In one of the most remarkable domain disputes ever seen (certainly for the UK name space), the domain name oasis.co.uk has this week been overturned on appeal by the panel of nominet appointed DRS experts and returned to the ownership and control of the registrant.

The parties in this case are UK high street clothing chain Oasis Stores Ltd (complainant) and James Dale (respondent).

In what no doubt will become a landmark case for a number of reasons, Oasis.co.uk will remain with owner James Dale;  despite he not submitting a defence to the original complaint, failing to keep accurate whois records and being allowed to submit fresh evidence at the appeal hearing. All of which are against the rules as set out by Nominet.

Speaking today, Mr Dale said “For owners of UK generic domain names, this could be considered a landmark outcome. The DRS has at times been viewed as the poorer, less effective cousin of the UDRP process. That the complaint against oasis.co.uk was successfully overturned here should help to restore the damaged reputation of the DRS in the eyes of the UK domain community, whilst giving owners of other generic domains some additional peace of mind. I hope to see this case referred to in future in support of other unfair claims which will undoubtedly arise – although perhaps now with a less opportunistic slant.”

The first Mr Dale knew of the original complaint and subsequent loss of his domain name was when a friend commiserated with him about his loss. Mr Dale stated that he had not received communications about the original complaint (and hence never filed a defence) because both his physical address and email contact address had changed since acquiring the domain in 2006 – yet he asked that, in the interests of justice, because Nominet knew his new address from other correspondence, they overlook this violation. The appeal found that in the interests of justice, Mr Dale having to pay the appeal hearing fee was, in itself, punishment enough for not keeping up-to-date and accurate whois and contact details. The precedent saving caveat however was also added by the appeal panel “That should not be taken to mean that any Respondent who ignores a Complaint (whether intentionally or inadvertently) has a right to submit new evidence on Appeal upon paying the fee.”

The main cornerstones of the case however surround the claim that oasis.co.uk was an abusive registration because the site was displaying ads of the complainants mark/brand on a parking page and, because this was an appeal hearing, that the respondent be not allowed to submit fresh evidence.  The respondent claimed (in the subsequently accepted fresh evidence) that the reason the parking page displayed ads of the complainant was because it had deliberately bid on exact domain names owned by the respondent  (the respondent also owns oasis.com and oasis.de) at their upstream PPC provider. In this case Yahoo.

As if the decision based on the material facts alone weren’t remarkable enough, the appeal committee took the unprecedented step of visiting the complainants website themselves and found meta information embedded in the source code of the site which showed the terms “oasis.co.uk” and “oasis.com” – names the complainant did not own.

The appeal panel concluded :  “The Panel considers this information [submitted by parking company iMODO.com] tends to confirm the thrust of the allegations made by the Respondent – namely that the Complainant is itself seeking to use the domain names oasis.co.uk and oasis.com to attract traffic to its own site. It may well be that this metatag use will also have some influence on the search results that Yahoo (and other search engines) return when these domain names are used as search terms.

In short the Panel concludes that the Complainant, by choosing to use as keywords with Yahoo (and possibly also as metatags on its own web site – www.oasis-stores.com) text which corresponds to domain names which it does not own, including the Domain Name, has to some degree caused the parking page to which those domain names are linked to behave in the manner which the Complainant now says is Abusive. The Panel believes it is clear that this cannot be Abusive Behaviour by the Respondent. He has said he did nothing to alter the behaviour of the site and if a significant cause is the actions of the Complainant it cannot rely on those as evidence of Abusive Behaviour by the Respondent. Accordingly the Panel considers, if all the evidence before it is admitted, that the registration is not an Abusive Registration, and it should not be transferred to the Complainant.”

What’s amusing in this case for me is not the way the respondent managed to shoehorn in additional evidence through the back door but more about how the big nasty company clearly made bids on the domain name as a keyword in their PPC campaign with the view of using it as the evidence in their reverse hijacking claim – I guess you could align it as being a modern day “plant”. In this case, I applaud the appeal panel for gathering additional evidence and making the “smoking gun” discovery that domain names not owned by the complainant were sat there in the source code of the complainants site..

I’m not sure if any of you guys have been following the story of CEO Mark Hurd over at HP  .. ?

To bring you up to speed, allow me to give you a 5 second capsule review. In May last year, Hewlett Packard bought Electronic Data Systems (EDS) for $13.9Bn.  EDS provides, in their words,  a broad portfolio of business and technology solutions, from e-commerce platforms to integrated out-sourcing contracts and business transformation.

