Naanayam

Movie Name : Naanayam
Cast : Sibiraj, Prasanna, SP Balasubramaniam, Ramya Rai
Music Director : James Vasanthan
Director : Sathya
Lyrics : Dr Krudhaya, James Vasanthan, Kavivarman, Yugabharathi
Year : 2009

Naanayam Version 1 - Ranjith, Chorus
Nan Pogiren - SP Balasubramanayam, KS Chitra
Aasa Aasa - Kannan, Megha, Ramya, Sheba, Chorus
Ka Ka Ka - Devi Sri Prasad, Simbhu
Kooda Kooda - Sunitha Sarthi, Chorus
Naanayam Version 2 - Ranjith, Chorus

Click here to Download Naanayam mp3 songs (Mediafire link RAR Format-open in new window)

Download Naanayam MP3 Songs - Tamil MP3 Downloads from Naanayam Movie - Download Latest Tamil MP3 songs from Naanayam Movie for free - High Quality Mp3 songs Naanayam Movie

Domain names

A domain name is an identification label that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet, based on the Domain Name System (DNS).

Domain names are used in various networking contexts and application-specific naming and addressing purposes. They are organized in subordinate levels (subdomains) of the DNS root domain, which is nameless. The first-level set of domain names are the top-level domains (TLDs), including the generic top-level domains (gTLDs), such as the prominent domains com, net and org, and the country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Below these top-level domains in the DNS hierarchy are the second-level and third-level domain names that are typically open for reservation by end-users that wish to connect local area networks to the Internet, run web sites, or create other publicly accessible Internet resources. The registration of these domain names is usually administered by domain name registrars who sell their services to the public.

Individual Internet host computers use domain names as host identifiers, or hostnames. Hostnames are the leaf labels in the domain name system usually without further subordinate domain name space. Hostnames appear as a component in Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for Internet resources such as web sites (e.g., en.wikipedia.org).

Domain names are also used as simple identification labels to indicate ownership or control of a resource. Such examples are the realm identifiers used in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the DomainKeys used to verify DNS domains in e-mail systems, and in many other Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs).

An important purpose of domain names is to provide easily recognizable and memorizable names to numerically addressed Internet resources. This abstraction allows any resource (e.g., website) to be moved to a different physical location in the address topology of the network, globally or locally in an intranet. Such a move usually requires changing the IP address of a resource and the corresponding translation of this IP address to and from its domain name.

Domain names are often referred to simply as domains and domain name registrants are frequently referred to as domain owners, although domain name registration with a registrar does not confer any legal ownership of the domain name, only an exclusive right of use.

This article primarily discusses the group of domain names that are offered by domain name registrars for registration by the public. The Domain Name System article discusses the technical facilities and infrastructure of the domain name space and the hostname article deals with specific information about the use of domain names as identifiers of network hosts.

Domain name

Top-level domains

The top-level domains (TLDs) are the highest level of domain names of the Internet. They form the DNS root zone of the hierarchical Domain Name System. Every domain name ends in a top-level or first-level domain label.

When the Domain Name System was created in the 1980s, the domain name space was divided into two main groups of domains.^[1] The country code top-level domains (ccTLD) were primarily based on the two-character territory codes of ISO-3166 country abbreviations. In addition, a group of seven generic top-level domains (gTLD) was implemented which represented a set of categories of names and multi-organizations.^[2] These were the domains GOV, EDU, COM, MIL, ORG, NET, and INT.

During the growth of the Internet, it became desirable to create additional generic top-level domains. As of June 2009, there are 20 generic top-level domains and 248 country code top-level domains.^[3] In addition, the ARPA domain serves technical purposes in the infrastructure of the Domain Name System.

During the 32nd International Public ICANN Meeting in Paris in 2008,^[4] ICANN started a new process of TLD naming policy to take a "significant step forward on the introduction of new generic top-level domains." This program envisions the availability of many new or already proposed domains, as well a new application and implementation process.^[5] Observers believed that the new rules could result in hundreds of new top-level domain to be registered.^[6]

An annotated list of top-level domains in the root zone database is published at the IANA website at http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/ and a Wikipedia list exists.

[edit] Second-level and lower level domains

Below the top-level domains in the domain name hierarchy are the second-level domain (SLD) names. These are the names directly to the left of .com, .net, and the other top-level domains. As an example, in the domain en.wikipedia.org, wikipedia is the second-level domain.

Next are third-level domains, which are written immediately to the left of a second-level domain. There can be fourth- and fifth-level domains, and so on, with virtually no limitation. An example of an operational domain name with four levels of domain labels is www.sos.state.oh.us. The www preceding the domains is the host name of the World-Wide Web server. Each label is separated by a full stop (dot). 'sos' is said to be a sub-domain of 'state.oh.us', and 'state' a sub-domain of 'oh.us', etc. In general, subdomains are domains subordinate to their parent domain. An example of very deep levels of subdomain ordering are the IPv6 reverse resolution DNS zones, e.g., 1.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.ip6.arpa, which is the reverse DNS resolution domain name for the IP address of a loopback interface, or the localhost name.

Second-level (or lower-level, depending on the established parent hierarchy) domain names are often created based on the name of a company (e.g., microsoft.com), product or service (e.g., gmail.com). Below these levels, the next domain name component has been used to designate a particular host server. Therefore, ftp.wikipedia.org might be an FTP server, www.wikipedia.org would be a World Wide Web server, and mail.wikipedia.org could be an email server, each intended to perform only the implied function. Modern technology allows multiple physical servers with either different (cf. load balancing) or even identical addresses (cf. anycast) to serve a single hostname or domain name, or multiple domain names to be served by a single computer. The latter is very popular in Web hosting service centers, where service providers host the websites of many organizations on just a few servers.

Allowed character set

Domain name registrations have traditionally only been allowed for names that consist only of letters, digits and the hyphen (-) from the ASCII character set, as in hostnames. The full stop (dot, .) is used to separate DNS labels, the hierarchical components in a domain name.

This character set excludes numerous characters commonly found in non-English languages, and does not allow multi-byte characters necessary for most Asian languages. The Internationalized domain name (IDN) system, which permits such characters, has been developed and many registries allow such names.

The underscore character is permitted in names used in the domain name system, and is frequently used to ensure that a domain name is not recognized as a hostname, as in the use of DNS server records (SRV), for example. Other naming systems often used in conjunction with DNS, such as NetBIOS, allow it.

Official assignment

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has overall responsibility for managing the DNS. It administers the root domain, delegating control over each TLD to a domain name registry. For ccTLDs, the domain registry is typically installed by the government of that country. ICANN has a consultation role in these domain registries but cannot regulate the terms and conditions of how domain names are delegated in each of the country-level domain registries. On the other hand, the generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are governed directly under ICANN, which means all terms and conditions are defined by ICANN with the cooperation of each gTLD registry.

Domain names are often seen in analogy to real estate in that (1) domain names are foundations on which a website (like a house or commercial building) can be built and (2) the highest "quality" domain names, like sought-after real estate, tend to carry significant value, usually due to their online brand-building potential, use in advertising, search engine optimization, and many other criteria.

