del.icio.us has just become Delicious. Faster and easier. And, I hope to be at least same useful as it was the previous version.

Yahoo! blog lists some of the improved characteristics of the new web site: speed (new platform), search(faster, more powerful, smarter), design changed user interface, usability).

They says that they changed the domain name due to the “zillion different confusions and misspellings of “del.icio.us” over the years (for example, “de.licio.us”, “del.icio.us.com”, and “del.licio.us”“.

You have to login again now, due to the new login cookie (the domain changes).

Delicious (formerly del.icio.us, pronounced “delicious”) is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. The site was founded by Joshua Schachter in late 2003 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. It has more than three million users and 100 million bookmarked URLs.

I had 5 web hosting packages with Dreamhost, all of it including a free registration of a domain name. But they do not say the person that will be the registrant, and this way you will see later that it is not you the registrant, but Dreamhost, and they can whatever they want with those domain names.

See, for ex., the domain names that I registered with them:

eye-tracking.info:

Registrant Name:Nicolae Sfetcu
Created On:23-Nov-2004 20:42:50 UTC
Last Updated On:15-Nov-2007 14:31:02 UTC
Expiration Date:23-Nov-2008 20:42:50 UTC

adreviews.net (for this domain name, for ex., all the 16 subdomains, as well as the domain, were in top in Yahoo SERP, most of it #1 and the other within the first 5 positions, for there main keywords, and it were very searched keywords):

Registrant Contact: Nicolae Sfetcu
Record created on 2004-11-17 13:40:13.
Record expires on 2008-11-17 13:40:13.

insurance-car-auto.com:

Registrant Contact: Nicolae Sfetcu
Record created on 2006-07-05 11:54:21.
Record expires on 2008-07-05 11:54:21.

musicsonglyrics.org:

Registrant Name:musicsonglyrics.org Private Registrant
Registrant Email: musicsonglyrics.org@proxy.dreamhost.com
Created On:29-Jun-2006 17:55:50 UTC
Last Updated On:25-May-2007 08:20:08 UTC
Expiration Date:29-Jun-2008 17:55:50 UTC

rent-sell-buy.net:

Registrant Contact: Nicolae Sfetcu
Record created on 2006-07-01 14:35:53.
Record expires on 2008-07-01 14:35:53.

As you can see from the above info, it is possible that, depending on criterions known by Dreamhost only, to have the domain names that you paid for, registered not with you as registrant, but with Dreamhost as registrant. More than this, the registrant email is one of the Dreamhost emails, so it is impossible for you to ask for the authorization code if you want to transfer it, because you have no access to the registrant email.

After more complaint about this situation to the authorities that have to help me in such a dispute, I lost my trust that I will get back my domain names. But I will follow it in the future, just to see to whom will give it Dreamhost.

Domaining, as it is defined by Wikipedia, is the business of buying, selling, developing and monetizing Internet domain names.

The domain name market is a speculative market. The investors will buy shares for a domain name for which they will have a revenue when the domain name will be sold only. Fusu just help in establishing “the right price” for every premium domain name.

From the point of view of the ethimology, Fusu (Chinese: 扶蘇; pinyin: fúsū) (died 210 BC) was the first son of the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, and hence the heir apparent. He believed that society would be impeccably run if everyone shared perfect knowledge (omniscience). Maybe this was the reason of this name for the first domain name stock exchange.

The declared mission of Fusu is to

1. operate the world’s largest and most liquid domain secondary market,
2. open the domain secondary market to shareholders,
3. provide means to get liquidity for domain owners, without giving up control of their domain, and
4. add transparency to the domain aftermarket.

February 19th marks the official launch date for Fusu, premiering at T.R.A.F.F.I.C., with a list of premium generic Domain Names that combine a value of almost $1.5 million.

There are today over 140 millions registered domains, with a 31% increase over the first quarter of 2006, and the domain name market could reach $4 billion by 2010 with a rate of purchase of approximately 90,000 domains a day.

Fusu is based on the concept of the traditional stock exchange applied to the domain name market, by providing a trading platform for owners, shareholders and investors.

The domain name owner that list their domains on Fusu retain full control, but still get liquidity from selling up to 45% of their domains.

By listing your domain with Fusu, you agree to sell pro-rated rights to future sale revenue or parking revenue from the domain.

You retain ownership, and as the owner you can decide to sell your domain. The shareholders are, however, entitled to a percentage of the sale price, according to their share ownership.

“For the first time, domainers can get immediate and significant liquidity without having to give up control over their domains”, said Xavier Buck, CEO of EuroDNS and Fusu’s strategic partner.

There are still problems that have to be solved, it is in fact still a beta, but, if Fusu will be a success, it will be a big success.

I was advised by many webmasters to complain to ICANN, but they send you to Internic and here, for the problem identified as “If you have a dispute involving the requested transfer of a domain name from one registrar to another“, they say that:

In November 2004, ICANN announced a transfer policy that applies to all accredited gTLD registrars across the globe.

