Today The Public Interest Registry (”PIR”), the company which runs the .Org registry, announced a Domain “Anti-Abuse Policy”, effective 5 February 2009.

In announcing this policy PIR is taking a strong stand against what is defines as Domain Abuse and it gives itself the right to cancel,  any .org, domain registration which is considered to be abusive.

From the announcement:

“”"”Abusive use(s) of .ORG domain names should not be tolerated. The nature of such abuses creates security and stability issues for the registry, registrars and registrants, as well as for users of the Internet in general.

The PIR defines abusive use of a domain as the wrong or excessive use of power, position or ability, and includes, without limitation, the following:

· Illegal or fraudulent actions;

· Spam: The use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages. The term applies to e-mail spam and similar abuses such as instant messaging spam, mobile messaging spam, and the spamming of Web sites and Internet forums. An example, for purposes of illustration, would be the use of email in denial-of-service attacks;

· Phishing: The use of counterfeit Web pages that are designed to trick recipients into divulging sensitive data such as usernames, passwords, or financial data;

· Pharming: The redirecting of unknowing users to fraudulent sites or services, typically through DNS hijacking or poisoning;

· Willful distribution of malware: The dissemination of software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s informed consent.
Examples include, without limitation, computer viruses, worms, keyloggers, and trojan horses;

· Fast flux hosting: Use of fast-flux techniques to disguise the location of Web sites or other Internet services, or to avoid detection and mitigation efforts, or to host illegal activities. Fast-flux techniques use DNS to frequently change the location on the Internet to which the domain name of an Internet host or name server resolves. Fast flux hosting may be used only with prior permission of PIR;

· Botnet command and control: Services run on a domain name that are used to control a collection of compromised computers or “zombies,” or to direct denial-of-service attacks (DDoS attacks);

· Distribution of child pornography; and

· Illegal Access to Other Computers or Networks: Illegally accessing computers, accounts, or networks belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another individual’s system (often known as “hacking”). Also, any activity that might be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (e.g., port scan, stealth scan, or other information gathering activity).

PIR reserves the right to deny, cancel or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any domain name(s) on registry lock, hold or similar status, that it deems necessary, in its discretion; (1) to protect the integrity and stability of the registry; (2) to comply with any applicable laws, government rules or requirements, requests of law enforcement, or any dispute resolution process; (3) to avoid any liability, civil or criminal, on the part of PIR, as well as its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers, directors, and employees; (4) per the terms of the registration agreement or (5) to correct mistakes made by PIR or any Registrar in connection with a domain name registration.

PIR also reserves the right to place upon registry lock, hold or similar status a domain name during resolution of a dispute.”"”

Let’s Hope this policy curbs abuses, but that the registry does not use this to cancel any “innocent” domains.

It always worries us, at least a little, when someone sets themselves up to be the complainant, judge and jury.

We are all against Spam, Phishing, Child Porn and the rest, yet one entity having the power to find a domain, determine it violates its policy and take the domain down, without any intervention or right to appeal, is a scary proposition.

We have not gone a day, in the last couple of years,  without having one of our domains,  or one of our e-mail addresses, used by spammers as a fake header, return e-mail address, removal link address or like purpose.

We are certainly not the only ones who are victimized by this practice.

Scary.

According to a new report by JP Morgan’s Imran KhanWhile,  entitled “Nothing But Net”, online ad spending is projected to continue to grow.

However the report warns that the contraction of the general economy will put even greater downward pressure on the price of both online display and search advertising.

“Although the economic news cycle is largely negative, we believe the longer-term secular trends that are driving the growth of online activity remain quite positive, and we expect these trends to help Internet companies continue growing even as overall economic activity remains sluggish,” Khan wrote in the 2009 edition of his annual .

He cited the expansion of broadband penetration as an important catalyst for more robust “commercial Internet activity,” and said that would continue to accelerate consumer usage and adoption of the medium in ways that would impact other industries and aspects of the economy, especially the retail industry, which increased broadband usage would correlate to increased ecommerce growth and a corresponding decline in “brick-and-mortar” retail businesses.

Khan predicted that the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 would prove to be the toughest financial quarters for the online industry, and that the Internet economy would begin to rebound in the second half of 2009.