A few companies have offered low-cost, below-cost or even cost-free domain registrations with a variety of models adopted to recoup the costs to the provider. These usually require that domains be hosted on their website within a framework or portal that includes advertising wrapped around the domain holder's content, revenue from which allows the provider to recoup the costs. Domain registrations were free of charge when the DNS was new. A domain holder (often referred to as a domain owner) can give away or sell infinite number of subdomains under their domain name. For example, the owner of example.edu could provide subdomains such as foo.example.edu and foo.bar.example.edu to interested parties.

Abuses

This article may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (May 2008)

As domain names became interesting to marketers because of their advertising and marketing potential, rather than just being used to label Internet resources in a technical fashion, they began to be used in manners that in many cases did not reflect the intended purpose of the label of their top-level domain. As originally planned, the structure of domain names followed a hierarchy in which the TLD indicated the type of organization (commercial, governmental, etc.), and addresses would be nested down to third, fourth, or further levels to express complex structures, where, for instance, branches, departments and subsidiaries of a parent organization would have addresses in subdomains of the parent domain. Also, hostnames were originally intended to correspond to actual physical machines on the network, generally with only one name per machine.

As the World Wide Web became popular, site operators frequently wished to have memorable addresses, regardless of whether they fit properly into the structure; thus, because the .com domain was the most popular and therefore most prestigious, even noncommercial sites began to obtain domains directly within that gTLD, and many sites desired second-level domain names in .com, even if they were already part of a larger entity where a subdomain would have been logical (e.g., abcnews.com instead of news.abc.com).

Shorter, and therefore more memorable, domain names are thought to have more appeal. As a convenience, methods were implemented to reduce the amount of typing required when entering a web site address into the location field of a web browser. A website found at ''http://www.example.org'' will often be advertised without the http://, since the HTTP protocol is implicitly assumed when referring to web sites. In many cases, web sites can be also be reached by omitting the www prefix, as in this given example. This feature is usually implemented in DNS by the website administrator. In the case of a .com, the website can sometimes be reached by just entering example (depending on browser versions and configuration settings, which vary in how they interpret incomplete addresses).

The popularity of domain names also led to uses which were regarded as abusive by established companies with trademark rights; this has become known as cybersquatting, in which a person registers a domain name that resembles a trademark in order to profit from visitors looking for that address. To combat this, various laws and policies were enacted to allow abusive registrations to be forcibly transferred, but these were sometimes themselves abused by overzealous companies committing reverse domain hijacking against domain users who had legitimate grounds to hold their names. Such legitimate uses could include the use of generic words that are contained within a trademark, but used in a particular context within the trademark, or their use in the context of fan or protest sites with free speech rights of their own.

Laws that specifically address domain name conflicts include the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act in the United States and the Trademarks Act of 1999 in India. Alternatively, domain registrants are bound by contract under the UDRP to comply with mandatory arbitration proceedings should someone challenge their ownership of a domain name.

Often email phishing scams will abuse subdomain names to appear to be a legitimate site. For instance, an email might purport to be from Bank of America, and include a link to a fake login screen hosted on http://www.bankofamerica.com.abc.def.ghi.jkl In this case, the actual domain is ghi.jkl, but appears at first glance to be bankofamerica.com.

Generic domain names—problems arising from unregulated name selection

Within a particular TLD, parties are generally free to register an undelegated domain name on a first come, first served basis, resulting in Harris's lament, all the good ones are taken. For generic or commonly used names, this may sometimes lead to the use of a domain name which is inaccurate or misleading. This problem can be seen with regard to the ownership or control of domain names for a generic product or service. By way of illustration, there has been tremendous growth in the number and size of literary festivals around the world in recent years. In the current context, a generic domain name such as literary.org is available to the first literary festival organization that is able to obtain the registration, even if the festival in question is very young or obscure. Some critics argue that there is greater amenity in reserving such domain names for the use of, for example, a regional or umbrella grouping of festivals. Related issues may also arise in relation to noncommercial domain names.

Unconventional domain names

Due to the rarity of one-word dot-com domain names, many unconventional domain names, domain hacks, have been created. They make use of the top-level domain as an integral part of the Web site's title. Three popular domain hack Web sites are cr.yp.to, blo.gs and del.icio.us, which spell out "crypto", "blogs" and "delicious", respectively.

Unconventional domain names are also used to create unconventional email addresses. Non-working examples that spell 'James' are j@m.es and j@mes.com, which use the domain names m.es (of Spain's .es) and mes.com, respectively.

Premium domain names

In the business of marketing domain names, "premium" domain names are often valuable, and have particular characteristics that are used in the domain appraisal process. For example, the names are short, memorable, may contain words that are regularly searched on search engines, and/or keywords that help the domain name gain a higher ranking on search engines. They may contain generic words, so the domain has more than one meaning.

Very short .com domains are valuable as their number is limited. Among the 26 single-letter second-level domains, only 3 are currently registered (q.com, x.com, z.com) because the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority reserved them in 1993. Those that were already registered were not recalled. Among the 676 .com two letter domain name 59 have been registered or purchased by global branded companies. ^[7]

Resale of domain names

The business of resale of previously registered domain names is known as the domain aftermarket.

Various factors influence the perceived value or market value of a domain name. They include 1) the natural or "organic" traffic that can be attributed to web surfers typing in a domain name in their web browser as opposed to doing a search for the site through a search engine. 2) Branding Opportunity. The ability to have a term recognized and easily recalled as a brand for a company or entity. 3) Re-sale value. The ability to spot trends and predict the value of a name based on its length (short is preferred), clarity, and commercial use. The word "loan" is far more valuable than the word "sunshine".

Generic domain names have sprung up in the last decade. Certain domains, especially those related to business, gambling, pornography, and other commercially lucrative fields of digital world trade have become very much in demand to corporations and entrepreneurs due to their importance in attracting clients.

There are disputes about the high values of domain names claimed and the actual cash prices of many sales such as Business.com. Another high-priced domain name, sex.com, was stolen from its rightful owner by means of a forged transfer instruction via fax. During the height of the dot-com era, the domain was earning millions of dollars per month in advertising revenue from the large influx of visitors that arrived daily. The sex.com sale may have never been final as the domain is still with the previous owner. Also, that sale was not just a domain but an income stream, a web site, a domain name with customers and advertisers, etc. Two long-running U.S. lawsuits resulted, one against the thief and one against the domain registrar VeriSign ^[8]. In one of the cases, Kremen v. Network Solutions, the court found in favor of the plaintiff, leading to an unprecedented ruling that classified domain names as property, granting them the same legal protections. In 1999, Microsoft traded the name Bob.com with internet entrepreneur Bob Kerstein for the name Windows2000.com which was the name of their new operating system.^[9]

One of the reasons for the value of domain names is that even without advertising or marketing, they attract clients seeking services and products who simply type in the generic name. This is known as Direct Navigation or Type-in Traffic. Furthermore, generic domain names such as movies.com (now owned by Disney) or Books.com (now owned by Barnes & Noble) are extremely easy for potential customers to remember, increasing the probability that they become repeat customers or regular clients. In the case of Movies.com, Disney has built a stand-alone portal featuring branded content. More and more large brands are beginning to employ a more comprehensive domain strategy featuring a portfolio of thousands of domains, rather than just one or two.

Although the current domain market is nowhere as strong as it was during the dot-com heyday, it remains strong and is currently experiencing solid growth again.^[10] Annually tens of millions of dollars change hands in connection with the resale of domains. Large numbers of registered domain names lapse and are deleted each year. On average, more than 25,000 domain names drop (are deleted) every day.