What transpired as soon as HP took over was an immediate 20,000 headcount cull of EDS’s 120,000 global employees. Ok, recession, depression, all seems reasonable thus far, cut the wheat from the chaff, yadda yadda.

Anyhow, last month, Mr Hurd announced that all HP employees (including those remaining at profitable entity EDS) would be required (”asked” in the case of non-US employees) to take between a 5% and 20% pay cut depending on their level of seniority. To emphasise his commitment to the cause he announced that he too would be taking a 20% cut from his $1,450,000 salary – amounting to a reduction of some $290,000.

On the face value of it, regardless that he was still pulling in over $1m per annum in annual salary, so be it. I have the firm belief that if such things are necessary, and regardless that his income is immeasurable against the common or garden worker drone, you have to lead from the front when times get tough. Unpalatable decisions need to be backed and supported by all and none more so than from the guys at the top.

“The point is…?” -  Goes the communal reply.

Ok, here’s the thing. Mark Hurd is reducing his basic salary by 20% in line with all the other HP employees. In the US these employees have no choice. It’s a mandatory reduction of between 5% and 20%.

The Company line,  read PR, read smoke and mirrors show falls flat however when you look at the sums a little closer. And do please have your sick bags at the ready.

In 2008, Mr Hurd also received :

$5.3m in Bonus
$12.9m in Stock
$3.4m in Option Awards
$18.5m in Incentives
$738k in Other Compensation.

Source

Together with his HP financed home security ($256k), HP financed personal use of the company jet ($135k) and his mortgage subsidy ($71k) his total compensation for 2008 amounts to an extremely modest $42,514,524. How will he manage to put food on his family’s table..?

Basically, he earned (and its worth repeating) about an office junior’s salary above 42.5 million dollars…

So, lets back up to his “oh so generous offer” to reduce his salary by 20%. In real terms, this $290,000 he will be losing amounts to just over 0.5% of his total pay. Perhaps even more vulgar, he starts with over $42 million and ends up with, you guessed it, just over $42 million

In 2008, four other senior executives at HP, who are also required to reduce their basic pay by this 20%, each earned more than $20m a piece. Of course, the highest any of them is losing amounts to just $160k.

Most of us work. Most of us work hard. Most of us earn enough to get by. And most of us would wince at the idea of permanently losing (for thats what HP staff are being asked to do) between 5% and 20% of our salary. Especially when the fat cat at the top is treating you like a moron.

The spin Mr Hurd and his cohorts place on this action include the velvet glove approach of intimating that it’s better to lose a slice of salary than any more staff. Pfft. Trouble with this line is that people have long memories and, of course, the internet.

Since Mr Hurd’s tenure at HP, they have already shed over 40,000 staff. When the salary slicing exercise is done and dusted and the recession bites that bit harder – despite HP continuing to turn a profit ($1.9Bn in the past 12 weeks) – based on previous behaviour, you can bet your bottom dollar that more head cuts will be on the way.

Most of Mr Hurd’s current actions have been seen before. In fact, his previous CEO role was at NCR Corp. The modus operandi here was, of course, to do exactly what hes now doing at HP. Way before the current HP smoke and mirrors show, Mr Hurd left a company where it was said  “morale under him plummeted after management slashed jobs, demoted personnel and cut benefits.”

John Pardon, an NCR alumnus said of the company during Mr Hurd’s tenure that “the feeling is one of utter insensitivity and [as an employee] complete lack of respect or regard for them. Among my peers within the company, there’s a great deal of skepticism and suspicion about anything the company had to say”.

From a May 2008 issue of Business Week magazine ” Hurd’s strategy severely damaged the core of the corporation — the employee base. Here’s what Hewlett-Packard Co. employees can look forward to under Hurd: loss of pension benefits, less attractive and more expensive health care benefits, loss of educational benefits, massive layoffs, jobs lost to outsourcing, and demotions coupled with loss of pay”

When Hurd took over at HP, analysts advised that he should :

• Make cuts at HP that are financially sound without ripping the heart out of what’s left in that company. I just worry that he may choose or be cajoled into choosing to cut too deeply
• Given that Hurd is new to HP, he should make his plans as clear as possible to employees
• Before Mark Hurd got there, the place still has managed to attract and retain people who are not only talented and hard-working, but also loyal to their perception of the HP Way. If Hurd makes these cuts in too Draconian or insensitive a way, he risks snuffing out the last vestiges of the HP Way

I guess he wasn’t listening.