If you have attempted to transfer a domain name from one registrar to another registrar and the transfer was denied, the “losing” registrar is required to provide the “gaining” registrar with a notice and a specific reason for the denial. You can contact the “gaining” registrar for further assistance.

The problem is that that policy is not applied by the registrars. They ask you for the transfer authorization code and do not comply with the above rule.

So, if you think that when you buy a new domain name it is your, you are in a big error. The registrar can block it at any time and there is no way to ask for your rights. The only possibility for you to keep your domain name is to have enough money for an attorney to get your domain names in instance, or to find a registrar that has nothing against the transfer of your domain names to another registrar. In fact, you are at the mercy of your registrar.

Anyway, I advise everyone based on my own experience that, when you buy a web hosting package, to not work to develop and promote web sites with domain names offered with free registration by the web hosting company, especially if it is Dreamhost, because it is very possible to find out later, when you want to transfer the domain names, that you worked for nothing for those web sites.

The hope to get back my domain names registered with Dreamhost and for which I am the registrant, still a dream, after 11 days. The only answer to my request for an authorization code to transfer the domain names to another registrar, is an answer from February 7th, 2008: “Your inquiry has been moved to the queue of a specific tech support team member…”.

I am still searching a way to get back my domain names from New Dream Network, LLC.

So, let’s see shortly the problem for the readers that did not see my previous post:

New Dream Network, LLC is a ICANN accredited registrar and, same time, a web hosting company.

When I bought 5 web hosting packages from them, I registered with them 5 new domain names, the registration included in the web hosting packages.

More than a week ago, they disabled my access to the domain name administration and I cannot change the DNS or transfer it to another registrar.

Some of the domain names are in the top (#1 or within the first five positions) in Yahoo! SERP, included the subdomains, for some the most important keywords.

Dreamhost did not answer and did not enabled the access to the administration of the domain names and do not want to give me the authorization code for the transfer of the domain names to another registrar, even after I sent them more messages.

Meanwhile, the web sites drop in the search engines SERP and I am losing money with every day that they are down.

Now, let’s just see the following possibility:

Someone owns a domain name that he promoted at a very high level.

The registrar of that domain name or someone close to it likes it and wants it.

It seems that it is enough to disable the access to the administration to the domain name, wait till the domain name will expire, and let the desired person or company to buy it.

All this time, till the domain name will expire, the registrant (the owner of the domain name) with the access disabled can do nothing because, as ICANN and Internic say in the section “Helpful Hints for Resolving Customer Service Complaints“, “If you cannot resolve your customer service complaint with the registrar, you should contact the appropriate consumer protection agency that addresses customer service complaints in your jurisdiction.”

So, if the registrar and the registrant are from different countries, there is no appropriate consumer protection agency to help you with this kind of problem and, if the registrant has not enough money to be helped by a private agency or attorney, the domain name is lost, even if the registrant has all the needed proves and evidences.

So in my situation I can say goodbye to my domain names registered with Dreamhost.

My only and very little chance is to make Dreamhost sensitive to my posts in this blog as well as in all the web sites, web forums, chats, mailing lists and any other online possible Internet resource, including my own network, in order to give me back my domain names. And this is my intention.

Shortly: some years ago I started to use the Dreamhost web hosting service and now, after they closed my accounts without a reason, they refuse to charge back my money and to get me access to the domain names I registered with them.

It was ok at the beginning, some years ago. Cheap and almost unlimited space. After a while, they told me that my web sites need a dedicated server, because they consume too many resources. I bought a dedicated server at Dreamhost, but it was a very poor service, even after I bought more memory. So I had to close the dedicated server and went back to the sharing web hosting, buying several web hosting packages. Starting with 2 or 3 years ago, the web hosting service was from lower to lower, and from more to more frequently problems.

When I wanted to help them and I told them some time ago that through my phpMyAdmin I have access to other user databases and that they have to resolve this bug, they repaired it than sent me a message denying that it was a bug and telling me that I use too many resources of the server. I closed a lot of my web sites in order to comply with them.

Some months ago they received a complaint about using the expression “farm insurance” within one of my web site related on insurance and asked me to remove this expression from the metatags, warning me that they will close my accounts (I had 5 web hosting package with them) if I will not comply with their request.

I removed it.

About one month ago, they charged me a lot of money for a problem with their online billing software, I understood that it was a general problem (see here and here). I asked to be charged back, and so it started my big problems with Dreamhost. On February 5th in the morning I saw that all my web sites were down and, when I entered within the Control Panel, I saw the warning “This account is currently disabled!” on all my 5 accounts, and a message about closing my accounts.

I am absolutely sure that I never intended to violate their terms, but with more than 400 web sites it is almost impossible to not make some small errors that they can claim. So I moved to another web hosting service and I wrote to them asking to give me FTP access in order to make backup of my files, asking them if they will charge me back for the remaining days because I paid for some accounts for a whole year and I used 2 or 3 months only, and asking to give me access to the domain names that I registered through them or to give me the authorization code needed to transfer the domain names to another registrar.

