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Ohio Supreme Court Rules Commenter in Virginia Can Be Brought to Court in Ohio

Elliot Silver
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I read an interesting Ohio Supreme Court ruling, and I think it would behoove anyone who posts comments on Internet forums and blogs to read. In the case of Kauffman Racing Equip., L.L.C., v. Roberts, the state Supreme Court ruled that a Virginia resident, Scott Roberts, will need to respond to a court case brought against him in Ohio by Kauffman Racing Equipment (KRE), an Ohio company that does business throughout the United States.

KRE claimed that “Roberts posted numerous rancorous criticisms of KRE on various websites devoted to automobile racing equipment and related subjects.” From my review of the comments, they are similar in affect to those I see posted on domain forums and blogs about some of the domain companies with whom many of us do business. Here are a couple that were listed in the Court’s slip opinion referenced above:

  • “Now, I have and have had since the day the block was delivered, a USELESS BLOCK.   I didn’t say worthless!   I plan to get a lot of mileage out of   it[.]   And when I’m [sic] done Steve Kauffman will be able to attest to its worth.”
  • “You don’t seem to understand.   As far as Steve kauffinan [sic] is concerned the issue is resolved. * * * Again, this is not to get a resolution.   I have a much bigger and dastardly plan than that and this is the perfect place to start. * * * (LOL) * * *   Here is another good board to visit! * * * Just trying to help other potential victims.”   (Emoticons omitted.)

The crux of the case is that Scott Roberts felt the Ohio court didn’t have jurisdiction since he is not a resident of the state of Ohio. After KRE filed its case in an Ohio court in 2006, the court ruled that it didn’t have jurisdiction, and the company appealed to the Fifth District Court of Appeals, which reversed the trial court’s decision.

In it’s slip opinion issued a week ago, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that because Roberts’ comments would cause harm to the Ohio company in the state Ohio, the case could be brought against Roberts in Ohio. I have no legal background so I won’t get into a discussion about why the court made its findings, but I do think it’s important for people in this business to take note.

If you post something defamatory or negative about a company in another state, you may not be immune from a court case in that other state, which can obviously be expensive and burdensome. People often post things rapidly out of frustration or anger, and as the saying goes, you can’t unring a bell. There’s an interesting article about the case on RCPF.org.

Stat Tracking & Traffic Analytics

Elliot Silver
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It’s critical for any commercial website owner to track the site’s traffic and analytics to see how many people visit the site and how people interact with the website. There are number of stat tracking and traffic analytics companies that can help web developers, but I use just two of them for my websites, including this blog. I want to let you know what I use and why I use each.

Google Analytics is used by many websites of all sizes. One of the best things about Google Analytics is the fact that the website can coordinate with the other products in the Google business suite. It’s simple to install across a website, and it provides a ton of useful information. Website owners can see exactly how people got to a website, how the visitor navigated, length of time on a website/page, and a significant amount of other info. It’s one of the more comprehensive analytics trackers out there. The best part of course is that it’s free.

StatCounter.com allows website owners to track their stats in real time. I particularly like the fact that I can see exactly where the most recent visitors came from in chronological order. This is helpful when someone links to my website, and I can see this traffic immediately. I am able to label IP addresses so I can see who is visiting if I choose to do so, and I can also see what companies are visiting and where visitors are located. I use the upgraded option which tracks the last 10,000 visits and it only costs $49 every three months. It’s not as comprehensive as Google Analytics, but it provides accurate real time information of my website’s visitors.

On my blog where accurate stats is critical due to the advertising revenue, I use both Google Analytics and StatCounter.com. I can cross-check stats, and they are generally very close to each other, giving me a level of comfort to report accurate stats. StatCounter.com loads results very quickly and is simple to navigate. I prefer using it for my stats, and the analytics from GA supplements these numbers.

If you use different tools, which ones to you use and why?

Frank Schilling Auction: $10,050,362

Elliot Silver
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Christie’s auction house in New York City held a special auction today related to a well-known domain investor: “Important Watches Featuring The Leo Collection: 31 Sophisticated Wristwatches Curated by Frank Schilling.” The auction featured a number of rare watches from watchmakers such as Patek Philippe, Rolex, Chopard, Panerai, and many others.

Today’s live and Internet auction grossed a total of $10,050,362. The highest price realized was a Patek Philippe tourbillion watch, circa 2008, which sold for $602,500. The pre-auction estimate for this watch was $500,000 – $800,000. There were a number of high quality watches that sold for less than $10,000 each.