Seemingly well regarded PCWorld.com writer David Coursey gets mixed up about cybersquatters, ahem domainers :

Fight Back Against Cybersquatters

The article kicks off with this:

“The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the #$&%$ pond scum who hijacked the name of a not-for-profit animal rescue group. Not that they deserve protection.”

First up, Im surprised to see such a learned writer not quite understanding the term “hijacking”; being that he goes on to suggest later in the article that the hypothetical group mentioned never actually owned the hypothetical name for which the nasty “cybersquatters” had “hijacked”.

Of course, no domainer I know would ever have over-to-dinner anyone who passes off or squats or preys on those out to do good and especially so for those who squat on a charity or on those who build something not-for-profit. But come on, some of the terminology he uses comes across as being both holier-than-thou when it comes to domain parking and also a little too close to the old “all domainers are bad” attitude we’re all so commonly used to.

With reference to domain parking, seemingly Mr Coursey distances himself from having too much awareness on the subject:

“Up popped one of those “This domain for sale” pages that also included a bunch of paid links to various pet-released services. It looks as though these are Google AdSense placements, though I could be wrong. The page doesn’t even have a listing for our actual site, a small courtesy that is too much to expect from cybersquatters.”

Ok, before I address this part, let me take a shot at the site hosting this article.

One of the largest computer retail outlets in the UK (in fact probably the largest) is also called, you guessed it, PCWorld. They operate online under the domain pcworld.co.uk.

Hmm, now call me Miss Picky (careful on the pronunciation) but, seeing as though pcworld.co.uk was first registered in 1996 and PCWorld.com never came into existence until 1998, Im not seeing any “small courtesy listing” anywhere on the PCWorld.com site informing visitors where the other “pcworld” resides – I’ve done a search – and I’ve also made this typo error myself when looking for the UK site. Im guessing many others (domaintools confirms this) have done likewise.

So, is this yet another example of a nasty cybersquatter benefitting from anothers mark, perhaps?

Let’s now disect some of Mr Coursey’s other comments:

“Meanwhile, what can be done about cybersquatters?
We could significantly reduce squatter activity if the paid search companies would simply refuse to provide ads to sites unless they could verify the site was actually legit”

He goes on to use (when referring to cybersquatters) other terms that feel a little too scattergun to be solely directed towards just squatters:

“these people have no shame and will do anything for a buck”

“Google and other paid search providers could take the wind right out of these so-and-so’s sails.“

“God has a special plan (and place) for these people.”

Like i say, on the face of it, it all looks like a bonafide pop at genuine cybersquatters but is it just me who is reading between the lines on this? Bearing in mind also that the author’s example of one his “couple of hundred” domains americanwarning.com conveniently points to a 1&1 holding page. Bless him.

Perhaps if Mr Coursey didn’t want to raise my suspicions as to his true intent with his article he should have instead used his SMBideas.com domain as his example – incidentally a domain parked at Sedo and showing adult links.

Hey-ho

Just got this sent to me by an ex fellow student. It’s from a question given to students in a University of Washington mid term paper

Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic
(absorbs heat)?

One students answer:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, “It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,” and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct……leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting “Oh my God.”

This student received the only “A”.

Albeit in a tongue in cheek way.

UK Price comparison site comparethemarket.com has been running adverts on television about a spoof site

Compare The Meerkat dot com

Quite amusing, but with a serious point no doubt. In the very least it shows that main stream media now recognises the value of the typo domain.

I do like the way they have actually built out the meerkat site so that visitors can compare them. Very good

http://www.comparethemeerkat.com/compare.html

Here’s their TV ads

http://www.comparethemeerkat.com/tv-ad.html

Last week, my boss spent the evening in London with some prominent domainers – and by all accounts a good time was had by all.

The reach of domainers, domaining, direct navigation and the industry-at-large now seems to have reached a new level in the UK; for apparently, included at this get-together was  an IP lawyer from Microsoft and an American journalist from CBS news. Not a great deal of relevance in that last sentence however, in the discussions that followed, the whole concept of domaining and the “value” (or lack of) it brings to the internet ecosystem as a whole were debated at length.

