Hosting: October 2005 Archives

WARNING: This is a commercial post. If you do not want to read it please do not click. You have been warned.

The old adage "you pay for what you get" is one often cited in the business world and in particular in that of IT and hosting.

It's amusing to see some people's fixation on the number of domains they hold, number of clients, number of supposedly happy clients etc., etc

I grabbed a screenshot of the latest AIB phishing attack earlier this morning In most instances phishing sites are taken down by the hosting provider, however in this instance the domain has actually been revoked from the root nameservers. The domain's status has been changed by the ICANN registrar to:

status: hold,infringe-3rd-parties

which is interesting. Does this mean that registrars are going to be more proactive in fighting phishing?

You too could be the proud owner of a dodgy domain Yes, that's right. These domains are guaranteed to be high quality barely used domains. Their previous owners were caught in the act of committing credit card fraud and possible email fraud so, of nothing else, they may have a coloured past Any takers?? Jokes aside I do wonder what the hell hosting providers and domain name vendors do with the fraud domains ie. domains paid for using stolen credit cards which are subsequently voided We're amassing a collection of them (it's not that big, but it does grow over time) and I presume other operators have comparable collections. Anybody interested in swapping theirs for some of ours ? :)

I've always been more than a little sceptical about industry statistics and the methodology employed to gauge companies. I'm also very aware that the current methods are about the only ones available to us, so I have to take the information as being at least indicative of trends and patterns.

I keep an eye on several blogs from people involved in the domain and hosting industry. Sometimes their reflections on trends can give an interesting insight, but other times this can backfire badly. A case in point would be that of Godaddy's CEO, Bob Parsons, who made a number of comments regarding "gitmo" that upset quite a few people. Whether I agree or disagree with Parsons I have to admit that I am impressed by his attitude. He isn't afraid to speak his mind. Then again he can afford to. Not everyone is that lucky. Christopher Ambler's post today highlights this:

I've not posted here in a while simply because I've had lots to say, but really shouldn't say any of it. Yeah, the lawyers have taught me well to just STFU.

A glance at Ambler's CV will give you an idea of what he might want to talk about if he had free rein. Corporate reality, however, precludes him from speaking as freely as he might like. I can certainly empathise with him.

Adam Beecher is in the news this weekend. I was flicking through the main part of the Sunday Business Post when a headline caught my eye It transpires that BT's legal department are taking action against Adam due to his domain btireland-sucks.com The funny thing is most of us knew about the domain since shortly after it was registered. I refer to it as a domain, as there was very little content. One sentence:

Fix your f*cking billing system you muppets!

Now that he's being threatened legally he's added quite a bit more content. Whether Beecher has any rights to the domain or not is now irrelevant. By threatening him with legal action over the domain name they are drawing attention to themselves and it is not the kind of attention any company involved in the ISP / Telco business, particularly in Ireland, could do with. An overreaction on BT's part? I would think so and I would also imagine that it will turn out to be a very expensive mistake on their behalf.

The debacle surrounding IE domains vs .com's has now been picked up by the Sunday Business Post.