When you begin to look into all the different aspects of having a domain, you will surely hear people talking about cyber squatting and typo squatting. Cybersquatting covers a wide variety of activities including typosquatting. Here we will look specifically at typosquatting and what it is as well as precautions you can take to make sure you do not fall victim to it.

What Is Typosquatting?

Most basically, typosquatting is when a person makes a website that is intended to look like another website. They will make the name have a common typo or language difference so that when people type in that incorrect address they get to the squatter’s site instead.

There are several ways to do this. They could use a common misspelling since not everyone is a perfect speller. This can be done by taking away some letters in the beginning or end or even making a singular domain plural. They could also change the top-level domain, such as changing the [.com] to [.org]. There are many ways that people misspell words all the time and the typosquatter is just taking advantage of this fact.

Why is it so Dangerous?

Well, some people are not merely trying to catch viewers and make money off of advertising revenue. Sometimes they set up the site to deliberately make you think you have indeed gotten to the right website where you may be comfortable typing all sorts of information. If you type your bank information or debit card number, it could be going to an untrustworthy source if the site is made by a typo squatter.

Another danger is that by squatting websites that many people use every single day, the squatter can put spyware onto thousands upon thousands of computers. This gives them nothing but more power to spread cyber viruses and have access to personal information across thousands of computers. Sometimes your virus protection will identify the spyware and get rid of it, but other times it is much harder to uproot it from your system.

What Can I Do?

To best keep yourself protected from the dangers of typosquatters, you can do several things. The first one is to get a good antivirus program for your computer. Make sure you run scans frequently and check to make sure you are not accumulating too much spyware and cookies from websites you visit.

Secondly, make sure that you are typing the URL correctly. Even when you get to the website you intended to, check the address especially if it is a website where you are going to do banking or put in your credit card number. The people who are good at this have done their homework and can make the website have similar icons, trademarks and typeface. You need to take responsibility to be sure you are at the right page, especially if anything seems a little bit «off».

Most basically, typosquatters are relying on our typing mistakes or obliviousness to make a few bucks or infect computers with spyware. It is our responsibility to make sure that the websites where we enter personal information are typed correctly and are secure.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adam_Dicker

But just how popular are those domains anyway? Is it worth getting the.NET or the.ORG if the.COM you want is already taken? Will people take you seriously if your business website ends with some obscure extension? (like.TK which you can get for absolutely free.)

Is it worth getting a domain hack (where you use other domain extensions to spell your domain name)?

Del.icio.us is a classic example of a domain hack which uses.US for the States. (Del.icio.us now points to Delicious.com).

More and more country codes are getting used as alternatives to.COM domain endings. For example, people use.ME (Montenegro) for personal sites. Several radio and music sites use.AM (Armenia),.FM (Federated States of Micronesia),.CD (Congo) and.DJ (Djibouti).

We used Google as a benchmark to see how popular certain domain extensions were. Sure, the numbers change based on which Google data center you use and when you do the search, but you get an idea for which domain extensions are more popular: There are 14 billion.COM domain names listed in Google and around 230 million.INFO domain names. Does it really matter if the numbers are off by a couple of million in this case?)

Here are 6 things to think about when choosing a domain extension.

6. There are over 33 billion (33,706,342,951) domain entries showing up in Google (Aug 2010)

5. Today, the top 3 generic domains are.COM (14.5 billion),.ORG (1.5 billion) and.NET (1.4 billion)

4. The top 3 country domain names are.JP Japan (3.3 billion),.KR South Korea (1.0 billion), and the.UK United Kingdom (just under 1 billion)

3. ICANN, the non-profit organization that manages.COM domain names, publishes a list of.COM domain name registrars every month. As of April 2010, there are 882 accredited registrars selling.COM domains.

2. The number one registrar in the world (in terms of the number of.COM domains registered) is GoDaddy. They have registered over 25 million.COM domains. (The second place registrar is eNom which has only 7 million.COM domains registered.)

1. In looking at the Top 10.COM registrars in the world, the average price to register a.COM domain is $21.44 USD per year. The most expensive registrar charges $35.00 per year and the best price (including promotional sales) for a.COM domain is $1.99 per year.

Feel free to speculate on where the internet is heading, and what the next popular domain name extension will be.