An estimate by an appraiser is always the addition of what they would like a domain to be worth together with the effective/expected/desired revenue from the web content. Some people put value on the length of the SLD (name) and other people prefer description capability, but the shorter an SLD is, the less descriptive it can be. Also, if short is crucial, then the TLD (extension) should be short too. It is less realistic to get a domain like LL.travel or LL.mobi than a domain travel. LL or mobi. LL. This illustrates the relativity of domain value estimation. It is safe to say that the revenue of web (content) can be easily stated, but that the value of a domain (SLD.TLD aka name.ext) is a matter of opinion and preference. In the end, however, any sale depends on the expectations of the domain seller and the domain buyer.

A webmaster creating a new web site either buys the domain name directly from a domain name registrar, or indirectly from a domain name registrar through a domainer. People who buy and sell domain names are known as domainers. People who sell value estimation services are known as appraisers.

Domain aftermarket prices and trends

Domain name sales occurring in the aftermarket are frequently submitted to the DN journal. The sales are listed weekly and include the top aftermarket resellers which include but are not limited to Sedo, Traffic (auctions), Afternic, NameJet, Moniker and private sales.

To date, and according to Guinness World Records and MSNBC, the most expensive domain name sales on record as of 2004 were^[10]:

• Business.com for $7.5 million in December 1999
• AsSeenOnTv.com for $5.1 million in January 2000
• Altavista.com for $3.3 million in August 1998
• Wine.com for $2.9 million in September 1999
• CreditCards.com for $2.75 million in July 2004
• Autos.com for $2.2 million in December 1999

The week ending January 27, 2008, DNJournal reported that CNN, a cable news channel purchased iReport.com for $750,000. The high price for iReport.com, as in "I Report," was because it was branded by CNN as CNN's news crowdsourcing prior to the purchase of the domain name. Likewise, AltaVista was branded as a search engine prior to the high purchase price of the domain name.

Popular domain prefixes - "E" and "I"

In addition to a domain placing value on the shortness of the word, ease in spelling, commercial appeal, and organic capacity to generate natural traffic, today's domain names are being valued for the branding potential. The domain name sale iReport although not an organic or dictionary term alone, is actually preferred as a highly brandable term, in that it is has a popular pre-fix "i" which indicates the "report" to be online.

The prefixes and dashes between words were once considered second, but now due to brandability, if the term is a commercial term, a prefix is often preferred. Example eLoans markets with an e to indicate to its potential customers that a loan may be obtained online.

The two primary prefixes are "E", for electronic, and "I", for Internet. Both indicate the word or phrase to be accessible online. Because of that, in terms of branding, an i or e combined with a commercial term are highly desirable. In domain sales typically an e has been preferred, and i slightly less in terms of demand. eBrooklyn sold for approximately $2500 whereas once it would have been available to register at the price of a domain name (which ranges from $8 to $30 us dollars depending on the registrar). The rapidly increasing use of prefixes in conjunction with main dictionary and or commercial terms is here and for some predominantly internet based companies, or high technology, high profile companies, the prefix is now preferred.

One of the details that make a domain with a prefix more valuable for a brand, is the ability to simply promote the name without the use of ".com" in the promotion. If a domain owner had report.com he would be forced to use the .com to indicate it was on the net at that address, however a domain name with a one letter prefix does not need to use the ".com".

Someone could promote "iReport" as a brand, and assuming it was a world class brand, visitors would know they could find it at "iReport.com without seeing the .com. However if it was a .net, it would be wise to state iReport.net. This option to simply state the name of the company or entity is particularly valuable in that it is brief and clear in indicating that a report can be either made or found on the "i"nternet.

eLoans similarly does not have to state "eLoans.com". eLoans, in the minds of most is clearly an online entity offering electronic loan applications.

Some alternative domains that avoid the use of ".com" in their promotion are "WebMD" as the word web as a prefix suffice to indicate the information is online and likely at a .com extension.

Branding with a domain name

Brands are greatly affected by the ability of the company to obtain the matching domain name. If a company builds a brand around a name to which it does not own the domain name, it can end up directing traffic to another domain owner's site. If it is a competitor, this would be a problem.

Today's advertising development of a great brand is strictly confined to the availability to synchronize the brand with a domain name. Any confusion might result in a competitor gaining valuable internet traffic and possible customers.

Domain name confusion

Intercapping is often used to emphasize the meaning of a domain name. However, DNS names are case-insensitive, and some names may be misinterpreted in certain uses of capitalization. For example: Who Represents, a database of artists and agents, chose whorepresents.com, which can be misread as whore presents. Similarly, a therapists' network is named therapistfinder.com. Another example is powergenitalia.com, the website of an Italian power generator company. In such situations, the proper meaning may be clarified by use of hyphens in the domain name. For instance, Experts Exchange, the programmers' site, for a long time used expertsexchange.com, but ultimately changed the name to experts-exchange.com.

Leo Stoller threatened to sue the owners of StealThisEmail.com on the basis that, when read as stealthisemail.com, it infringed on claimed (but invalid) trademark rights to the word "stealth".^[11]

Use in web site hosting

A domain name is a component of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) used to access web sites, for example:

URL: http://www.example.net/index.html

Domain name: www.example.net

Second-level domain name: example.net

A domain name may point to multiple IP addresses to provide server redundancy for the services delivered. This is used for large, popular web sites. More commonly, however, one server at a given IP address may also host multiple web sites in different domains. Such address overloading is possible through a feature in the HTTP version 1.1 protocol (but not in HTTP 1.0) which requires that a request identifies the domain name being referenced. This enables virtual web hosting commonly used by large web hosting services to conserve IP address space.

For example, the web server at IP address 208.77.188.166 handles all HTTP page requests to the following domain names:

example.com

www.example.com

example.net

www.example.net

example.org

www.example.org

Domain name registrar

A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity, accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) or by a national country code top-level domain (ccTLD) authority, to manage the reservation of Internet domain names in accordance with the guidelines of the designated domain name registries and offer such services to the public.

Contents

History

Domain name registrar market share

Until 1999, Network Solutions (NSI) operated the com, net, and org registries. It was the domain name registry operator for these domains as well as the sole registrar. However, several companies had developed independent registrar services. One such company, NetNames, invented the idea of a commercial standalone domain name registration service in 1996. Registrars introducing the concept of domain name sales and other associated services, effectively introducing the retail model into the industry and assigning a wholesale role to the registries. NSI assimilated this model, which ultimately led to the separation of registry and registrar functions.

In October 1998, following pressure from the growing domain name registration business and other interested parties, NSI's agreement with the United States Department of Commerce was amended. This amendment required the creation of a shared registration system (SRS) that supported multiple registrars. This SRS officially opened on November 30, 1999 under the supervision of ICANN, though there had been several testbed registrars using the system since March 11, 1999. Since then, over 500 registrars have entered the market for domain name registration services.

Of the registrars who initially entered the market, many have continued to grow and outpace rivals. Go Daddy is the largest registrar. Other successful registrars include eNom, Tucows and Melbourne IT. Registrars who initially led the market but later were surpassed by rivals include Network Solutions and Dotster.

Designated registrar

An end-user cannot directly register a domain and manage their domain information with ICANN. A designated registrar must be chosen. Prior to 1999, the only com registrar was NSI, but the approval of the SRS opened up the opportunity for other companies to be designated as registrars.