I was interested in this last point.

in the UK,  DRS cases against parked domains will be upheld if the contextual pay-per-click ads displayed on a site breach anothers trademark. Domains will be transferred to the complainant if any 3rd party ads (generally outside the control of any domainer) are displayed. The message therefore seems to be that, as domainers, complete vigilance over your parked domains (including the generics) must be observed at all times. On occassions, reverse hijackers have actually bidded on a domain name in it’s “exact” sense – that being claimants have bidded on domain names themselves as part of  a PPC campaign – in order to bring an action against a domain owner. Crazy enough so far? Read on..

As a result of such “passing off”, a domain name can be transferred to any complainant who also reserves the right to bring forward further action under the 1998 cybersquatting act.

The facts seem to be that in order to qualify as a “cybersquatter” you need only pass yourself off as someone who owns a trademark of an advertisement served on your site by a third party. This includes any ads served after a visitor initiates a further search.

Now, I’m no lawyer or even someone that professes to be learned in the subject and I don’t even know the situation stateside, but does this just seem crazy to everyone else or just me?

Ok, lets go full circle and back to Microsoft. Taking into account that domain names resolving from IP addressses (for that’s all they are) are simply vessels for getting interested parties, lets call them consumers, digital information they need – which includes (in the commercial sector) products and services from companies who have a brand which they rightly wish to protect, what’s the difference between serving contextual advertisements on a website and Microsoft resolving error traffic from non-resolving domains to a page of sponsored links with their Internet Explorer 7 product?

Type www.mortgage.co.uk or mortgage.co.uk into your IE address bar and you’ll see what I mean. And I don’t mean the fact that such a valuable domain doesn’t resolve

The difference is actually quite substantial. Generally speaking, domain owners do not go out to deliberately pass themselves off as TM owners and the serving of contextual ads is not something for which they any control. Microsoft, on the other hand, deliberately resolve error traffic typed into an address bar to a page of sponsored links. The small-fry domain owners who earn a few bucks per month from their questionable traffic are pursued vigourously and Microsoft, who are doing this “passing off” millions of times per day, get away with it scot free.

Where’s the justice in that?

Ok, just a short post.. I intend to compile a top ten of the best domain names (that I want, of course) where the owner has or hasn’t made (as the case may be) not much at all..

I’ll kick it off with a few of my favorites: Please feel free to suggest some more..

Pro.com
Click.com
And, I can’t fail to include Dan Bornstein’s fabulous Milk.com

Any others?? (dont include parked domains, these dont count..)

As I reported in July, it now seems that Google have gotten around to cleaning up the domain channel at the domain level by opening up their Adsense For Domains program, “domainpark”. Confused? Read on.

“Google apparently have gotten fed up of policing their AFD program and are about to become proactive with a new domain parking algorithm. This new algo will assess all domains calling their parking feed and immediately give domains either a “pass” or a “fail” score. Meaning that if Google decide your domain has little chance of type-in traffic or if it scores low on conversions, it wont serve you a parking feed. Simple as that.”

I guess my only mistake back then was to use the word “algorithm” when I should have said “program”. Regardless of this, I have to say that as much as the information above was nearly accurate, I still didnt see the opening up of Google’s domainpark program to domainers as being part of the clean up campaign.

Reading about the blogging fraternity today, I was pleased to see that some of the euphoria that (no doubt) your average domainer will be feeling right now (being able to deal direct with Google) is nicely balanced with some caveat by certain learned bloggers.. And caveat it should be!

The first real signs of a change in the domain channel came back in October when domainsponsor (one of Google’s largest parking syndicators) sent out an email which informed users of some imminent changes to their program; led it seems by Google.

“As many of you know, the top search ad providers have increased their focus on the quality of traffic sent to them over the last six months. While every parking company is working through these changes, DomainSponsor wants to be direct with you, our clients, about our position on these changes and how they may impact you moving forward.

This new focus not only includes checks for invalid clicks but now includes measuring the conversion of traffic with advertisers. For many of us, this change has come with its own set of challenges that require restructuring systems, processes and business guidelines.

Working with our primary search ad provider, DomainSponsor will continue to use a multipart quality analysis of traffic on our network. This process will allow us to take the time necessary to identify traffic that does not or has not met quality standards. Clients whose quality is consistently below an acceptable level may see their payment terms extended and/or access to feeds removed”

So, Google want to clean up the domain channel, they were well reported to be fed up with the lack of policing at certain syndication partners, have proactively coerced their top partners like domainsponsor to be prepared to drop certain non-converting domains and have opened up domainpark to offer parking themselves. All good so far?