Unfortunately, after almost a week I received no answer yet from them although I sent them several requests, so, it seems that I lost my money. Even more important for me, the domain names I registered with them will be lost, included the work, money and time I spent to promote these domain names and web sites all these years.

Because I don’t care too much for the money that I paid to them and they did not charge it back, but I care a lot for the domain names, I filled an online complaint at the Federal Trade Commission in order to get back my domain names. I hope this will help me.

Besides, I wanted to send a complaint to ICANN about the domain names registered with Dreamhost and for which I have no more access. ICANN sent me to Internic for such problems. On Internic, the most appropriate sample of domain name dispute is “If your complaint concerns a failure to answer phones or respond to email messages”, but they write for this kind of problems that “it is not within ICANN’s mission to address any customer-service related matters that fall outside of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA).”

So, it seems that if a registrar wants to take your domain name, it is enough to give you no more access to the administration of that domain name and to answer no more to your messages because, for a physical person or a small company, there is no way or not enough money to constraint the registrar to respect your rights and your ownership for a given domain name.

My problem and their problem is that I do not intend to let them my domain names, so I will fight for my rights till I will get it back.

According to Domain Tools, there are partners that Google had that generated as much as $3 million dollars a month from the practice and that was after Google’s revenue share.

The results will be an increase of the income for the Google AdSense affiliates that do not use this practice.

TechCrunch says that Google’s move will not completely wipe out domain testing, because there are no shortage of alternative advertising programs for domains, but Westerdal would suggest that Google is where most domain tasters are generating revenue:

If this is the true, it is possible that a lot of registrants will end their activity, because many of them have as main activity the domain tasting/kiting.

Domain tasting is the practice of a domain name registrant using the five-day “grace period” at the beginning of the registration of an ICANN-regulated domain name to test the marketability of the domain, while domain kiting 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.

In April 2006, out of 35 million registrations, only a little more than 2 million were permanent or actually purchased. By February 2007, the CEO of GoDaddy reported that of 55.1 million domain names registered, 51.5 million were canceled and refunded just before the 5 day grace period expired and only 3.6 million domain names were actually kept.

“We have long discouraged domain kiting as a practice,” Google said in an e-mailed statement. “In order to more effectively deter it, we are launching a new domain kiting detection system. If we determine that a domain is being kited, we will not allow Google ads to appear on the site. We believe that this policy will have a positive impact for users and domain purchasers across the Web.”  (Information Week)

I choose the domain name “justadomaintastingtest.com”.

I tried it with the whois at register.com (that I trust and I always use): the domain name was available.

I tried it with the whois at Network solutions: available.

Go back to register.com: still available.

Try it with whois.sc: surprise! The domain name was already registered by Network Solutions!

Registry Data

All these happened in less than one minute!

Network Solutions says it isn’t “front-running” domain names, contrary to reports that claim otherwise, and that the practice that triggered the accusation is actually an attempt to counteract front-running from external threats.

Front-running occurs when a company or individual registers a domain immediately after a prospective buyer searches to see if it’s available, which gives the registrar an advantage because he can then prevent the customer from purchasing through a competing registrar and sell it at an inflated price.

Jonathon Nevett, VP of policy at Network Solutions says that what it is doing is a pre-emptive security measure to protect customers from domain tasters and that Network Solutions is providing them the, “opportunity to register domains they have previously searched for without the fear that the name will already be taken through front-running.” (Whir News)

Shashi Bellamkonda from Network Solutions says that: We are not monetizing these domains, nor do we intend to keep them after the holding period. We are not front running. “ Front Runners” are people who register domain names known to have been searched, for the purpose of monetizing them and then selling them at inflated prices either directly to the customer who searched for the domain or through aftermarket channels. We have started protecting all domain name searches at Network Solutions by holding the searched domains for our customers for a short period of time before releasing them. This gives our customers the opportunity to register names later without fear that the name will be registered by a “Front Runner.”

One person claims that they contacted ICANN, and the response was that although they believe it to be an unethical business practice, it is legal and there is nothing they can do to stop it.

The domain name business is booming in our days, with a volume of domain name transactions in 2004 up 300 % from 2003. Data from DNJournal, Domain-Spiegel.de and Sedo.com, three leading independent companies tracking the domain name marketplace, shows the average sale price of dot-com domains is more than US$9,700.

ICANN just released a report about domain tasting and illegal practice of the registrars, and it is still available for comments.

The domain name yahoo.is is for sale on eBay. The minimum offer is US $100,000.00. The end time is Jan-13-08 17:09:05 PST. There was no bidder yet.

In accordance with Softpedia, quoted also on the eBay auction for the domain name, Yahoo! will open a new office in Iceland. The Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde sustained that “this is a very exciting idea and it is positive that Iceland is shown such interest. Yahoo’s representatives have found out that there is a friendly environment for such operations here”.

“Iceland is known to be environmentally friendly and to offer inexpensive energy. We are very satisfied with what we have seen and Icelandic investors are interested in the idea,” Kevin Timmons, the vice-president of Yahoo, added.