Each ICANN-accredited registrar must pay a fixed fee of US$4,000 plus a variable fee. The sum of variable registrar fees are designed to total US$3.8 million.

Only the designated registrar may modify or delete information about a domain name. The competition that the SRS created enables end users to choose from many registrars offering different services at varying prices. It is not unusual for an end user to switch registrars which invokes a domain transfer process governed by specific domain name transfer policies.

When a registrar registers a com domain name for an end-user, it must pay a maximum annual fee of US$6.86 to VeriSign, the registry operator for com, and a US$0.20 administration fee to ICANN. Most domain registrars price their services and products to address both the annual fees and the administration fees that must be paid to ICANN. Barriers to entry into the bulk registrar industry are high for new companies without an existing customer base.^{[citation needed]}

Many registrars also offer registration through reseller affiliates. An end-user registers either directly with a registrar, or indirectly through one or more layers of resellers. As of 2008, the cost generally ranges from a low of about $7.50 per year to about $35 per year. The maximum period of registration of a domain name is generally 10 years.

Some registrars are offering longer periods of up to one hundred years, but such offers involve the registrar renewing the registration for their customer. The one hundred year domain name registration would not be in the official registration database. Some packages of Internet services, such as web hosting, include the domain registration in the total package pricing.

Domain name transfer

A Domain name transfer is the process of changing the designated registrar of a domain name. ICANN has defined a Policy on Transfer of Registrations between Registrars^[1] The usual process of a domain name transfer is:

1. The end user verifies that the whois admin contact info is correct, particularly the email address; obtains the authentication code (EPP transfer code) from the old registrar, and removes any domain lock that has been placed on the registration.
2. The end user contacts the new registrar with the wish to transfer the domain name to their service, and supplies the authentication code.
3. The new registrar will contact the old registrar with this information.
4. The old registrar will contact the end user to confirm the authenticity of this request. The end user may have to take further action with the old registrar, such as returning to the online management tools, to re-iterate their desire to proceed, in order to expedite the transfer.
5. The old registrar will release authority to the new registrar.
6. The new registrar will notify the end user of transfer completion. The new registrar may have automatically copied over the domain server information, and everything on the website will continue to work as before. Otherwise, the domain server information will need to be updated with the new registrar.

After this process, the new registrar becomes the domain name's designated registrar. The process may take about five days. In some cases, the old registrar may intentionally delay the transfer as long as allowable. After transfer, the domain cannot be transferred again for 60 days, except back to the previous registrar.

It is unwise to attempt to transfer a domain immediately before it expires. In some cases, a transfer can take up to 14 days, meaning that the transfer may not complete before the registration expires. This could result in loss of the domain name registration and failure of the transfer. To avoid this, end users should either transfer well before the expiration date, or renew the registration before attempting the transfer.[1]

If a domain registration expires, irrespective of the reason, it can be difficult, expensive, or impossible for the original owner to get it back. After the expiration date, the domain status often passes through several management phases, often for a period of months; usually it does not simply become generally available.^{[citation needed]}

Transfer scams

With the introduction of SRS, many smaller registrars had to compete with each other. Some companies offered value added services or used viral marketing, while others, such as VeriSign and the Domain Registry of America attempted to trick customers to switch from their current registrar using a practice known as domain slamming.

Many of these transfer scams involve a notice sent in the mail, fax, or e-mail. Some scammers contacted end users by telephone (since the contact information is available through WHOIS) to obtain more information. These notices would include information publicly available from the WHOIS database to add to the look of authenticity. The text would include legalese to confuse the end user into thinking that it is an official binding notice. Scam registrars go after domain names that are expiring soon or have recently expired. Expired domain names do not have to go through the authentication process to be transferred, as the previous registrar would have relinquished management rights of the domain name. Domain name expiry dates are readily available via WHOIS.

Drop catcher

A term used to refer to domain name registrars who offer a service that will attempt to register a name for an end-user as soon as it becomes available – that is, catching a dropped name – either because the current owner does not want the name any more, or because they have not renewed the name before it expires.

Domain hack

A domain hack is an unconventional domain name that combines domain levels, especially the top-level domain (TLD), to spell out the full "name" or title of the domain. Well-known examples include blo.gs, del.icio.us, and cr.yp.to.

In this context, the "hack" represents a trick (as in programming), not an exploit or break-in (as in security).

Domains such as .as, .it, .me, or .us are easy to use as domain hacks because they correspond to short, simple dictionary words. Alternately, a name is chosen so that the last few characters match an existing top-level domain, such as "inter.net", so that every character is used in forming the common name.

Domain hacks offer the ability to produce extremely short domain names. For example, blo.gs has a total of only five letters (versus blogs.com, at eight letters), as every letter is taken into account as the site's title.

This makes them potentially valuable as redirectors (like i.am, which redirects to FortuneCity's V3 service), as pastebins and as base domains from which to delegate subdomains.

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International names

In many cases, registration of these short domain names relies on the use of country code domains, each of which has a unique two-letter identifier.

For example, blo.gs makes use of the TLD .gs (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) to spell "blogs", chronolo.gy uses the TLD .gy (Guyana) to spell "chronology", and tel.ly uses the TLD .ly (Libya) to spell "telly" (a popular British slang term for television).

The third-level domains del.icio.us and cr.yp.to make use of the SLDs icio.us and yp.to from the TLDs .us (United States) and .to (Tonga) to spell "delicious" and "crypto" respectively.

In some cases, an entire country code domain has been re-purposed in its international marketing, such as .am, .fm, .ly, .cd, .dj, and .tv for sites delivering various forms of audiovisual content.

History

On November 23, 1992, inter.net was registered.^[1] In the 1990s, several hostnames ending in "pla.net" were active. The concept of spelling out a phrase with the parts of a hostname to form a domain hack is well established.^[2] On Friday, May 3, 2002, icio.us was registered to create del.icio.us.

Who.is is a whois server, indicating the registered ownership information of a domain. It was established June 12, 2002 and registered to an address in Reykjavík, Iceland.

On January 14, 2004, the Christmas Island Internet Administration revoked .cx domain registration for shock site Goatse.cx, a domain which used "se.cx" to form the word "sex".^[3] The domain was originally registered in 1999. Similar names had been used for parody sites such as oralse.cx or analse.cx; in some cases, .cz (Czech Republic) or .kz (Kazakhstan) are substituted for .cx.

Yahoo! acquired blo.gs^[4] on June 14, 2005, and del.icio.us^[5] on December 9, 2005.

On 11 September 2007, name servers for .me were delegated by IANA to the Government of Montenegro, with a two-year transition period for existing .yu names to be transferred to .me. One of the first steps taken in deploying .me online was to create .its.me as a domain space for personal sites.^[6] Many desirable domain hacks, such as love.me or leave.me,^[7] were held back by the registry as premium names for later auction.

In January 2008, Matt Mullenweg changed his popular photomatt.net domain to ma.tt.^[8]

Other languages

A fad amongst French-speakers was to register their names in the Niue TLD .nu, which in French and Portuguese means "nude" or "naked"; however, as of 2007^[update], Niue authorities have revoked many of these domain names. The handful that remain are joke domains without actual nudity. Likewise, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish speakers sometimes use .nu, because it means "now" in these languages.