The economic pressures, he predicted, would also drive a greater share of online advertising investments toward “performance-based” advertising models and away from traditional “CPM-based” models, and that in turn would contribute to the downward pressure on online CPMs during 2009.

“We now think 2009 will be a weak year for graphical advertising publishers, as we expect the graphical ad sector to under perform, performance based advertising in a down economy,”

Khan predicted the display ad marketplace would grow about 6% in the U.S., and about 6.7% worldwide in 2009.

While online search ad spending is projected to expand at roughly twice that rate, Khan predicted that general economics would also contribute to lower keyword prices and less revenue per search query for the major search engines in 2009.

Nielson Research released its November search share ratings by provider today.

The research shows that Google Year to Year growth was almost 22% while Yahoo search was down 1.5% and Microsoft Search was down almost 17%, here are the full results

Provider                 Searches (000)    YOY Growth    Share of Searches
                         --------------- --------------  -----------------
All Search                     8,075,564            9.6%             100.0%
Google Search                  5,177,158           21.7%              64.1%
Yahoo! Search                  1,299,306           -1.4%              16.1%
MSN/Windows Live Search          733,460          -16.7%               9.1%
AOL Search                       344,465            3.6%               4.3%
Ask.com Search                   184,059           -6.0%               2.3%
My Web Search                     71,113          -18.3%               0.9%
Comcast Search                    40,645            3.5%               0.5%
AT&T Worldnet Search              25,351          -13.3%               0.3%
NexTag Search                     22,308          -19.5%               0.3%
Dogpile.com Search                17,121           -6.5%               0.2%

According to Reuters, China has launched a crackdown on websites, with officials accusing search engines including Baidu and Google of spreading pornography and vulgarity, saying repeat violators and those that had a “malign influence” might be exposed, punished or shut down.

China’s Ministry of Public Security and six other government agencies announced the campaign at a meeting on Monday, state television reported, showing officials hauling digital equipment away from one unidentified office.

The meeting “decided to launch a nationwide campaign to clean up a vulgar current on the Internet and named and exposed a large number of violating public morality and harming the physical and mental health of youth and young people,” the report said.

The 19 Internet operators and websites named at the meeting had failed to swiftly purge “vulgar” content and ignored warnings from censors, the television report said.

“If they (users) find content that is contrary to Chinese law, they can report it to Google. And if we find it’s truly illegal, we’ll deal with it according to the law,” said Cui.

“Some websites have exploited loopholes in laws and regulations,” said Cai Mingzhao, a deputy chief of the State Council Information Office.

“They have used all kinds of ways to distribute content that is low-class, crude and even vulgar, gravely damaging mores on the Internet.”

Cai told officials to “fully grasp the gravity and threat of the vulgar current infesting the Internet” and said law-breakers faced “stern punishment”.

While you were trying to get over your hangover on New Years Day, the domain iMode.com sold for $17,001.

iMode.com was on our first list of top Snapnames domains.

In a couple of other notable sales:

Slade.com sold today at Snapnames.com for $6,258

Over at Namejet.com solarguide.com sold today for $3,200.

Off the topics of domains, but a thought I wrtie about a trend I’m seeing around the US, which may effect everyone of you in the NEAR future, is paying to use previously free interstate highways.

In Miami a month ago, the state took the two left lanes of I-95 and blocked them off, restricting their use to those having a “Sun Pass”, an electronic toll collector which was used for previously to pay the tolls on toll roads without using cash.

This left 3 lanes for use for free on the busy federal interstate road.

The toll road runs for about 7 miles from downtown Miami, through Miami, a highly congested area.

The toll varies between $.25 and $6.25, depending on the time of day and how bad traffic is.

So if your riding out at 1am you will pay $.25 to drive in the 2 left lanes.  If you in the mist of rush hour, in bumper to bumper traffic, your going to pay anywhere from $2.65-$6.25 for the privilege of not waiting in traffic.

In taking the two left lanes for the pay as you go Sun Pass, it reduced the free lanes down to three, making the free lanes even more congested, making the pay to drive option even more desirable.

A state run, self fulfilling prophecy.

Find a high traffic area, make it worse and charge people more to avoid the traffic.

