New DN Coupons & Special Offers

There are a bunch of special offers and coupon codes circulating at the moment, so I thought I’d put them all into one post.

• FREE .biz domain name and private registration with 1 and 1 hosting. Apparently you can get up to 25 of these for FREE. Although there is the $6.95 per year hosting cost. Not bad if you want to develop just one site.
• Register an .mx for $6 if you register for 5 years.

Godaddy Codes

I have tested all of these and they currently work.

Code: WEASEL33 or OYH3
Gets You: $6.95 .com renewals

Code: goxt2001cc
Gets You: $6.85 .com renewals

Code: test99
Gets You: one 99 cent .com

Code: goox3004at
Gets You: $6.95 .com registration

Code: gdm1126a
Gets You: $6 .net

Code: gdm1106g
Gets You: $7.99 com, net, biz, name and mobi

Code: SAVETEN or gb1 or WEASEL1
Gets You: 10% off

NameCheap

Code: summerends
Gets You: $8.41 domain names

Please post a comment if it saves you some $$$$ or if you know of any others.

Premium Domain Auction at Traffic NY 2008

A few days ago the guys at Moniker sent me a list of premium names that are up for grabs at the opening night auction for Traffic NY. The auction is taking place on Thursday, September 25 at 3 p.m. EDT (noon PDT) at the New York Marriott, Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, NY.

Here are a few that I like:

• Ad.com
• Adware.com & Adware.net
• BirthdayPresents.com
• CancerResearch.com
• Cleaning.com
• FootballJerseys.com
• Pay.com
• Rebate.com, and Rebates.com

I’m sure I’ve seen pay.com and rebates.com somewhere before though. Ad.com, adware.com and pay.com should be HUGE. Lets wait and see!

Domain Dollar Store Video

There are still good expired domain names that you can register. This video clearly demonstrates that I was wrong.

99 Cent Domain Coupon At Godaddy

The coupon code “test99″ gets you a 99 cent .com domain name. This is not a joke. I’ve tried it myself and it works perfectly. You can only register one domain name though (yeah I tried).

I’d suggest that you get in REALLY QUICK!

Thanks Bob.

Directi Caught Up With 48 Phantom Registrars & Malware Allegations

An interesting story is unfolding thanks to the detective work of Dan Goodin at the Register and many security researchers.  Apparently Directi has “amended its relationship with Estdomains and stopped providing the Estonian registrar with the PrivacyProtect service”.

It’s been reported that Directi CEO Bhavin Turakhia objected to this article that alleged LogicBoxes was associated by Atrivo – an entity that apparently hosts malicious software. The article references work conducted by security researchers. For example:

• The 48 phantom registrars linked to Directi.
• Atrivo Cyber Crime USA – Whitepaper on Atrivo and their Associates

The whitepaper makes very interesting reading.

It appears that there is some debate as to ICANNs requirements. Some people claim that registrars have to identify their business name and address.

The Register interviewed Turakhia from Directi who allegedly said that the “the companies are incorporated in Delaware, although no employees actually work there” and that “listings for all 48 registrars contain a phone number and email address where a principal can be reached.”

Stacy Burnette, Director of Contractual Compliance at ICANN told The Register that:

“telephone numbers in the contact information need not correspond to the location of incorporation“

“ICANN doesn’t require registrars to publicly disclose their place of incorporation.“

What The? This has got me thinking about my domain portfolio…. the Registerfly issues last year…. perhaps it’s time to track down exactly where the registrars trade and who is behind them.

Baidu Puts Domain Names Up For Sale

Baidu Europe is selling its brand and domain names including baidu.eu, baidu.tv, baidu.nl and baidu.be.

Managing Director P. Ufkes of Baidu Europe allegedly doing this because of the difficulties his company has faced since they started promoting the Chinese search engine.

“The mounting popularity of the Asian Baidu, which has grown into the world’s third-biggest search engine; the launch of new services such as Baidu TV – the domain name baidu.tv is already owned by Baidu Europe – and the Chinese company’s activities related to the Olympic Games are making it very difficult to differentiate between the two companies,” said Ufkes.

The company will continue operations under a different name (which is yet to be announced), once their intellectual property is sold. Baidu Europe was established in 2003 and employs eight people.

UK Police Lose National High-Tech Crime Unit Domain

Apparently the UK’s National High-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) was merged into the Serious Organised Crime Unit (SOCA) a few years ago. It now appears that they forgot to renew their domain name and its now in the hands of someone else. PC Pro reports that in a statement, SOCA said:

“SOCA is aware that registration of the domain www.nhtcu.org has lapsed and is taking the necessary steps to remind partners and stakeholders that the NHTCU became SOCA e-crime in April 2006, and that they should confirm that web links and other references are amended accordingly.”

Oh sure – the media is going to go back through all their news articles on computer crime and amend their website links.

Hurricane Gustav Domains – Whats Going On?

The University of Alabama at Birmingham has reported that “more than 280 Internet domain names have been registered relating to Hurricane Gustav, some of them using words like charity, relief, and support.”

Gary Warner reported that Godaddys Registration Privacy service has domains such as:

gustav08.org
gustav-ala.info
gustav-ala.org
gustav-alabama.info
gustav-alabama.org
gustavclaims.info
gustavclaims.org
gustavclaims-ala.org
gustavclaims-alabama.org
gustavclaims-houma.org
gustavclaims-la.org
gustavclaims-lafayette.org
gustavclaims-louisiana.org
gustavclaims-mississippi.org
gustavclaims-ms.org
gustavclaims-texas.org

What will these types of domain names be used for? Who knows. There is a big difference between investing, speculating and outright fraud. Lets hope these people do the right thing.

Given that Gustav is a bit of a fizzer, compared to Katrina – perhaps people have blown their money? What do you think?

Disputes Jump 30% Claims UK Host

UK company Fasthosts is claiming a 30% per cent rise in the number of domain ownership disputes. They believe the reason behind it, is that companies are registering names with employees or third parties as the owner.

While I’ve seen a few media outlets pick up this story, I haven’t found the detail behind it.

Fasthosts chief marketing officer Steve Holford was quoted as saying “Rather than domains being overseen by an IT colleague or agent, businesses should audit them like a business asset and keep an eye on their status.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Lifetime Acquires 200 Parenting Domains – $10M

Lifetime has acquired ParentsClick Network, a company that owns 200 parenting domains including popular social networks and blogs. While the exact sum has not been disclosed, some sources are putting the figure at $10 million.

In case you don’t know, Lifetime is a 50/50 joint venture of Hearst Corporation and The Walt Disney Company. They now own sites such as:

• FathersClick.com
• MothersGroups.com
• MotherClick.com
• MomBlogNetwork.com (which has 2,500 registered blogs)

“We’re very excited to have the technology and leadership of ParentsClick Network join the Lifetime Digital family,” said Dan Suratt, Executive Vice President.

The company reports a 48% increase in traffic for July for MyLifetime.com. This equates to 3.7 million unique visitors and more than 75 million page views. Very impressive.