domain

Next month, when the domain name suffix .asia goes live you can expect some eye-opening sales and court battles over who can own what and when. While the initial interest in .asia is no where near as strong as it was for .eu when it became available in 2006, the most interested parties will be speculators ready to grab a quick buck and companies trying to gain an edge or protect their turf. When .eu became available, there were more than 95,000 conflicting claims for domain names.

Read the full BBC News story: "Domain name for Asia up for grabs"… Read more

In todays' New York Times, David Pogue reviewed an updated version of Microsoft's Office Live Small Business, a suite of online services for making Web sites (I'm simplifying a bit).

He failed to point out an important defensive computing aspect of any Web site, divorcing it from the domain name registration. In addition, trusting Microsoft to handle domain registration is not your best option. To fully understand this, some background is required.

A domain name, such as CNET.com or JavaTester.org is a unique name on the Internet, one that is used for both e-mail and a … Read more

New Englanders weren't the only fans banking on a Patriots Super Bowl victory on Sunday. Last night, a California-based domain squatter faced disappointment as his auction for 19-0.com ticked down to a close with no bidders.

The auction might have had more success if the Patriots indeed won instead of cementing an 18-1 record for their season, but even then takers would have probably been sparse. The auction had a starting bid of $19,000 and a "Buy It Now" price of $150,000, pricing it out of the range of all but the most dedicated … Read more

Contrary to claims that emerged Wednesday, Network Solutions said it isn't "front-running" the Internet address registration process, a practice in which a company registers a potential domain immediately after a prospective buyer searches to see if it's available. In fact, the practice that triggered the accusation is an attempt to counteract front-running, the company said.

Front-running can give a registration company an advantage over the customer who wants to register the site--for example by preventing the customer from registering it through a competing registrar or by selling it to the customer at an inflated price.

The … Read more

Just when we thought we were out of the woods, 123-Reg is at it again. This time its DNS servers don't seem to be screwing up its customers' web sites, but their email...well, that's another thing entirely.

Email is down for at least some of its customers (including me). This isn't the first time the Pipex-owned domain registrar has decimated its customers' email (the last prominent time being in 2002). But it will certainly be the last time it does this to me.

Update: I just heard from our IT person, and apparently the problem with … Read more

Over the weekend domain hoster 123-Reg went down (taking my own company's website and email with it), taking customer service to all-new lows. No phone support. No email support. No web support. No notice of when the problem would be fixed, what the suspected problem was, how to deal with it, etc. Nothing.

Today, however, I woke up to this comforting (though bewildering) news from 123-Reg:… Read more

If you've tried to reach Alfresco's web site in the past day (Oh, come on! You know you have!), you will have been disappointed. There's nothing there (See right).

Alfresco, among many others, uses 123-Reg as its domain registrar, and 123-Reg is down. Completely. Calls to 123-Reg's technical support have gone unanswered.

123-Reg is owned by Pipex, one of the UK's leading ISPs (and has been for a very long time). It may be a denial of service attack. Or it may come from complete and utter ineptitude on 123-Reg's part.

Either way, for … Read more