“Reopen” Domain Surge

Propaganda and misinformation are easy to propagate on the web as one of my mentors, Wayne Porter, would frequently show me. Now is not the time to let our guard down.

That lookup returned approximately 150 domains; in addition to those named after the individual 50 states, some of the domains refer to large American cities or counties, and others to more general concepts, such as “reopeningchurch.com” or “reopenamericanbusiness.com.”

Source: Who’s Behind the “Reopen” Domain Surge? — Krebs on Security

Your Domain and Your Home Address

I often shock potential small business or nonprofit clients by knowing their home address or cell phone number during our first or second call. It’s easy if they have already purchased a domain. I don’t do it as a scare tactic, but as an educational moment about the need to plan ahead and think through security issues.

By the time someone or a business or group has come to me with an idea for a new website or marketing strategy needs, they’ve purchased or at least thought about a domain name. There are copious services out there that will sell you a domain for a range of prices. GoDaddy is perhaps the most popular due to its marketing over the years. Unfortunately, GoDaddy has a reputation in the tech world of being the Monarch of UpSells. You can go there to buy a domain but you have to wade through the other options of website hosting, email addresses, security services, and a fee to protect your domain name privacy.

That last one is something that has irked me for a while about GoDaddy and similar domain name sellers (including Google) that don’t offer free domain privacy and private registration. Again, many of my clients are shocked when they find out their home addresses are now public records tied to their great idea for a domain or their business’ domain.

Before private individuals started buying domains and GoDaddy / Squarespace / Wix / Weebly (all who will sell you a domain) started marketing how “easy” it is to build a website, it made sense that domain information would and should be public. Most domains were bought by agencies or companies tied to specific interests. However, that has all changed and domains should include domain privacy when purchased in 2018.

People are more and more becoming interested in privacy and security matters, and this only makes sense for everyone. Stop upselling it.

Good move from Namecheap.

When you register a domain, ICANN requires registrars to provide them with your contact information (such as name, email, address, and phone number). This is then added to the Whois database. This database lists the owners of every domain name online, and it can be searched by anyone on the Internet.

— Read on www.namecheap.com/security/whoisguard.aspx

Bible Domains

When the society — which lists several conservative Christian “founding partners” on the get.bible website — first applied for the rights to .bible, it pledged to provide wide access to “all qualified parties” interested in Bible issues. Soon after acquiring the domain name, though, ABS barred publication of material it defined as “antithetical to New Testament principles” or promoting a secular worldview or “a non-Christian religion or set of religious beliefs.”

Source: Who owns the .bible? – Religion News ServiceReligion News Service

jebbush.com and tedcruz.com

“The site wasn’t hacked and the Bush campaign didn’t forget to register a domain. Bush campaign spokesman Tim Miller said that the campaign website is Jeb2016.com and that has been the case since the beginning of the campaign. The campaign has never used jebbush.com, and Mr. Miller says that searches for “Jeb Bush” bring up the correct website.”

Source: For JebBush.com, a Mystery Wrapped Inside a Domain Name – Washington Wire – WSJ

It’s always shocking to me that political candidates at any level don’t own the .com, .org, and .net domains of their respective names… same with church leaders, business leaders, and any sort of public personalities.

You should also have a blog at your namespace and stop relying on Facebook (especially if you have a public persona).

Namecheap Domain Move Update

Yesterday I decided to go with the gestalt and move a few test domains from GoDaddy to Namecheap.

I’m happy to say that at about 9pm last night, I received an email from Namecheap saying the process had been completed (and one from GoDaddy saying goodbye).

In total, it took about 10 hours from start-to-finish, but I’m guessing much of that was due to the Dump GoDaddy Day movement.

All of the name servers were switched over automagically (they point to my host MediaTemple for the samharrelson.com domain) without me having to do anything, which is a big relief.

I’ll be moving PayPerTrends, as well as all of my domains, over to Namecheap this weekend. So, if you see anything goofy or the site has some downtime, you’ll know the hamsters in the back are doing their thing.

Excited.

I’m a nerd.

Rock on.

Get a .Me Domain

Montenegro is opening up its coveted .me domain to the public today.

I’m sure the good stuff will go quickly, but there’s lots of interesting combinations to be had for blogs and sites…

.Me Domains Now Available to the Public – AppScout: “In 2006, Montenegro was assigned its own domain name extension: .me. Like Tuvalu and Djibouti, sheer coincidence has given the small European nation a potentially high-demand extension. Says EnCirca president, Thomas Barrett of .me, ‘[It] offers real personalization of domains. For instance, why not register follow.me for the born leader? Or perhaps, listento.me for the incessant blogger? EnCirca is excited to be part of this strategic campaign and we applaud Montenegro for making the most of their virtual resources.'”

I’ve always wanted to really get into domaining. Seems like a fascinating business.

–UPDATE–

Turns out I jumped the gun a little (the title of the AppScout post didn’t help).

Trust points out the timeline:

May 6 – May 20, 2008: General Sunrise
May 20 – June 6, 2008: Quiet Period
June 6 – June 26, 2008: Land Rush
June 26 – July 17, 2008: Quiet Period
July 17, 2008: Open Registration

Looks like you’re paying to play in the initial land rush if you pay the $98 for 2 years now (like I did… d’oh!).