The starting price is only 429 bucks per person and includes: cruise taxes/port fees, cabin, food (all you can eat), gratuities and the conference pass.

Chef will be inviting speakers from both the domaining and the development world so aside from the fun people will have in Cozumel, Mexico, the conference seems promising from a business point of view as well (Chef promises outside the box networking sessions as well as moderated group discussions).

If you’re interested, head on over to DNCruise.com and set things in motion. There’s no time like the present to seal the deal, this is an event with a lot of potential IMO and all of the spots will probably be sold out fairly soon.

Interested in finding out which domain I’m referring to? Click HERE.

Here’s the thread where it all happened (this week’s contest thread, the post can be found on page 4):

http://www.domaindiscussions.com/find-available-domain-highest-valuate-t27.html

1) Practically no moderation whatsoever. If you want to sign up just so you can tell me that I suck, be my guest. As long as we’re not talking about things like racism, it’s all good. I’m sure most of you are well aware of the fact that all domaining forums are being let’s say “censored” every once in a while and that’s just not right.

2) Weekly contests: free vector logos such as these, cash prizes and more. Sharing revenue with the people who are providing value is an extremely important part of my business model, the contests will basically be all about rewarding the folks who are helping others: if that’s not a win-win situation, I don’t know what is

3), 4), 5), …., 871) Hey, you don’t want me to reveal EVERYTHING now, do you? Stay tuned, the launch will definitely not go by unnoticed, I can guarantee that much.

If you want to be on board as a founder, shoot me an email at office [at] billiondollarmedia [dot] com and tell me a little bit about yourself. Nobody who does business with me ends up regretting it afterwards, let’s make some money!

Is Francois Protesting?

The “Our industry leaders have no money” donation button speaks for itself in my opinion and if you take a look at the 300*250 ads, you’ll notice that all of them are promoting sites owned by Francois.

In my opinion, this move is basically his way of saying something along the lines of “it’s outrageous that the #1 domaining site has no advertisers” and this attitude is understandable because let’s face it, his projects are definitely helping the industry.

What do you guys think?

TechCrunch is reporting that now Network Solution is hijacking traffic to the sub-domains to the domains hosted by them. From the post, Win Betteridge, who runs GotGame.com contacted TechCrunch with the following details –

For instance, app.gotgame.com resolves to a Network Solutions page with text links, including “Poker Tournaments” and “Texas Holdem Games.” The same is true of any other unassigned sub-domain. We have spoken to customer service a few times about fixing this problem…

I don’t know if this is standard practice for a hosting company, but this strikes me as another case of Network Solutions unreasonably profiting at the expense of its customers.

This is shocking and absolutely unethical — and no this is NOT a common practice by hosts but rather the greed of Network Solutions. The TechCrunch post has comments from readers which describes other Network Solutions horror stories.

But well, this is Network Solutions – the hypocrites of highest order – the guys who themselves do Front-Running while pretending to be fighting it and recently got sued for it. I wonder if they will ever stop being a Crook?

SS.com the domain that has been on everyone’s wish list has finally been sold to the team at Geaney.com for US$1.25 million dollars.

Jeff Geaney from Geaney.com said the two character .com has unlimited uses in the enormous media field of the Internet and has yet to say what the domain will be used for.

The domain is currently being held in escrow.com until the transaction and transfer is completed.

Source | Yikes, this is NOT good.

Interview Texts of Tim and Trey’s Interview are Coming Soon.

And how could it do so? Because the company had registered the name through a US registrar Enom. You can read about the whole story here.

Does anyone remember that BoDog also lost its names just because they were registered with Enom. (DNf Discussion)

The lessons is, if you are using your name for something that is not very legal in USA, use a registrar like Joker or Gandi.net which are not under US jurisdiction.

Domaining Industry is facing a Crisis! Olympia Snow has introduced a bill which, if passed, will be a disaster for the domaining industry. Here’s the summary of the bill –

Summary of the Legislation
Notwithstanding its title, the proposed legislation goes far beyond targeting “phishing” – the criminal misuse of e-mail and websites to falsely solicit financial information for fraudulent purposes – an activity that is already illegal and subject to enforcement under a variety of state and federal laws. It also establishes a parallel trademark-like infringement enforcement system that goes far beyond the provisions of ICANN’s Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) arbitration procedures as well as the U.S. Anti-Cybersquatting Protection Act (ACPA).

