RSA Conference Panel: “Domain Name Abuse”

Elliot Silver
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The RSA Conference is a respected and well-attended  Internet security conference that brings security experts together from all over the world. This year’s main event in the United States is  currently being held in San Francisco, California through April 24th. I learned that there is a panel focusing solely on  domain names, and as one might expect, it’s not one that puts the domain name space in a positive light.

On Thursday, April 23 at 9:10am, there is a session called “Domain Name Abuse: How Cheap New Domain Names Fuel the eCrime Economy.” The panel will be led by  Paul Vixie, CEO of a company called  Farsight Security, Inc.

Here is how the panel is described on

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.Sucks is Great for Awareness

Elliot Silver
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I understand why trademark holders and their trade organization are upset about .Sucks domain names. Personally, I think the  concern is a bit overstated  considering people can easily register CompanySucks.info, Company-Sucks.com or CompanyIsHorrible.com without the need for a .Sucks domain name, and they can do that right now.

Long after knowing about .Sucks, ICANN recently asked the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to review  .Sucks and have a look to see if there are any legal issues. This move brought a considerable amount of attention to the .Sucks registry

I think this .Sucks controversy is great for helping to bring awareness to the new gTLD registries. It does  not cast domain investors and people in the domain space in a positive light, but it is certainly an issue that is being discussed quite a bit.

Over the weekend, I spent some time with friends at a couple of parties. Two

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.Flowers Inquiry Pages + Frank Schilling Comments About North Sound Names

Elliot Silver
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I read Mike Berkens’ article about how over 24k .Flowers domain names were registered after the extension went into general availability. In the article, he wrote that “it appears that North Sound Names, owned by the principal of Uniregistry, registered over 98% of the domain names.”

In my opinion, the most obvious .Flowers domain names are geographic (city, town, state, region…etc) domain names, and I wanted to see if I could find any decent unregistered names of that variety in light of Mike’s aforementioned article. I searched for quite a few city .Flowers domain names, and all were registered.

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be all that interesting, except for the landing page that appeared on all of the domain names I searched, which I took a screenshot of and shared:

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SEO.Ninja “Was an April Fool’s joke”

Elliot Silver
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A week ago, Google’s Matt Cutts published an article on his blog about the creation of AutoSEO, and he announced that this new venture would use the SEO.Ninja domain name. I shared the news about SEO.Ninja, and I mentioned that it was likely an April Fools Day joke from Cutts.

As you can see from the tweet just posted by Cutts and embedded below, AutoSEO “was an April Fool’s joke.”

I knew that Matt Cutts was listed as the

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Tweet Illustrates Value of New TLD Program

Elliot Silver
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Michael Stevens is a common name in the United States. Judging by his Twitter profiles, I think this particular Michael Stevens is anything but common:

Mr. Stevens identifies himself as a Purple Heart recipient, and in my book that makes him a hero. Because of the fact that so many people have the same name as him, Mr. Stevens couldn’t hand register MichaelStevens.com. He also couldn’t register a variety of other common domain name extensions that were previously registered.

As you can see from the tweet above that was retweeted by .XYZ Registry CEO Daniel Negari, Mr. Stevens registered MichaelStevens.xyz. I think this is illustrative of the value of the new gTLD program. Someone who

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Purchased for $5k, Soap.Club Launches

Elliot Silver
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I was alerted to the launch of Soap.Club, and there’s an interesting story behind the business that I want to share with you.

Soap.Club was purchased via Sedo for $5,000, as reported by Shane Cultra this past Tuesday. The domain name had been owned by the .Club Registry, and they agreed to sell it via Sedo. Although, Soap.Club was not bought through the registry’s StartUp.club program, they intend to promote the website like a StartUp member.

The domain name was bought by Norm Farrar. According to Farrar, he thought of the idea when he was in Hawaii and tried natural soap for the first time. He did some market research about natural soap and consumer buying habits, and he felt that a business could be built around it. Farrar reached out to the .Club registry to acquire Soap.Club, and they were able to reach a deal.

Farrar shared additional information about Soap.Club and the business behind the website:

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