It’s not entirely clear which watches were actually owned by Schilling, as there were a total of 387 watches included in the auction.

Domain Tools I Use Daily

Elliot Silver
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There are a number of tools that I frequently use to evaluate domain sales and acquisitions. Some of them are domain-specific, but others are used to evaluate traffic and revenue potential. Here are some of the websites with tools I use just about every day.

  • FreshDrop.net – I use Fresh Drop just about every day to evaluate dropping/expiring domain names on Snapnames and Namejet. There are a whole lot of analytics you can track, including incoming links, domain age, pagerank, number of other extensions registered, and a variety of other options. Members can save filters, allowing them to use the site with more consistency and more quickly.
  • DomainTools – DomainTools is probably the “grandfather” of all domain-related tools. I use DomainTools for my Whois lookups, Whois history search, and frequently the Reverse IP search when attempting to buy domain names. I think everyone who is involved in the domain space should have a DomainTools account.
  • Google Adwords Keyword Tool – Frequently referred to simply as “GAKT,” this tool is helpful in analyzing keyword search volume as well as the cost advertisers are paying per click. There are many search options here, but I prefer to use the local exact match search.
  • Domaining.com – I don’t know if I would really call Domaining.com a tool per se, but it’s a resource I use every day to stay on top of the news in our business.

Did UDRP Decision Get Revision After Publication Without Notification?

Elliot Silver
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8

I read something pretty surprising on CircleID this morning pertaining to the Wooot.com UDRP decision that has reportedly been revised after publication. I initially wrote about the decision because I found it strange that the domain name was canceled by the panelist, and Andrew followed-up with more questions about the decision. Domain investor and frequent domain watchdog, George Kirikos, wrote the Circle ID article.

According to Kirikos’ research (and documented in Andrew’s article), someone removed the following important sentence from the UDRP decision after it had been published: “Complainant held a trademark registration for “AOL” and Respondent registered the domain name “iaol.com.”‘

Kirikos explains that the reason this line is important was that “This was completely out of place and nonsensical, because the complainant was Woot, not AOL, and iaol.com was a reference to a completely different case in 2002. This was the original “smoking gun” that caused the public to dig further into other cases of “cut/paste” amongst panelists. An archive of the original decision (cached on April 22, 2010) was made at Webcitation.”

There also doesn’t appear that there is any explanation as to why this UDRP appears to have been revised post-publication nor does there appear to be any notice issued on the National Arbitration Forum website. It doesn’t seem right that a UDRP decision could be revised after it’s issued without any sort of explanation or notice, especially when this particular section of the UDRP is one of the things that made Kirikos identify the cut/paste UDRP problem in the first place.

Want to Work for a Domain Company?

Elliot Silver
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8

I love working for myself, but I know some people would either prefer to work for a large company because of the steady income and career opportunities. Chef Patrick Ruddell recently went to work for Moniker, and there are a number of other individuals who made the transition from self-employed to corporate.

Here are a few job openings I saw at leading domain-related entities in case you are interested:

NameMedia – Senior QA Automation Engineer – Namemedia is looking for QA Automation star to assist in delivering high-quality, high-visibility, high-traffic customer facing web sites and company-internal web applications. The successful candidate will have a passion for designing, building and executing automated tests against Java and Web applications.

Sedo – Sales Consultant – As a Sales Consultant in our London office, you are responsible for driving new business in our expanding UK market across all critical product areas while establishing high-level relationships with key decision makers and ensuring both growth and long term client satisfaction.   Successful candidates will have a demonstrated ability to drive new business, develop and leverage a strong client network, and deliver repeatable and consistent business offerings with a focus on quality, creativity, and integrity.

Sedo – Associate Account Manager – We’re looking for a motivated individual interested in the online-advertising industry for our office. This starting position within Sedo’s UK sales division will teach you about all of our products and services (domain-marketing, domain sales, etc.) and key clients groups as well as develop your sales abilities. As part of Sedo’s dynamic UK office, you will assist us to ensure the retention and maximum satisfaction of our client base through a mixture of account management and sales tasks.

Oversee.net – Portfolio Account Manager – Join Oversee.net as the Portfolio Account Manager for the Domain Management operations team. This position will be working with a group of diverse, energetic, and motivated members who encourage team collaboration. This position involves responding to customer inquiries primarily via email correspondence as well as assisting the team in managing internal domain portfolios. This is a great opportunity for an individual to learn more about the domain name industry.