Nice.

In removing the 2 revious free lanes, the government took away the HOV lanes which was automatically opened to all vehicles carrying 2 or more persons, Hybrid cars, and some other approved vehicles. (some of these can still ride in the paying lanes for free, but you must apply, and be pre approved)

My first thought was how is this legal.

I mean federal highways, interstates, were build with tax money and previously always free, as opposed to a toll road or a bridge built with the issuance of government bonds which are to be paid back from the tolls from users.  Makes me wish I had my own “Boston Legal” type law firm at my disposal to fight all these issues that appear to violate the law. (although in the last episode of the series, the mythical law firm went broke, so maybe that’s not  such a good idea)

If you think this is a one trick pony issue, restricted to Miami, think again.

As tax revenues decline all over the country as sales tax collections are down because people are spending less, property taxes are down as real estate loses value and developers put on the brakes, expect government to become more creative to try to get into your pocket.

Doing a little research I see plans are now underway all over the country to take former HOV lanes and convert them into pay as you go roadways, including Atlanta, Denver, Pennsylvania, and Texas, just to name a few.

To go even further, in Oregon they have been testing a system to tax drivers based on the number of miles they drive instead of how much gas they use, by installing GPS monitoring devices in vehicles.  Though the GPS devices did not track the cars’ locations in specific detail, it did track when a driver had left certain zones, and kept track of the time the driving was done, so a premium could be charged for rush-hour mileage.

The federal government is also looking into going to a mileage tax, rather than a gasoline tax, as drivers use more fuel-efficient and electric vehicles.

Governors in Idaho and Rhode Island have considered systems that would require drivers to report their mileage when they register vehicles.

In North Carolina last month, a panel suggested charging motorists a quarter-cent for every mile as a substitute for the gas tax.

James Whitty, the Oregon Department of Transportation employee in charge of the state’s effort, said he’s also heard talk of mileage tax proposals in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado and Minnesota.

“There is kind of a coalition that’s naturally forming around this,” he said.

So as we follow what the government tells us, which is to conserve gas, buy more fuel efficient vehicles, the same government is already planning a way to dig deeper into your pocket to compensate them for your increased efficiency.

Doesn’t quite seem “American” does it?

Yes folks another piece of that America Dream is dying, or at least getting more expensive.

Net Applications released updated global browser market share numbers today, indicating that Internet Explorer is losing users at an accelerated pace. The browser’s share dropped from 69.77% in November to 68.15% in December.

Firefox gained more than half a point and ended up at 21.34%, Safari approaches the next big hurdle with 7.93% and Chrome came in at 1.04%, the first time Google was able to cross the 1% mark. Opera remained stable 0.71%.

Over the past 12 months, IE gave up 7.9 points of market share, while Firefox gained 4.5 points and Safari nearly 2.4 points.

Certainly the emergency fixes for security breaches is not making IE any more appealing to users.

I have used Firefox for a couple of years now and especially like the Sync capability that allows you to move your bookmarks and passwords between computers or as a backup in case your computer crashes as mine has on several occasions.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, published it’s annual report,

The report puts a bright face on what ICANN calls the “organization’s achievements and progress during 2008″

The report highlights the three major initiatives ICANN has undertaken this year: the process for introducing new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to the Internet; the introduction for the first time of internationalized domain names (IDNs); and an extensive Improving Institutional Confidence consultation, to enable the conclusion of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) with the United States government in September 2009.

Reports from the chairs of ICANN’s Supporting Organization and Advisory Organizations are included alongside detailed rundowns of each department by the organization’s staff.

Also included in the report are:

• Biographical details on each of the Board of Directors
• Highlights of the organization’s Strategic and Operating Plans
• An in-depth look at the New Delhi, Paris and Cairo meetings
• Messages from the CEO and Chairman
• The audit report for ICANN, 2007-2008
• ICANN’s compensation practices and salary structures for the corporate officers.

“I am delighted to announce the release of our third annual report,” ICANN’s Chairman of the Board of Directors Peter Dengate Thrush said.

“In this our tenth year ICANN and its community either accomplished or made significant progress toward many goals for the Domain Name System,” he added.