So, why open DomainPark when Google already enjoy the revenue from domain parking anyway? The extra percentage points they lose to domain parking companies is offset by the fact that they have no involvement in the business process and the subsequent costs that dealing with thousands of domainers entails. This surely would be no reason then to take on the process themselves together with the associated risks that doing so brings? And, when I talk in terms of risk, I am of course not talking of the business element, for clearly they do the mass payment processing thing and data analysis already with their adsense for content program. However, by adding the domainpark string to their bow, on the face of it they risk upsetting advertisers further and have no “it wasnt me guv, it was the parking company” buffer for any class action fraud or TM infringement suit. (incidentally, I love the way they advise disgruntled TM owners on the domainpark homepage to take up complaints directly with the domainer or the registrar..)

So, again, why have they done it and why take on this risk, there has to be more to it right? Right!

Getting back to the Google domainpark program (now open to all), Im confident this program isnt designed for and/or has little chance of attracting the large scale portfolio owners. Heavy hitting domainers already have the relationships and the negotiated deals with the likes of domainsponsor, who themselves have the optimising capabilities and template choices (both of which are way better than Google’s). Furthermore, large scale domain owners also enjoy a revenue share that far exceeds the 42.5% (less smartpricing discount) now available at Google’s domainpark. Google will obviously know this and so this again begs the question, why offer it, if just to attract the common or garden domainer?

Domainpark in its new format has a strict domain approval process. No TM’s, no offensive domains and seemingly no domains which Google simply doesnt like the look of. By applying to be a member of Google domainpark, for the first time, Google get information about domainers and the domains they own. Roll the clock forward six months and I guarantee you that any domains excluded or banned by domainpark in that period will be auto-refused a feed at all of the Google parking syndicators.

When i subsequently blogged about Google’s domain parking changes part 2 i did reflect then that i couldn’t see them killing ALL the domain tail because of the revenue numbers involved.

And when you talk about tail domains, Google has always had a certain frustration in that they could never really tag those domains which they believe constitute “the tail”. Of course, certain cruddy domains showing a sudden spike in revenue from mickey mouse referrers were easily picked up by the parking company and quickly excluded. However, combatting click fraud was always the responsibility of the parking company and Google involvement was always at arms length. You get a ban from one parking company you move on to another.

Parking companies are also the ones who see the domain traffic analysis, the referring traffic, the IP addresses and the visitor header information. All of which they pass onto Google when making the feed call. However, no-one is better at combating click fraud and analysing raw visitor data than Google themselves. And its this salient point that says to me why domainpark has suddenly sprung into life and its not to remove the parking company intermediaries and certainly not to boost revenue.

Domainpark is there simply as a vessel (if you like a magnet, a honey trap, the child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang) designed to seek out the tail end domains, analyse the visitor traffic (Google styleee), separate the wheat from the chaf and then set about cleaning up the channel from the root up. As I originally reported,

This new algo will assess all domains calling their parking feed and immediately give domains either a “pass” or a “fail” score. Meaning that if Google decide your domain has little chance of type-in traffic or if it scores low on conversions, it wont serve you a parking feed. Simple as that. The details on what percentage of parked domains this will negatively affect is sketchy at best, but you can bet your bottom dollar the numbers will be significant.

Obviously the pass/fail measuring stick is an interesting development in the domaining industry; it shows that the balance of measuring income vs value for money for advertisers has shifted, it also reveals that Google has all the knowledge it now needs about every domain name to make this call and it will overnight either devalue your domain or allow domain owners to add an extra zero to the value. It also means that Google isnt policing domain parking at the domainer level anymore (for heaven knows it must be a nightmare chasing all those Chinese folk pretending to be Americans), instead managing domain parking at the domain level.

Sound like something domainpark could get its teeth stuck into?

This week I was invited to attend a quorum where the subject of domaining and “domain traffic” was the topic for discussion. I wont bore you with the name of the company that held this get together but, sufficed to say, they are a big enough deal for me to bother getting off my arse and actually attending (ahem, i mean “contributing” and not just being there for the buffet).