Oversee.net – Account Manager Emerging Businesses – As an Oversee Emerging Business Account Manager you will be responsible for growing and managing marketing partnerships, primarily for our airport parking reservations web business, aboutairportparking.com. Oversee has a major presence in online travel services with its lowfares.com web site, and seeks to expand its online travel business by leading specific niches like airport parking. This experienced, eager Account Manager skilled at closing new partners and growing and managing existing ones will play a critical role in growing the revenue of the Emerging Business group at Oversee.

Oversee.net – Search Engine Marketing Specialist – Emerging Businesses – Oversee.net’s Emerging Businesses division has an immediate need for a motivated, creative and analytic thinker with excellent communication and leadership skills to join the paid search marketing team. Oversee.net’s Emerging Businesses division has the proven ability to leverage core competencies in bid optimization, landing page design and to monetize high volumes of traffic into quality leads for a network of advertising partners. Headquartered in Los Angeles, the company’s core brands include LowFares.com, Degrees.com and IdentityTheft.com.

Moniker – Sales & Marketing Lead Generation Specialist – Moniker Online Services, LLC (www.moniker.com) is a leading provider of domain name registrations, auctions, appraisals and brokerage services for individuals and businesses that wish to have a unique address and branded identity on the Internet. The Sales & Marketing team is looking for a high energy and tech savvy individual to assist in developing lead generation and marketing programs to sell the company’s products and services – primarily focusing on premium domain name sales.

Domain Sponsor – Software Development Manager – Oversee is looking for a talented and passionate individual to help bring our Domain Sponsor product to the next level. We are currently looking for a Software Development Manager to lead our core Monetization team which serves millions of page views a day. This is a critical position with big responsibilities and high visibility. The position requires a strong individual with demonstrated leadership ability that enjoys taking on big challenges that directly affect the company’s results.

Domain Sponsor – Software Development Manager – Oversee is looking for a talented and passionate individual to help bring our Domain Sponsor product to the next level. We are currently looking for a Software Development Manager to lead our core Monetization team which serves millions of page views a day. This is a critical position with big responsibilities and high visibility. The position requires a strong individual with demonstrated leadership ability that enjoys taking on big challenges that directly affect the company’s results.

Domain Sponsor – Senior Data Architect – We are currently looking for an architect to identify and lead a comprehensive data strategy across our organization and design and build a scalable, extensible, and operable data infrastructure.

eNom – Senior Director, Sales and Support – Manage a team of over 40 Sales Representatives and Technical Support Representatives…etc.

Thought Convergence – Database Administrator – The ideal candidate will be a strategic thinking self-starter with a passion for technical problem solving. Strong candidates will have a solid understanding of the issues surrounding large-volume websites and scalability.

Thought Convergence – Sr. User Experience Developer – If you enjoy taking client user interfaces to the next level, are driven by the challenge of defining and maintaining long-term strategies, and want to contribute new and unique ideas to the UI design of rich Internet applications, this position may be perfect for you!

Godaddy – Keyword Search Analyst – The Keyword Search Analyst is responsible for researching and compiling a list of keywords that target specific industries. This position requires the ability to write copy based on the top keywords within the category.

Godaddy – Social Media Director – The Social Media/Communications Director oversees aspects of internal and external communications for the organization. Part of this responsibility is managing the Social Media department and maintaining a cohesive corporate message thru the various Social Media platforms.

Godaddy – Product Manager (Domain Monetization) – The Domain Monetization Product Manager oversees Go Daddy’s domain monetization product line, including the domain parking platform. This person will develop and manage cutting-edge monetization solutions for domain names, and will be responsible for the vision and execution of Go Daddy’s domain monetization strategy.

Name.com – User Interface (UI) Designer – At Name.com we want to put a greater emphasis on the usability of our tools and services. By focusing on the user, we believe the rest will fall into place. We’re looking for a UI Designer to help drive the design process for new Name.com products and features. As a UI Designer, you will work closely with our development team and company leadership throughout all stages of the product cycle. If you’re a critical thinker with a good design sense, a strong technical background, and an eye for making things better we want to talk to you. This is a full-time salaried position.

Tucows – Associate Developer – We’re looking for people that love to program.
This position is for a temporary full-time software engineer (for 3-6 months) that will design, code and test projects and enhancements within a small Agile team. Maintenance and testing of the products is expected, as well as tight collaboration with other developers, QA, product managers and other various members of the team.

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