth Overtime

The true address of a website is its Internet Protocol (IP) number. This is a string of digits; four numeral-only blocks in IP 4 addresses but six blocks of hexadecimal numbers (base-16 numbers that use letters as well as numerals) in the newer IP 6 numbers. It would be impossible to remember such long, complex numbers for every single site; that’s why text-based names were devices. A domain name is the human-readable address that’s assigned to each IP number.

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by Jake Neeley on February 7th, 2013

Accents are marks that change the pronunciation of certain letters in Canadian French and other languages, such as é. The special characters that use these marks have often been excluded from web addresses, sometimes due to technical difficulties in supporting them or because of other concerns. Nations where accented letters are in use have found that this creates problems for them. One such nation is Canada.

A multilingual society, Canada has a large Canadian French-speaking population who have resented and protested their inability to register domain names in French using correctly-accented spellings.

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by Jake Neeley on January 31st, 2013

The expansion of domain name registration is likely to change the Internet forever, we’ve talked about it a lot lately, once ICANN finalizes the gTLDs program. It will provide new opportunities for domain resellers and buyers. However, they should also consider the potential risks involved in this new system.

“The likely benefits of these top-level domains—ranging from new branding and marketing opportunities to enhanced security—are substantial, as are the costs and potential risk,” according to Mark Monitor, a California-based company offering Internet brand protection and software services.

“Most notably, the potential for brand abuse will expand significantly, resulting in increased defensive domain registrations. This shift in the way information is found by users has the potential to fundamentally change the way business is conducted on the Internet.”

Here are some of the benefits of the new gTLDs program:

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