Some organisations situated in Switzerland use TLDs to specifically refer to their canton (like the Belgian TLD .be for the Canton of Berne).

The American Samoa domain .as is popular in the handful of countries where A/S is the legal suffix for corporations. Likewise, Hungarian domains sometimes use the Moroccan top level domain .ma (meaning "today").

In Russian, net (as «nyet») means "no", so there are many domains in the format "something.net". A similar use of .info (in many languages where the term signifies "information") is to use a negatory term and .info to yield local equivalents to "there is no information". In Czech, Polish and Slovak, to means "it", so there are many domains using Tonga's .to in the format "do-something.to" (e.g., zrobie.to, meaning "I will do it" the Polish language).

In French, Italian and Portuguese, « là » or « lá » mean "there". As the .la domain (Laos) is available for second-level registration worldwide, this can be an easy way to get a short, catchy name like "go there". The Canadian domain .ca is also trivial to use as « cá » ("here") in Portuguese or « ça » ("that") in Canadian French; local Canadian presence is required.

Since the introduction of .eu domains (eu meaning "I" in Romanian and in Portuguese), these domains have become popular in Romania, with people registering their names with the .eu extension.^{[citation needed]}

This table does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

Many domain hacks are plays on words specific to one local language:

Domain	Registry	Translation
French language
aucun.info	.info	« aucun info » ("no info"), a base for FreeDNS subdomains
benefice.net	.net	« bénéfice net » ("net profit"), a business-related news site
c.la, cest.la	Laos	« c'est là » ("it's there") or « allez là » ("go there") are commonly used as redirectors
louez.ca	Canada	« louez ça » ("rent that"), a list of Montréal homes for rent
teu.be	Belgium	« teubé » ("dumb"), a collaborative blog
voyez.ca	Canada	« voyez.ça » ("see that"), a collection of images
German language
raba.tt	Trinidad and Tobago	« Rabatt » ("rebate")
schokola.de	Germany	« Schokolade » ("chocolate")
ueberwin.de	Germany	« Überwinde » ("overcome")
Naturli.ch	Switzerland	« Natürlich » ("natural.ly")
autom.at	Austria	« Automat» ("automat")
fals.ch	Switzerland	« falsch » ("wrong", "false")
koe.stli.ch	Switzerland	« köstlich » ("delicious")
Spanish language
red.es	Spain	« redes » ("networks"), Spain's national domain-name registry operator
educ.ar	Argentina	« educar » ("to educate"), the Argentine government's education portal
pagina.de	Germany	« página de » (the page of), a web forwarding site.
recorta.me	Montenegro	« recortame » ("cut me"), URL shortener.
Portuguese language
notici.as	American Samoa	« noticias » ("news")
bibliote.ca	Canada	« biblioteca » ("library")
pesquisa.la	Laos	« pesquisa là » ("search there"), for Desciclopédia - an encyclopedia
vai.la	Laos	« vai lá » ("go there"), a redirector
vem.ca	Canada	« vem cá » ("come here"), used as a secondary domain name by a search site
Italian language
vai.li	Liechtenstein	« vai li » ("go there"), a redirector
Hungarian language
erdely.ma	Morocco	« Erdély ma » ("Transylvania Today"), since "ma" means today in Hungarian
felvidek.ma	Morocco	« Felvidék ma » (means: Upper Hungary Today).
magyarorszag.ma	Morocco	« Magyarország ma » (means: Hungary Today).
semmi.se	Sweden	« Semmi se » (means: nothing at all).
Mandarin Chinese
hen.huang.hen.bao.li	Liechtenstein	Hěn huáng hěn hěn bàolì (means: Very erotic, very violent), a catchphrase spawned by a China Central Television news report
kan.de.jian.me	Montenegro	Kàn de jiàn me (means: Can you see it?)
Russian language
pisem.net	.net	« Писем нет » tr. pisem net means "No email", since "Нет" net means "no" in Russian
Dutch language
kijk.nu	.nu	Kijk Nu (means look now)
ontdek.me	.me	Ontdek me (means discover me)
Croatian and Serbian language
poljubi.me	.me	Poljubi me (means kiss me)
vidi.me	.me	Vidi me (means see me)
Welsh language
cym.ro	Romania	Cymro (means Welshman), offers email forwarding addresses. See proposed TLD .cym

Domain hijacking or domain theft

Domain hijacking or domain theft is the process by which registration of a currently registered domain name is transferred without the permission of its original registrant, generally by exploiting a vulnerability in the domain name registration system.

Domain names expire after a fixed period of time and become available to the public. If their original owner allows them to expire even momentarily, they may be immediately purchased by another party. Although this may be frustrating for a domain owner who is slow to renew, generally the new purchaser is not considered liable in this scenario and the original owner has no recourse.

The most common tactic used by a domain hijacker is to use acquired personal information about the actual domain owner to impersonate them and persuade the domain registrar to modify the registration information and/or transfer the domain to another registrar, a form of identity theft. Once this has been done, the hijacker has full control of the domain and can use it or sell it to a third party. This can be financially devastating to the original domain name holder, who may have derived commercial income from a website hosted at the domain or conducted business through that domain's e-mail accounts. Additionally, the hijacker can use the domain name to facilitate illegal activity such as phishing, where a website is replaced by an identical website that records private information such as log-in passwords.

Responses to discovered hijackings vary; sometimes the registration information can be returned to its original state by the current registrar, but this may be more difficult if the domain name was transferred to another registrar, particularly if that registrar resides in another country. In some cases the original domain owner is not able to regain control over the domain.

The legal status of domain hijacking remains unclear. It is analogous with theft, in that the original owner is deprived of the benefits of the domain, but theft traditionally regards concrete goods such as jewelry and electronics, whereas domain name ownership is stored only in the digital state of the domain name registry, a network of computers. There are no specific laws regarding domain hijacking, nor any law that specifically holds the domain name registrar responsible for allowing the registrant information to be modified without the permission of the original registrant. In some cases there may be recourse under trademark law, but not allPrevention

ICANN imposes a 60-day waiting period between a change in registration information and a transfer to another registrar; this is intended to make domain hijacking more difficult, since a transferred domain is much more difficult to reclaim, and it is more likely that the original registrant will discover the change in that period and alert the registrar. Extensible Provisioning Protocol is used for many TLD registries, and uses an authorization code issued exclusively to the domain registrant as a security measure to prevent unauthorized transfers.

Examples of cases in which a domain was hijacked

• sex.com
• ebay.de

Cyber squatting

Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting), according to the United States federal law known as the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price.

The term is derived from "squatting," which is the act of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use. Cybersquatting, however, is a bit different in that the domain names that are being "squatted" are (sometimes but not always) being paid for through the registration process by the cybersquatters. Cybersquatters usually ask for prices far greater than that at which they purchased it. Some cybersquatters put up derogatory remarks about the person or company the domain is meant to represent in an effort to encourage the subject to buy the domain from them.^{[citation needed]} Others post paid links via Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and other paid advertising networks to the actual site that the user likely wanted, thus monetizing their squatting. As with many controversial issues, some argue that the dividing line of cybersquatting is difficult to draw, or that the practice is consistent with a capitalistic and free market ethos.

Cybersquatting is one of the most loosely used terms related to domain name intellectual property law and is often incorrectly used to refer to the sale or purchase of generic domain names.

