Woman Changes Her Name To Princess-Rainbow.com

Its been reported that a woman in the UK has become the first person to change her name by Deed Poll to a domain name.

24 year old Claire Forshaw changed her name earlier this week to Princess-Rainbow.com.

“I knew that if ever I got the chance I would change [my name] to a web domain, to hopefully become the first. My boyfriend has always told me it cost hundreds of pounds to do, so I just forgot about it”

“When I realised it actually cost as little as £10 my boyfriend said that Princess-Rainbow.com was ideal for me because I am mad on rainbows!”

“My dream has always been to sell my artwork to a wider audience and after studying art at college, me and my friend who has an art degree, said that we would love to go into business together selling our creations. Changing my name has given me that kick-start into pursuing my dream and the new site will feature everything from paintings, textiles, 3D work and jewellery.“

“My name change is great and although my friends have started referring to me by my new name, and my place of work have changed all of the paperwork to include my new name, both my boss and my mum are refusing to call me Princess-Rainbow.com!”

Commentary

To be honest, I’m surprised that certain individuals in the domaining industry haven’t changed their name! Perhaps this will spark a new trend?

I’m going to change my name right now to:

“domaining wire king journal acro elliot whizzbang parked chef”

What do you think? Like my new name? Ohhhh…. what’s that? I can hear the ka-ching of UDRP’s coming!

Sources: Independent and PRUrgent.

France Goes After Champagne Domain Names

The Comite Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne (the semi-government authority of the Republic of France), is going after people who use champagne in their domain name.

A gift delivery business called “Champagne Messenger” has been forced to change their name after being pursued by our frog eating friends. The CIVC claims their intent is to protect the history and reputation of sparkling wines produced in the Champagne region of France.

After a seven day warning was issued to forfeit the name, or face federal court proceedings, the small business in the rural town of Coffs Harbor in Australia conceded.

Small business owners Stuart and Kyla Holley told the Coffs Coast Advocate:

“But we’re just a small business that is less than a year old, we can’t possibly afford to fight this in court… even though we feel we are being bullied.”

“It’s madness really. Will it get to the stage where you can’t buy champagne ham or enjoy a champagne breakfast any more, just because the French ‘own’ that word?”

Source: Coffs Coast Advocate

Survey Says: New gTLDs Pointless, Complicate Matters & Not Improve The Web

According to Future Laboratory and Gandi.net, most (two thirds) of web users feel that a .anything domain will infiltrate the web with futile domain names such as .god.

Since ICANN made the announcement last October that would allow any organization in 2012 with $185,000 to apply for a generic domain—speculation has stirred the internet community.

The liberalization of domain names was suggested to encourage diversity but is clearly creating much apprehension instead. According to Tom Savigar of the Future Laboratory, the change is seen as being “a daunting change to the internet.”

The exact numbers indicate that of the 1,000 people who were polled:

• 65% believe the changes would cause pointless domain names to bombard the web
• 60% didn’t feel it would improve the web
• 46% feel it would complicate things

Some web users (18%) think ICANN should be responsible for leading the new look while another 18% think it should be left to the website hosting companies. Another 13% would give it to the UK government and 12% say leave it up to society.

Other opinions foresee future improvements. Joe White, Chief operating officer of Gandi.net claims “The current plans for liberalization reflect a great opportunity to get the domain space in order. ICANN now has the opportunity to set clear guidelines and enforce a higher standard of practice with new TLDs so they are not littered with spam and faulty extensions. This could be the beginning of the great clear-up of the future internet.”

As for the estimated two thirds of the population that is unaware, ignorance is bliss.

Source: The Guardian and London South East.

Sarah Palin Domain Names – Let The Fun Begin

Given that the US is focused on their next el president’e, the domain registration festivities have begun.

sarahpalinsucks.com diverts to johnmccain.com. Some media outlets are speculating that the McCain camp purchased this one, but its owner is a mortgage broker in California.

In the words of the movie Spaceballs – “Oh my god, she’s gone from suck to blow”. It seems that sarahpalinblows.com doesn’t paint her in a particularly nice manner.

.ORG Reaches 7 Million – Hippies Clap… Chant

The Public Interest Registry has announced that there are now 7 million .org domain names. Yep, its pretty much as we all thought – .com .net and now .org at 3rd position.

Since 2003.org registrations have increased more than 250%. Alexa Raad, CEO said “.ORG continues to be the domain of choice for individuals and organizations who seek to brand their efforts under a globally trusted and respected address.”

Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia has also come to the party around .org saying “We can’t imagine Wikipedia as a .com — .ORG is a core part of our identity,” “.ORG is available to anyone in the world, and it is a great way for an organization to signal an ambition to be inclusive and global.”

Has .org become that alternative? Is it the bio diesel of the domaining world?

The Obama / Biden Domain Rush

If you are living in the USA, or are the poor victim of American television, you will probably know that Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate. Now the domain name land grab has begun.

• OBAMABIDEN.ORG -> +16 variants = $100k on eBay. Good luck with that!
• Even the believers have seen the light – catholicsforobama-biden.net is online now.
• electobamabiden.com is live and allegedly paid for by the Republican National Committee.

In any case, it doesn’t matter, Diebold (the company that does the electronic voting) has accidentally leaked the results of the 2008 US Election.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Enjoy!

Snapnames SSL Cert Expires

It seems that Snapnames is still working on the problems. When you search for domains using the advanced search or search box, you get warning about a certificate expiring:

This is really quite strange as Overture belongs to Yahoo. When you visit the link you get:

To VIP Status: OK
Server Status: OK

The title tag changes to “Hello from Apache ”

and then it diverts to the Overture Small Business website. Perhaps Snapnames has included some Yahoo code somewhere?

Today’s Domain Name Drop Cancelled

Just over an hour ago I received notice from Pool:

“We have received notice from Verisign that today’s drop has been cancelled due to technical difficulties on their end. We have been told by Verisign that the domains from today’s drop will be included in tomorrow’s drop. As we receive further information from the registry, we will be sure to keep you advised.”

Like me, you are probably asking, how exactly does a domain name drop get canceled? Hopefully I will have some answers on this soon. Stay tuned!

World’s Largest Online Domain Name Auction – On eBay

Fernando Escovar, a Los Angeles photographer is auctioning off his domain name portfolio, reported to be valued at US$1.5 million. The portfolio allegedly contains 1500 English, Spanish, Tech, TV and geo-centric domain names.

Some of the domain names include: lasvegastowers.com, lasvegastower.com, share-holder.com, comision.com, vegasi.com, and reporttv.com.

Escovar explains “In the game Monopoly, the person with the most properties usually wins. In this virtual age, whoever owns a list of highly valued and trafficked domain names owns the internet”.

The auction will go live on eBay on June 3, 2008 with a portion of proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Ask.com Gets Into Domaining – Acquires Premium .Com’s

Ask.com has acquired Lexico Publishing Group LLC, and with that comes the following domains:

• Dictionary.com (estimated 22.1m visitors in March)
• Thesaurus.com
• Reference.com

Unfortunately the terms of the deal, aren’t being disclosed. Associated Press is reporting that Jim Safka (who runs Ask for for IAC / InterActiveCorp) said that “more than 30 percent of the search requests entered on Ask are seeking reference material.”

What’s my take on this? Well, how do you compete when your fifth place, and have somewhere between 2% – 4% of the market? Go and buy a heap of key premium domain names, develop them and then link them all up!

So how far will Ask go? Should Wikipedia be concerned? Didn’t this type of strategy fail for AOL back in the early 90’s? Hey kids, lets go make our own Internets – go get those tubes over there….