Domain Name Blog

British international striker Wayne Rooney, among 30 players on a shortlist for FIFA’s World Player of the Year Award, has won ownership of a Web site in his name, a United Nations agency said on Friday.Rooney, who plays for Manchester United, won exclusive rights to domain name waynerooney.com after proving his name was a registered trademark, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said.

Rooney’s teammate Joe Cole, Brazilian superstars Ronaldinho and Ronaldo, Dutchman Jaap Stam, Italy’s Francesco Totti and Ghanaian-born prodigy Freddy Adu are among soccer players who have won cybersquatting cases at the Geneva-based agency.

The web is one lawless channel of communication in which only the swift, savvy and gifted at speed succeed. This theory has been proven to be true this week because the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party has fallen victim to cybersquatters and some people trying to access his Internet blog have found themselves entering the world of a little-known Australian poet.

David Cameron, modernizing leader of the Conservative party, launched his blog www.webcameron.org.uk over the weekend in a bid to appeal to younger voters and revamp the image of his party.

But the party did not take the precaution, common in such circumstances, of securing the domains of similar Web site names including www.webcameron.info and www.webcameron.co.uk.

Since then, supporters of small rival political party UKIP have leapt on to the www.webcameron.info domain and made it their own, posting a satirical video of Cameron on it. Find the video here
As of this writing it seems a deal has been reached and the domain webcameron.co.uk transferred to the Conservative party leader. However, it is difficult to tell how much money the cybersquatter was paid in exchange for the domain.

Two CNET News.com reporters’ personal telephone records were accessed by a contractor hired by Hewlett-Packard to uncover the source of boardroom leaks to the media, according to the California attorney general’s office.

The investigation conducted by a company hired by HP used a controversial technique called “pretexting” to obtain the personal phone records of CNET News.com reporters Dawn Kawamoto and Tom Krazit, state prosecutors said. Pretexting is a sometimes-illegal method of obtaining personal records through misrepresentation of someone’s identity.

Kawamoto and Krazit co-wrote a Jan. 23 article outlining a private, long-term strategy session held by HP’s board of directors.

I have just came across an article that discusses how Microsoft is once again on the receiving end from trademark violators. One domainer owns the domain IE7.com. IE7 is the name of microsoft’s new internet explorer browser schedueled for release later this month. Online users who key in www.ie7.com expecting to locate information on the upcoming Microsoft browser IE 7, will instead see a big logo of Firefox, the open source browser developed by Mozilla.

The logo includes a link back to Mozilla’s site, and a disclaimer statement at the top of the Web page that reads: “Neither this site nor Mozilla is connected with Microsoft.”

Mozilla Corp stated that the website was created by a web designer who is not affiliated with the company. main.

Last month Microsoft filed three lawsuits in a US federal court against cyber squatters it alleges reaped profits in bad faith. The suits revolve around more than 600 domain names.

According to domain news website Vino.com, there was a great domain sale at the end of last week. Vintners.com was sold by a Sonoma resident and Bulgarian wine importer Vance T. Petrunoff to a Pennsylvania web developer for $45,000.

This marks a strong summer ending for the dot-domain sales amid speculations that the domain industry is heating up. Nonetheless speculation among domainers is rife as a simple search of any other extension of vintner could tell. vintner.info, .org, .info, .net amont other IDNs are all taken!! Take heart, keep on registering more domain names for future profit. A dollar wisely invested today will be worth 2 tomorrow!

Microsoft has obtained court orders to sue what it termed as typo and cybersquatters who are heavily infringing on its Trademark. In what is perhaps a new twist in the domain industry, MS through a court order has dispatched subpoenas to 3 people who it accused of have allegedly registering hundreds of typos infringing on the trademark “Microsoft “.
My topics for today include:
-Microsoft sues cybersquatters
-Mamboserver templates

Microsoft sues cybersquatters
The domain industry was left in uncertainty today, especially for small players, when Microsoft announced that it had obtained a court order to presecute at least three domainers who has registered hundreds of domains infringing on its trademark. In what appears to be a twist in the industry, if found guilty, the accused will have to pay $100k per domain in terms of compensation for damages. There might be a wake up call for other companies to follow in the shoes of Microsoft. Through speculation, it is possible that many domainers parking domains infringing on the MS trademark will take them offline or sell them off at law ball prices to avoid possible charges. Among the illegitimate websites that have been pinpointed by MS include www.rebatesmicrosoft.com and msnfinance.com plus others. In an official statement posted on its website today, MS claims that the fresh charges against fraudsters have been precipitated by the high number of domains and websites being setup daily infringing on its name. Read the statement here. There are at least 2000 domains registered daily by domainers and parked for third parties paying through PPC (pay per click) model for their ads to appear on them. The PPC business model is legitimate. The credit, for Microsoft’s success in unravelling the massive infringements on its trademark name goes, to the invention of the MSR Strider URL tool. This tool creates typos and patrols the net to identify their exact IP address location. For a preview download it here.

Mamboserver templates
Last but not least, today I discovered very nice mambo templates. For example ddclean olive, planetfall. You may download all these at www.dezinedepot.com.