Contents

Technical strategies for cybersquatters

Cybersquatters sometimes register variants of popular trademarked names, a practice known as typosquatting.

Another strategy is as follows: Internet domain name registrations are for a fixed period of time. If the owner of a domain name doesn't re-register the name with an internet registrar prior to the domain's expiration date, then the domain name can be purchased by anybody else after it expires.^[1] At this point the registration is considered lapsed. A cybersquatter may use automated software tools to register the lapsed name the instant it is lapsed. This strategy is one of a family of identity theft schemes including renewal snatching, extension exaggeration and alert angling.^[2]

Yet another approach is "name jacking" (also "name-jacking" or "namejacking") which is accomplished by purchasing an individual's name as a second-level domain name. Setting up a website allows the purchaser to capitalize on any searches done for that name. For example, if John Jones has a thriving professional practice (perhaps he is a doctor, a lawyer, a financial professional, or real estate agent - or any other profession which interacts with the public on a regular basis), there is a high likelihood that potential clients will do some research on the internet before doing business with Mr. Jones. If Mr. Jones has been "name jacked",^[3][4] then someone else owns johnjones.com and that website will appear at or near the top of any searches for the name "John Jones." These "name jacked" sites are typically set up to sell high-profit items like ebooks and/or various business opportunities and require few purchases to be profitable. As the name-jacked domains are set up using non-trademarked names and they have a purpose other than selling the domain name back to an individual, they circumvent the "Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act" (ACPA) laws U.S.C. § 1125 and U.S.C. § 1129. Since people frequently "google" to find out information, name jacking provides low-cost web traffic to the name-jacked website.

Legal resolution

Domain name disputes involving alleged bad-faith registration are typically resolved using the Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy (UDRP) process developed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Critics claim that the UDRP process favors large corporations and that their decisions often go beyond the rules and intent of the dispute resolution policy. A UDRP complaint may be initiated at UDRP proceeding with an approved dispute resolution service provider. A victim of cybersquatting may also file an InterNIC Registrar Problem Report regarding a cybersquatter posing as a registrar.

Court systems can also be used to sort out claims of cybersquatting, but jurisdiction is often a problem, as different courts have ruled that the proper location for a trial is that of the plaintiff, the defendant, or the location of the server through which the name is registered. Countries such as China and Russia do not view cybersquatting in the same way or degree that US law does. People often choose the UDRP (Uniform Dispute Resolution Process) created by ICANN because it is usually quicker and cheaper ($2,000 to $3,000 in costs and fees vs. $10,000 or more) than going to court, but courts can and often do overrule UDRP decisions. In Virtual Works, Inc. v. Volkswagen of America, Inc. (a dispute over the domain vw.net), the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals created a common law requirement that the cybersquatter exhibit a bad faith intent in order to confer liability. This means that domain names bearing close resemblance to trademarked names are not per se impermissible. Rather, the domain name must have been registered with the bad faith intent to later sell it to the trademark holder. This "bad faith" concept is reiterated in 15 U.S.C. § 1125 and U.S.C. § 1129.

Some countries have specific laws against cybersquatting beyond the normal rules of trademark law. The United States, for example, has the U.S. Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) of 1999. This expansion of the Lanham (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.) is intended to provide protection against cybersquatting for individuals as well as owners of distinctive trademarked names. However, even notable personalities, including rock star Bruce Springsteen and actor Kevin Spacey, failed to obtain control of their names on the internet, which indicates the lack of protection afforded to the average businessman or individual.

Jurisdiction is an issue, as shown in the case involving actor Kevin Spacey, in which Judge Gary A. Feess, of the United States District Court of the Central District of California, ruled that Spacey would have to file a complaint in a Canadian court, where the current owner of kevinspacey.com resided. Spacey later won the domain through the National Arbitration Forum.

Under UDRP policy, successful complainants can have the names deleted or transferred to their ownership (which means paying regular renewal fees on all the names or risk their being registered by someone else). Under the ACPA (Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act) a cybersquatter can be held liable for actual damages or statutory damages in the amount of a maximum of $100,000 for each name found to be in violation, although application of this act in the form of actual fines assessed are few in number. In one of the first applications of the ACPA, the plaintiff, Brian Salle, sought relief under 15 U.S.C. § 1125 and U.S.C. § 1129 from defendant Garner W. Meadows. The court rejected the plaintiff's argument that "all personal names" are protected under the act and established that personal names must be "protected as a mark" for 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d) to apply. The court did award summary judgement under 15 U.S.C. § 1129(1)(A), with the award being the transfer of the domain briansalle.com to his control and judgment for attorney's fees against Garner W. Meadows of approximately $30,000.00. Monetary awards under the ACPA are infrequent at best, and the cost of filing a case is prohibitive for the average individual.

There have been several instances of companies, individuals or governments trying to take generic domain names away from their owners by making false claims of trademark violation. Sometimes they are successful. This practice is called "reverse domain hijacking". For example, little known Heathrow Land Development in Florida attempted to use their narrow one-class trademark and the UDRP process to acquire heathrow.com.

Australia is another example - auDA requires anyone registering a .com.au second-level domain to have a valid entitlement for that domain - ie. a registered business name with an Australian Business Number (ABN) issued by the Australian Taxation Office. However, this has failed to protect Australia from such cybersquatting acts. Any Australian citizen over the age of 16 can obtain an ABN (which is free) and use it to register as few or as many domain names as they like.

Internationally, the United Nations copyright agency called WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) has, since 1999, provided an arbitration system wherein a trademark holder can attempt to claim a squatted site. In 2006, there were 1823 complaints filed with WIPO, which was a 25% increase over 2005's rate. On average, 84% of claims are decided in the complaining party's favor.^[5]

Notable cases

With litigation

• Madonna vs. Parisi ^[6], 2000 (WIPO Case)
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. Doughney, 2001
• Jacobsen v. Katzer, 2007

Without litigation

• The White House against Whitehouse.com and Whitehouse.org

Domain name warehousing

Domain name warehousing is the common practice of registrars obtaining control of domain names with the intent to hold or “warehouse” names for their use and/or profit. Also see domain name front running and domain tasting, related business practices employed by registrants.

Typically this practice occurs after a domain name has expired and the previous owner (registrant) has not exercised his/her right to renew that name within the allotted time frame (approximately 45 days following expiration). Domain's expiration date and time are easily calculated based on the expiration date in the whois and the redemption process.

According to GNSO Council Deletes Task Force Report (2003), a council organized under the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), three specific modes of warehousing were identified:

1. The registrant allows the domain name to lapse, but registrar fails to delete the domain name during the grace period, resulting in a paid renewal to the registry. The registrar subsequently assumes registration of the domain name.
2. The registrant purchases the domain name through fraud and the registrar assumes registration of the name to resell in order to minimize losses.
3. The registrar registers the domain in its own name outright.

When the phrase "Domain Warehousing" was coined in the late 1990s, ICANN registrars were two dimensional entities that served registrants of domain names. The concern at that time was that a registrar would register available domain names and then offer to re-sell those registrations at a "higher than registration" price to potential registrants. By 2006 the name space had clearly matured and the line between registrars, media companies such as AOL.com (who operate ICANN accredited registrars to manage their name portfolios) and large scale commercial registrants (who operate ICANN accredited registrars as security measures) had blurred. It has been hypothesized that by 2010 many large corporations or commercial registrants of domain names will operate an ICANN accredited registrar as a security measure to protect and manage valuable name and trademark inventory.