Actually, my main interest was why this particular organisation would choose to hold such a meeting in the first place, why so many employees of said organisation were at this “quorum” [didnt understand its meaning until i wikipedia'd it] and what their take was on the subject. Perhaps, you might say, I was looking for a “windows” of opportunity… Errm, i mean “window”

What transpired was a very informative 6hr long meeting which not only felt like about 20 mins but also gave me some fascinating information on the state of the industry, how this silent, yet big player has been watching all along and where they perceive the source to be for all our lovely traffic. In fact, I wasnt so much contributing, more digesting (if you can excuse my hors d’ourves based double entendre). I think i spoke twice actually.

Anyhow, I took a few notes: (not my data)

165,000,000 registered TLD’s (100,000,000 GTLDs, 65,000,000 ccTLDs)
75% of all domains are renewed
110,000,000 domains are developed (67%)
37,000,000 domains are parked (22%)
18,000,000 domains have no DNS settings (11%)

$2.8bn is the annualised total domain parking revenue.
10% of all parked domains earn 90% of the total revenue
75% of parked domains receive no type in traffic
72% of the total parking revenue comes from domains which are a typo of another site
21% of domain traffic is fraudulent (down from 38% 2 yrs ago)
Domain traffic converts at 28% to that of search traffic

From this I made the following observations:

Why on earth does the industry exist…..???

Oh, i get it $2.8bn..

And, are there anymore prawn volauvents left..???

When i enquired about the entry point or potential entry point for this company I was courteously informed that “if” entry was going to happen, then its 12months away. Sooner perhaps if a certain acquisition comes its way.

Sometime during the backend of last week the private domain forum operated by Rick Schwartz suddenly went off air.

Since then there has been some speculation as to the whys, wherefores and events leading to it’s demise. In fact, a few of my readers (im assuming who are/were members) have since mailed me giving their insight.

TargetedTrafficForum was a private board. It made no money from advertising, wasn’t indexable by spiders and membership was on a ’strictly by invitation only’ basis. Aside from the advantage Rick obviously had through having most of the heavy-hitting domainers in his “front room” (enabling him to promote the T.R.A.F.F.I.C conferences – it could be argued), there was no other obvious benefit in him providing this free service. Im realiably informed that TTF was a solid place to do deals, to trade with other like minded individuals and to make valuable and mutually beneficial connections.

So why take it down?

Some of my readers may remember that some time ago I posted a comment on this blog which Rick had originally posted on his private board. The result of which was an extremely courteous mail from Rick asking for me to remove it because his comments had been made in private and were not for public distribution. Although his comments were simply an affirmation of my original blog post and were in no-way controversial, on reflection, I had to agree with him, it was a mistake to print them, so I removed them. The crux being the hypothetical dilemma that I too wouldn’t want any comments made by me in private (however mild) to then appear on the web without my permission.

There, of course, is the argument that industry figures become public property and thus do not command the same privacy rights as the rest of us.. A debate im not going to comment on here but, sufficed to say, I removed his comments on request which may lead you learn how I personally stand on this issue.

Which leads me on to why the board is now “off air”.

What transpired is that an ex-member of the targeted traffic forum and well known industry figure (who shall remain nameless) wrote to Rick and asked if they could return as member. A request to which Rick denied citing that if he allowed their return he wouldn’t “feel free to discuss things” and would have to “stop posting [himself]“. The applicant then advised Rick that they “already have access to read the board” and simply wanted to “post under their real name”.

Rick’s reaction to this admission was swift, succinct and nothing short of indomitable. His comments to me were that he had no choice but to immediate close the board because of this security hole and in an open statement because;

——-

Whatever people’s thoughts are on Rick Schwartz, be they informed or otherwise, he is undoubtably one of the most prominent “domainers” known even by those from outside of the industry and there is strong argument that he does more for the promotion of the industry as a whole than any other person. Despite this blog making fun of his BLOCK CAPS writing style from time to time, I have nothing but respect for the work he does for the average domainer, how he seems determined to single handedly drag the industry up by its bootstraps and how he has formed and initiated well intended organisations like the ICA. A view of which im sure is supported by folk on either side of the Rick Schwartz fence.

The internet is a remarkable and unprecendented feature of humanity as a whole and we are privileged that its arrival has coincideded with our generation. One facet of this new digital network economy is that it has the ability to thrust regular folk into a global limelight for which some never asked or even seeked. Together with any notoriety comes additional responsibilities that again are not always welcome and, no matter how hard you try at something, you can at times come to your wits end where the perceived gain is just not worth all the hassle. Im sure Rick’s board gave him great pleasure when times were good but, when the fun is superceded by a continued annoyance, sometimes you have nowhere to go but to just shut it down.