Two actions taken last week, in two separate jurisdictions, show that governments around the US are still intent on individually regulating the Internet. According to Media Post, on Friday, the Utah House of Representatives, narrowly passed H.B. 450, which would bar companies from using rivals' trademarks to trigger ads on search engines, directories or other Web sites. The measure, approved … [Read more...]

Today Warren Buffett came out with his take on the economy: ""The U.S. economy had fallen off a cliff",  but he went on to say it will "eventually recover, although a rebound could kindle inflation worse than that experienced in the late 1970s."" ""The economy was mere hours away from collapse last September when credit markets seized up, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc went bankrupt and … [Read more...]

According to MarkMonitor,  there were almost 450,000 cyber-squatting sites active at the end of 2008 an increase of 18%. MarkMonitor.com now has a new term for these types of sites, brandjacking. Further findings from Markmonitor.com Abuse of apparel brands rose fastest in 2008, growing by 28 percent. High-tech and automotive brand abuse grew the second fastest, at 21 percent each, food … [Read more...]

I finally made the move. After years of waiting for that round wheel on Vista to finish so I could get back to work, my computer freezing - having to pull the plug so I can get it restarted, waiting for Outlook to rebuild after "not closing down properly", losing work in progress, failed hard drives and all the rest, I finally made the move over to a Mac. I have always heard that the … [Read more...]

A post today tells the story of 2 country code extensions, .tk and .tr. One is the official country code for the country of Turkey. One is for a small island in the pacific that has a population of only 1,200. Guess which is which? Yes .TR is the official country code for Turkey,  but Joost Zuurbier licensed the domain name rights of three tropical atolls, collectively known as … [Read more...]

It's been widely reported that LiveCurrent.com recently sold $1.65 million dollars in unidentified domains. LiveCurrent has listed currently for sale, at least 3 more of there domains; keyboard.com, leisure.com and mouse.com all at Sedo.com All listing are shown as make offer with the following minimums: Keyboard.com $25,000 Leisure.com $25,000 Mouse.com $10,000 … [Read more...]

In a very interest post on NameCake.com, the guest author,  laid out some good arguments about the economy and how the domain industry will fair in it. One of the points the author made, is one I have read before on many blogs and boards, that the recession/depression of 2009-2010, will create a similar opportunity for someone to come along like Frank Schilling did in 2002-2003 to create a … [Read more...]