The primary concern today when one speaks of Domain Warehousing is that a retail registrar, which has historically focused on serving its individual and small business registrants, will make the domain name renewal process difficult, convoluted, or price prohibitive in an effort to unseat exasperated registrants and usurp their registration rights for a profit greater than the potential renewal fee they could earn.

An additional concern is that companies pooling scores of drop registrars for additional registry connections will stand at the expiring domain spigot conducting domain tasting without paying, and then warehouse those which meet traffic criteria while denying the broader community a fair opportunity to compete for those expiring names.

As of this writing the governing body over domain name registration, ICANN, has yet to address those potential inequities. Registrars are in a unique position to impact domain name pricing by introducing competitive bidding or auctions for expired domain names. Circumstances are further impacted when registrars opt not to market the domains in the near term, thereby excluding the recycling of warehoused names indefinitely.

Domain tasting

Domain tasting is the practice of a domain name registrant using the five-day "grace period" (the Add Grace Period or AGP) at the beginning of the registration of an ICANN-regulated second-level domain to test the marketability of the domain. During this period, when a registration must be fully refunded by the domain name registry, a cost-benefit analysis is conducted by the registrant on the viability of deriving income from advertisements being placed on the domain's website.

Domains that are deemed "successes" and retained in a registrant's portfolio often represent domains that were previously used and have since expired, misspellings of other popular sites, or generic terms that may receive type-in traffic. These domains are usually still active in search engines and other hyperlinks and therefore receive enough traffic such that advertising revenue exceeds the cost of the registration. The registrant may also derive revenue from eventual sale of the domain, at a premium, to a third party.

In January 2008, ICANN proposed several possible solutions, including that the exemption on transaction costs (US$ 0.20) during the five-day grace period be abandoned, which would effectively make the practice of domain tasting not viable. The ICANN operating plan and budget for Fiscal Year 2009 included a section intended to deal with the problem of Domain tasting. The transaction fee of $0.20 will be applied to domains deleted in the Add Grace Period where the number of such domains exceeds 10% of the net new registrations or 50 domains, whichever is greater. The "net new registrations" is defined as the number of new registrations less the number of domains deleted in the Add Grace Period. The ICANN operating plan and budget was approved at the ICANN board meeting in Paris, France on 26 June 2008.

Starting in April 2009, many top level domains (TLDs) began transitioning from the $0.20 fee for excess domains deleted to implementing a policy resulting in a fee equal to registering the domain, generally several dollars in cost.

ICANN reported in August 2009, that prior to implementing excess domain deletion charges, the peak month for domain tastings was over 15 million domain names. After the $0.20 fee was implemented, this dropped to around 2 million domain names per month. As a result of the further increase in charges for excess domain deletions, implemented starting April 2009, the number of domain tastings dropped to below 60 thousand per month.

Domain tasting should not be confused with domain kiting, which is the process of deleting a domain name during the five-day grace period and immediately re-registering it for another five-day period. This process is repeated any number of times with the end result of having the domain registered without ever actually paying for it.

Domain name speculation

Domain name speculation is the practice of identifying and registering or acquiring Internet domain names with the intent of selling them later for a profit.

The main targets of domain name speculation are generic words which can be valuable for type-in traffic and for the dominant position they would have in any field due to their descriptive nature. Hence generic words and phrases ^[1] such as poker, insurance, travel, creditcards, sex and others are attractive targets of domain speculation in any top-level domain.

The speculative characteristics of domain names may be linked to news reports or current events. However, the effective period during which such opportunities exist, may be limited. Quick turnaround in the resale of domains is often called domain flipping.

Contents

Overview

Sometimes, domain name speculation involves finding domain names early in a market, particularly when a new top-level domain is launched, registering them and waiting until the market grows to sell them. Domains such as sex.com and business.com have sold for millions of US dollars.^[2]

The COM top-level domain (or 'TLD') is the focus of most domain speculation activity as it is the largest TLD. Domain speculation occurs in other TLDs as well, such as NET and to a lesser extent in ORG, INFO, and BIZ. Of the gTLDs, INFO is the most popular by registration volume compared to BIZ gTLD due to the low cost of initial registration and the recognisability of 'info' as being an abbreviation of 'information'.^{[3] [4]}

Domain name speculation also occurs in country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) such as .uk, .de and .us.^[5][6] The German TLD consists of over 12 Million domains^[7]. The UK's domain has over 7.7 Million domains registered according to Nominet's domain registration statistics webpage ^[8], mainly in its commercial sub-domain co.uk. These TLDs are mature markets where good domain names may command high prices. The EU ccTLD is an example of what happens when speculative activity overtakes "ordinary" domain registrations.^[9] A combination of an inept registry (Eurid) ^[10] and excessive speculation by businesses exploiting a poorly structured regulatory framework ^[11][12] meant that, according to EURid's own statistics at the end of 2006, over 50% of the registrations could be considered at best speculative and at worst domain name warehousing. ^[13]

Specialist and repurposed ccTLDs have also seen elements of domain name speculation. One of the best examples is that of the .tv ccTLD which has found the fact that TV is an abbreviation for the word television to be rather lucrative. The .mobi TLD is a good example of a specialist TLD in that it is specifically targeted at mobile phones and similar mobile technology. The operators of .mobi, mTLD, have reserved some of the premium generic words which will be auctioned off. The intent is to create a more level playing field for those interested in developing websites. The .mobi premium generic words and phrases list is a good example of the domain names that are at the heart of most early-market domain name speculation.

Domain name speculators, sometimes known as domainers, also register domain names based on seemingly generic phrases such as propertyforsale in the hope that these domain names could be sold later to businesses. Typically, domain name speculators will try to stay away from domain names containing trademarks as this could be considered cybersquatting.

Some country code TLDs or sponsored TLDs will have what is referred to as an eligibility or nexus requirement ^{[14] [15] [16] [17]} to limit registration to specific geographical or national regions. However this does not deter domain name speculation as various options such as using a local agent or company to enable people to register domains in such TLDs exist and have been used.

[edit] Evolution of domain name speculation

Domain name speculation has evolved in parallel with the domain name system. In the early 1990s, the web and internet access were not as prominent as they are today. However domain names were still being registered though the focus was almost entirely business orientated. At that time much of the ccTLD landscape had yet to appear and the growing public awareness of COM TLD was gathering momentum due to the growth of the Dot-com bubble. This inevitably attracted the attention of those who saw potential value in domain names and at this time, many of the most valuable generic domain names like sex.com and business.com were registered. The problem was that there was no clear legal position on what was purely domain name speculation and what was cybersquatting. The open nature of the TLDs meant that anyone could effectively register any domain name. This led to the development of the Universal Domain Name Dispute Resolution Process in 1999. ^[18]

[edit] Domain name speculation versus cybersquatting

One of the most common accusations against domain name speculation is that it is simply cybersquatting. ^[19] Cybersquatting is defined as registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The key element in this definition is that the intellectual property rights of another's trademark are infringed by the cybersquatter. For a UDRP action to succeed one of the things that the complainant has to establish is that the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights. ^[20] Legitimate domain name speculation tends to steer clear of trademarks and concentrate on generic words and phrases as domains based on trademarks can be subject of UDRP actions by the trademark owners. As the number of registered domain names has increased, the number of UDRP cases has also increased. ^[21] Trademark and service mark owners now use brand protection services that monitor TLDs for newly registered domains that potentially infringe on their trademarks. This is due in part to typosquatting, a form of cybersquatting where variations of the spelling of a brand's domain will be registered in an attempt to profit from users mistyping the URL of the site they wish to visit. ^{[22] [23] [24]}

Generic terms, such as the term "salt" when used in connection with sodium chloride, are not capable of serving the essential trademark function of distinguishing a product or service. This means that generic terms are generally not afforded any legal protection.^[25] The Canned Foods, Inc Versus Ult Search, Inc decision ^[26] specifically deals with a case involving a generic term, "Grocery Outlet" and the domain name "groceryoutlet.com". The decision contains the key sentence "Generic terms receive no protection in US trademark law when they are used to label the goods and services that they describe."

