Last week ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced significant changes in the way web domains will begin appear. In addition to the most common web suffixes such as .com and location specific domains like .co.uk, domain names can now be based on any string of letters, allowing the registration of thousands of new domain names. Businesses will now be allowed to apply for a far wider range of domains including more specific locations like .london and .scotland and suffixes relevant to particular industries such as .bank, .flight, .entertainment or .gamble. The existing system categorises web addresses under 260 geographic and general names. The new domain names will begin to appear next year.

There has been concern among the web community as the changes will surely make the web a more complex and expensive place for small businesses and home users, while affecting web security and opening up more opportunities for fraudsters and cybersquatters. Small companies will find it more expensive to maintain their web presence as they be will be forced to buy a lot more domains. The pricing of the new domains will also vary more.

One of the biggest concerns is that the changes could lead the way to a huge online red light district where all adult sites would carry the .xxx or similar suffixes. ICANN had cleared this type of domain then later withdrew it. The process of clearing a new suffix involves the the applicant going through an initial review where anyone can raise concerns on aspects such as racism or trademark issues though if no objection is raised approval will be very quick.

Other changes in consideration include the use of non-English characters in web addresses which would allow Chinese or Arabic letters to appear. The demand for these type of names has been increasing due to the fact that the the internet expands to non English speakers and those who cannot easily type English characters. This particular type of change would definitely be positive for web accessibility.

Links

BBC News Article on the subject: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7475986.stm

BBC Video Report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7474203.stm

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Would you pay money to a Random Electricity Company that sent you a letter saying your bill was overdue?…  Would you hand over your credit card to a Mobile phone company you’d never heard of, simply because they sent you an official looking invoice for your Vodafone account?  I’d hope not…  So WHY are so many people still getting scammed by the Domain Registry of America (DROA) when it comes to Domain renewals.

We first reported on this outfit back in early 2004, and again just recently, but they are just as active today (if not moreso), and still conning people into transferring their domain names into their control, simply down to their official looking letters.  Check out Nominet’s site for details of other current domain scams.

Do not be fooled, and if in doubt - contact NSDesign for any advise or questions before signing a cheque to a company tht you’ve never heard of!

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Catch-all email may sound like a great way to setup your email - but in practice, it’s almost guaranteed to give you problems.

At first glance - the ability to setup your email to allow everything@yourdomain.com to be received to your inbox sounds great - especially if you’re trying to promote yourself as being bigger than you actually are.  Once setup, you can simply promote sales@ info@ support@ anythingyoulike@ addresses, all handled in exactly the same way by your default email account.

The main problem with catch-all email is spam.  Unfortunately Spam Email isn’t going away - it’s continually on the rise, and the methods spammers use get more elaborate and harder to tackle.  By allowing email to anything@yourdomain, you are inviting a spammer to bombard you with email.  Dictionary attacks (whereby the spammer sends 1000’s of email to randomwords@yourdomain) are common, and with a catch-all email setup - each of spam these emails will be delivered to you. 

The end result is not only a LOT of unnecessary spam email to go through and delete from your inbox, but the potential for your web hosting account to run out of available web-space.  Emails take up space, and it doesn’t take too many spam emails (especially if the mailbox you’re directing them to isn’t regularly checked) to consume 100’s of MB.  Far too often we see “help I’ve run out of webspace” support tickets, caused simply by spam email to a default (catch-all) email account.

The other common occurrence that we see is regarding Spoofed emails.  Again, sad but true - it’s common to have your domain name spoofed by a spammer.  Email spoofingis the practice of changing your name in email so that it looks like the email came from somewhere or someone else.  This isn’t too much of an issue itself (technically, the emails are NOT sent by you, or through your account - and this is easily proved by examining the email headers), but if a spammer sends out a few thousand emails using a from address of random@yourdomain - you can guarantee that most of these emails will bounce - right back to you - because your catch-all accepts email to random@. 

So..  take the time to setup one or more email addresses that you actually use, and make sure you disable catch-all email - otherwise, sit back and enjoy the spam.

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Yesterday’s press announcement from the Scottish Nationalist Government regarding moves to introduce a Top Level Domain (TLD) for Scotland, has sparked some lively debate.  Despite the fact that this is nothing new (similar proposals have been around for many years), finance secretary John Swinney is backing the campaign for the new “.sco” suffix which will see Scotland have it’s own domain space.

My own opinion to the question - “should we bother” is featured in today’s The Scotsman newspaper (p 24), but in short - I seriously question the value in the .sco domain, and can’t help thinking it’s being used by the politicians to push their own agendas, and not the interests of the companies trading online from Scotland.  Shortbread and whisky anyone?

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No matter how often we warn against it, we keep seeing clients lose their domain names due to completely preventable reasons…

Things like…

• Changing email address but not telling us (so therefore not getting reminders)
• Ignoring email reminders until just after the due date
• Leaving it until after that holiday (and after the renewal date)

The expiry date on Domain names should always be considered too late…  ensure your domain is renewed in advance of that date, and make sure that you mark it clearly in your diary, and don’t rely on others to ensure it gets done.

Remember that .com domains (and other “global” domains such as .net and .org etc) WILL go offline the day after the renewal date if the registry hasn’t been paid.  And as a general rule of thumb, we (like every other company and registrar) won’t pay the registry until you pay us!  Leave it much longer than a day, and you risk going into “Redemption” - which starts geting costly.  Ignore it beyond that, and the chances are you WILL lose your domain to someone else - most likely a cybersquatter.

If your name is at all vital to your business, then SECURE IT, either via our own domain protection service, or simply by registering it for longer than 1 or 2 years at a time (.com can be registered for 10 years).  Don’t be one of the many who phone us with “help me - I’ve lost my domain”. 

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I was speaking to a customer earlier who claimed that seconds after searching for an available domain name at Network Solutions, said domain name was instantly showing up as “registered” on other whois lookups.  Back at Network Solutions domain checker - the domain continued to show as available.

This led him to believe that Network Solutions was in fact instantly registering every domain name that people check.  SURELY NOT I thought…  so I did a quick experiment…  I checked on their site for the availability of a random domain - nsdesign20.com - and as expected, this showed as available for registration.  I then checked via Enom (the registry we use for all our .com registrations) and sure enough - nsdesign20.com was registered, and unavailable.

A little more digging shows this practice, commonly known as Domain Name Front Running (or domain tasting) is indeed confirmed by the folks at Network Solutions who claim they are actually trying to ”protect customers” and is not simply a case of them using phishing techniques to hijack or steal domain names, FORCING customers to register with them and no-one else (I’ll let you decide which attitude is correct).  More info can be read on Wikipedia (updated just yesterday).

The good news, for those people who have been conned (as some would suggest) is that they only keep the domain registered for a 4 day period, so that’s good of them, and no I haven’t included an actual link to Network Solutions in this blog post as I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy (I’m not angry - honest). 

Ps - don’t anyone dare register nsdesign20.com when it becomes available in 4 days - It’s critical to our future plans.

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