The proposed law would make it illegal for any person to use a website in violation of the anti-dilution provisions of U.S. Trademark law to solicit any information facilitating the purchase of goods and services by use of false or fraudulent pretenses or “misleading representations” that the solicitation was being made by or on behalf of a government office, nonprofit organization, business, or other entity.

It would also make it unlawful for any person to use a domain name in connection with the display of a webpage or an advertisement on a webpage if—

• The domain name was identical or confusingly similar to the name or brand name of a government office, nonprofit organization, business or other entity.
• The person had actual or implied knowledge that the domain name would likely mislead a computer user about any material fact regarding the webpage or advertisement.

In determining whether the person had actual or implied knowledge of likely misleading effect the courts could look to a variety of factors, including the person’s “intent to divert consumers from the brand name or trademark owner’s online location…that could harm the goodwill…by creating a likelihood of confusion as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the website.” Another factor would be whether the person had offered to sell the domain name to any third party “without having used…the domain name in the bona fide offering of goods and services”, a provision that appears to be aimed directly at “parked” websites consisting solely of advertising links.

Again, despite the bill’s title, none of these trademark-related provisions contain any requirement that the domain name and website had actually been utilized to facilitate a criminal “phishing” scheme. They address essentially the same harms for which the UDRP and ACPA already provide remedies, but in a more expansive manner with the registrant at greater legal disadvantage and subject to harsher penalties.

Enforcement of the APCPA could be undertaken by –

• A state attorney general or any other official of a state
• The Federal Trade Commission (and any violation of the APCPA would be considered to be a violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act as an unfair and deceptive trade practice, and subject to its additional penalties and remedies)
• Federal banking and securities agencies, state insurance commissioners, and the Federal Communications Commission
• Interactive computer services (e.g., ISPs)
• Trademark owners

All of these parties could seek injunctions, enforcement, and recovery of actual monetary damages. In addition, interactive computer services and trademark owners could seek punitive damages for willful and knowing violations – the private right of action granted to these parties in a bill ostensibly aimed at criminal activity is highly questionable. In cases filed by the FTC, FCC, and state officials, cease and desist orders and injunctions could be obtained without any requirement to allege, much less prove, that the domain name registrant had actual or implied knowledge of likely misleading effect.

In actions brought by a state attorney general or other state official monetary damages could be sought in the amount of actual monetary losses or, in the alternative, statutory damages of $250 per violation up to a maximum of $2 million. However, a court could triple the statutory damages award, up to a maximum of $6 million, if it found that the defendant had willfully and knowingly violated the Act or if the unlawful activity included the use of a domain name in violation of the anti-dilution provisions of the Trademark Act. The court could also award attorney fees where a successful suit was brought by a state attorney general or other state official.

- Sign a petition against this draconian bill — Click Here.

- Discussion on DNForum : Thread 1, Thread 2, Thread 3

- Internet Commerce Association

- News.com Story

Story Developing. Stay Tuned for Updates.

Hey everyone

so many months back I bought a CC.com for 10,000$, from a domain broker who now I know is a thief. The funny thing is, this thief was actually the whois email of a very good LLL.com (a company), so I had no idea trusting the seller at the time.

I went through escrow.com, sent the payment, and when it came time for transfer (at netsol), the domain was under a “temporary lock”.

I called netsol to see whats up with the domain, ask if it’s stolen, and the rep assured me that everything was fine with the domain, and the lock was there simply because of protection for the account. The rep then offered to merge the account in which the CC.com was and my account, and then she did.

So now I have the domain name in my netsol account.

Many weeks after I purchased the name, Netsol calls me up telling me that the domain I have is stolen, and the previous owner wants it back. I immediately tell them that as I would be more than happy to return this (25k+) CC.com as long as I get my 10,000$ back. (fair enough, right?) I also assured netsol that I won’t be transfering the domain out, and that I am there for their full cooperation if they needed my help for anything. I forwarded them all emails and did everything they asked.

So now, NetSol is calling me up telling me how I am partially to blame because I did not investigate this locked status (me calling and explicitly making sure everything is fine with the domain name wasn’t enough obviously). They also tell me to speak to Escrow to see how I can get my money back.

Turns out Escrow can’t get my money back without the bank owner’s (the hijacker’s) consent, which we all know we aren’t getting.

Now the situation is that Netsol called the FBI about the situation, and the FBI will contact escrow asking for the bank information of the hijacker.

I would never keep any of my precious names at a registrar like Network Solutions but rather transfer them to someone more secure like Moniker the moment I can.

But that’s not the point. The point is that how much is NetSol to be blamed when their representative said everything was okay.

Follow the discussion on DNForum.