One of the earliest examples of a written definition of cybersquatting was the Intermatic Inc. v. Toeppen, 947 F. Supp. 1227 (N.D. Ill. 1996). The definition was "These individuals attempt to profit from the Internet by reserving and later reselling or licensing domain names back to the companies that spent millions of dollars developing the goodwill of the trademark." ^[27]

As domain name speculation has evolved alongside the domain name system, the most memorable and shortest domains tend to be amongst those registered first in any TLD. For old TLDs like COM (introduced in 1985), these domains will be long gone and people registering their first domains are often frustrated at the lack of short and memorable domains in this and other mature TLDs.^[28]

One of the main problems concerning trademarks and domain names in unrestricted TLDs and gTLDs is that of trademarks in general - the rights of the trademark owner have to be asserted in order to protect the trademark. The trademark owner has to take legal action, typically a UDRP, to defend the trademark after the potentially infringing domain has been registered. The UDRP action has to follow a procedure of notifying the respondent, receiving a reply from the respondent, appointing an adjudication panel and awaiting a decision. The process can take two months or more. ^[29]

The global and unrestricted nature of TLDs and gTLDs effectively means that anyone in any country can register a domain name in them regardless of whether they have any intellectual property rights in that name. With country code TLDs the jurisdiction is more clearly defined. The affected intellectual property rights owner would have to take a legal action, typically a UDRP case to transfer or cancel the domain unless the registrant is in the same jurisdiction as the affected intellectual property rights owner. In this case, local law may be sufficient as the action may be considered as Common law tort of Passing off. ^[30][31]

[edit] Primary market speculation

The primary market for domain name speculation covers newly registered domain names that have not been registered before. Such domain names are often linked to news and current events. The launch of a new TLD encourages primary market speculation as domainers rush to register generic terms and also phrases that make a pun on the TLD name (Domain hack). Other more organised domainers or domain name speculators register trademarks in advance of the launch of new TLDs specifically in order to register these short, memorable and potentially high value domains in the Sunrise period of new gTLD launches. The Sunrise period is when intellectual property rights owners (trademark owners etc) can register their trademark in the new gTLD in advance of the gTLD being opened for general registrations. In the last three years the main new TLDs launched were .eu ccTLD ^[32], .mobi TLD and .asia sTLD^[33][34]. All of these had landrush periods of varying success.

[edit] Secondary market speculation

The secondary market for domain names covers previously registered domain names that have not been renewed by registrants or are available for resale. Sometimes these dropped domain names can be more valuable due to their having had high-profile websites associated with them. They will have links from other websites and could still have users searching for the websites because of these links. Others can be valuable because of the generic nature of the domain name or the length of the domain name, with two and three character names being the most sought after.

The business of registering the domain names as they are deleted by the registries is known as drop catching. It is a highly competitive business. The main operators in this business typically set up a number of front companies as registrars. VeriSign, in the case of TLDs COM and NET, allows each registrar a slice of the resources that may be used to register dropped domains. VeriSign drops domains in a random order, giving registrars only a vague idea of the particular drop time of a particular domain. Sometimes a group of drop registrars often work in confederation to increase their possibility of registering a dropped domain immediately after it is deleted by the registry. If the domain is caught by a confederation of registrars attempting to fulfill a domain backorder, then whichever domain registrar caught the domain will register it to the entity who backordered the domain. If the newly reregistered domain is captured by a company that has no customers who backordered it, the domain may be auctioned to the highest bidder by the registrar who captured it or an auction intermediary. The time between a drop and a capture is often measured in seconds or fractions thereof.

Some registrars do not allow domains to drop in the normal fashion, instead introducing an intermediary (e.g., Snapnames and Namejet) that auction the domain prior to their deletion. If nobody buys the domain at auction, it will pass through the normal deletion process.

[edit] Domain name speculation and the rise of Pay per click websites

Cybersquatting has a clear legal definition. The problem is that the legal arguments of what constitutes cybersquatting tend to be lost when people land on a webpage with only Pay per click ('PPC') advertising and nothing else. It is often assumed that such a domain, especially when the person searching for the domain in order to register it, is "cybersquatted".

The ease with which PPC revenue could be derived from parked domains effectively created a situation where domains were being registered purely for their type-in traffic. Many of exact phrases that people were searching for in search engines were being registered for the sole purpose of serving PPC advertising. The COM TLD grew from 23,662,001 registered domains 01 January 2003 to 80,759,835 registered domains as of 01 January 2009 ^[35]. There was a near exponential growth of domain registrations over that period. While part of that increase in the number of registered domain names is due to the increase in ecommerce and business conducted online, some of the increase is due to the ease of generating revenue from PPC and type-in traffic. Domain tasting a practice by which millions of domains would be registered for a limited period (the five day Add Grace Period during which a domain could be deleted without the registrar effectively having to pay a registration fee to ICANN) and only those generating sufficient revenue from PPC advertising would be retained also served to increase the number of domains registered. This practice involved domain name registrars being created purely for the purpose of domain tasting. The situation became so bad in 2007 that ICANN was forced to take action. ^[36] In June 2008 ICANN added a provision to its Fiscal Year 2009 budget to limit the number of domains that a registrar could delete using the Add Grace Period before having to pay the ICANN fee. The effect of this was to massively curtail the number of domains deleted in .com and .net during the Add Grace Period. From June 2008 to April 2009, AGP deletions fell by 99.7%. ^[37]

The March 2006 Verisign Domain Brief ^[38] stated that out of approximately 57.37 million COM and NET websites spidered, 26% were single page websites, 60% were multipage websites and 14% had no associated websites. The number of websites surveyed was 57,370,817. Numerically, the number of single page websites was approximately 14.91 million. The single page websites websites include under-construction, brochure-ware and parked pages in addition to online advertising revenue generating (PPC) parked pages.

The latest statistics for domain name usage quoted in the Verisign Domain Brief for June 2009 states that of the 92 million COM and NET domain names, 24 % of these domains have one page websites, 64% have multipage websites and 12% have no associated websites. ^[39] In purely numerical terms, those single page websites would account for approximately 22 million COM and NET websites. The survey quoted in the Verisign Domain Brief does not explain the methodology or provide anything other than a summary of the results. However this is effectively a rise in single page websites of just over 7 million websites.

Some hosters such as Godaddy have their own domain parking systems and allow unused domains to be parked with the registrant receiving a share of the PPC revenue earned.