“The Internet is growing and evolving at an accelerating pace,” Dengate Thrush continued.

“The next billion users will demand more innovative products and services, will access the Internet largely through mobile devices, and will expect to be able to do so in their own languages and language scripts. ICANN’s efforts are geared towards developing policies and technologies that will satisfy this next-generation Internet,”

However our annual report of ICANN would be not as kind.

In proposing the new gTLD’s,  ICANN has placed the stability of the internet at risk for their own financial gain.  There are so many reasons the roll out of hundreds or thousands of new extensions in a short period is bad idea, I will not repeat it here, but you can read my comments I submitted to ICANN on this proposal here if you want.

ICANN failed to solve or even address the problem of the current status of the drop of expired domains, leaving us with a wild, wild west situation where each registrar does whatever the hell they want including just keeping the domains for themseleves.

ICANN did make one positive move this year when they basically ended domain tasting.

However,  when your big move for the year was to create a vast money maker for yourself, at the expense of all current domain holders, trademark holders and users of the internet, how great of a year did you have?

According to a new report by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), up to 73,000 brick and mortar retail establishments could close in just the first half of 2009.

The ICSC says there was a net loss of about 33,000 retail establishments in 2008.

In making its prediction for 2008, the ICSC pointed to the national chains like Sears and Talbots, which already announced plans to close hundreds of stores, as well as the bankruptcy or liquidation of big chains like Circuit City, Linens’n Things, Mervyn’s, Bombay Co, KB Toys, and the Sharper Image.

As more and more brick and mortar stores close, sales on the net are bound to increase.

But maybe the opposite is true.

Maybe the Net is killing the brick and mortar retail channel.

Just like it is virtually impossible for a small store to compete with Walmart when they open in the same town, due to Walmart’s buying power, they can price their goods well below a mom and pop store or a small chain, how can a brick and mortar store compete with the Net?

With the lousy economy shoppers are ever more price conscience.

So in reality how can a Linens’n Things compete with a site like our’s LuxuryBedding.com?

My rent is $7 a year.

Their rent per store, is tens or hundreds of thousands a year depending on each location.

I have no employees, no insurance, no utilities, no inventory, no nothing.

So what that allows us to do is sell the same or better products, at wholesale plus a 20% markup.

The typical brick and mortar store sells with a 100% markup.  They buy a product for $50 from the manufacturer and sells it for $100.  That same product would cost $60 on our site.  So the retailer would have to discount the product by 40% just to compete dollar for dollar with us, but they have all those fixed costs.  So while stores sell their products at 60%, 70%, and even 80% off, they are losing money on each sale, simply liquidating their inventory and slowly putting themselves out of business.

Now take Luxurybedding.com and multiple that by the hundreds, no thousands and thousands of sites just like it, that you can comparison shop from your house, for the same Calvin Klein satin sheets, across thousands of sites, in a matter of minutes to find it at the lowest price.  Not to mention, the fact (living in Florida we tend to forget) that is pretty f–king cold in most places during the busiest part of the holiday season (80 degrees here today, sorry northerners) and its a lot nicer buying your bedding off the computer and having the UPS guy drive through the snow and ice to get to you, than you having to do it.

Sure our site is a VERY small example of what your seeing in the world of retail, but the more you look at the numbers and study the economics, you have to reach the inevitable conclusion that brick and mortar model is largely doomed and it has the internet to thank.

Here is our second list of our top picks for domains available for backorder, or at an opened auction at SnapNames.com

You can simply click on the link to backorder:

cruises.org

cif.com

traveltips.com

bargained.com

lowerdebt.com

letteropener.com

hotelrecommendations.com

rentalpackages.com

poisonoussnakes.com

campusclassifieds.com

smartasset.com

baseballsportsbook.com

hotcurry.com

10018.com

keymarket.com

hongkongvacation.com

goodkid.com

californiapersonals.com

streetnames.com

tieclips.com

zerocarbonemissions.com

greatvideogame.com

basketballsportsbook.com

punishable.com

harley.net

sportsticket.com

foodbars.com

parkme.com

australiansportsbook.com

quartzwatch.com

funs.com

htmlprogramming.com

corporateevents.com

newyorkoffice.com