And you’ll have to decide whether you want to struggle to find an acceptable.COM website address, or whether you can live with something creative or SIL.LY

Article Source :http://ezinearticles.com

Author Source: Mark Shin

The original role of a domain name was no doubt to provide an address for computers on the internet. But the internet has developed from a mere means of communication to a mode of carrying on commercial activity. With the in crease of commercial activity on the internet, a domain name is also used as a business identifier. Therefore, the domain name not only serves as an address for internet communication but also identifies the specific internet site. In the commercial field, each domain name owner provides information services, which are associated with such domain name. Thus a domain name may pertain to provision of services within the meaning of Section 2(z) of the Trade Marks Act. A domain name is easy to remember and use, and is chosen as an instrument of commercial enterprise not only because it facilitates the ability of consumers to navigate the Internet to find websites they are looking for, but also at the same time, serves to identify and distinguish the business itself, or its goods or services, and to specify its corresponding online Internet location. Consequently a domain name as an address must, of necessity, be peculiar and unique and where a domain name is used in connection with a business, the value of maintaining an exclusive identity becomes critical.

India has a top level domain (TLD) (.in) as listed in the ISO Standards. The second level subdomains registered under the (.in) domain are (.ernet), (.nic), (.net), (.res), (.ac), (.co), (.gov), (.mil) and (.org). The primary question, which in most cases, seeks answer of the question that “Whether domain names are equivalent to trademark, i.e., could the use of a domain name amounts to a trademark infringement?” Still it is not been clearly said by the judiciary that domain name is a form of property. Even if domain names are property, there remains question as to ownership and control. With the traditional notion of property, a domain name differs.

Now domain name disputes has also hit the Indian Courts. The most serious dispute among them is “Cybersquatting”, which is use of domain name by a person with neither trademark registration, nor any inherent right, to the name. There are many ways in which someone on the Internet could trigger the ire of an owner of a trademark or some other form of intellectual property. A web site could contain someone’s registered trademark. A web site could pluck an image (a trademark, or an image) from some other site and incorporate the image into its own web page. A web site could contain material protected by copyright that has been copied from elsewhere without the permission of the copyright owner. A domain name could be similar to (but not identical to) some trademark. A third-level domain name (e.g. southcanara.bank.com) could be identical to a famous domain name. Or a second-level domain name (e.g. southcanara.com) could be identical to some trademark.

Each trade mark domain name dispute includes three parties i.e. the domain name owner, the trademark owner, and the registration authority. Each party has interests differing greatly from those of the others. The domain name owner; for a domain name owner the predominant interest is predictability. The domain name owner doesn’t want its domain name to be taken away precipitously any more than it wants to be evicted from its physical space or cut off from electrical power. For many Internet-related businesses, in fact, physical eviction or loss of electric power would be far more easily remedied than loss of the domain name. For a trademark owner there are really two interest areas. The first arises if trademark infringement is going on, in which case the trademark owner would like to get the infringement stopped right away; a subsidiary concern is reducing the cost of getting it stopped. The second interest area arises solely as a consequence of the NSI policy, and involves the trademark owner that wishes it could have a particular domain name, and learns that the domain name has already been taken by someone else who isn’t infringing the trademark owner’s trademark. The domain name registration authority. The main interest of a domain name registration authority (of which there are several hundred around the world, one for each top-level domain) is getting its job done well. At present, about half a million domain names have been registered in the top-level domains administered by NSI; by comparison all of the other domain name registration authorities of the world combined probably account for only a few tens of thousands of domain names. This makes NSI’s interests of particularly great concern, and NSI has stated many times in recent months that it is not only interested in getting its job done well, but is also interested in trying to avoid being sued.

In the case of Nokia Corporation vs. Uday Lakhani, where a person named Uday Lakhani, resident of London registered a website with the name of nokias.com. During the hearing of the case at WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, it was held that, the domain name “nokias.com” is confusingly similar to Complainant’s trademark “Nokia,” that Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name and that Respondent’s domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

Over the last few years the increased user of the internet has led to a proliferation of disputes resulting in litigation before different High Courts in India. The Courts have consistently applied the law relating to passing off to domain name disputes. Some disputes were between the trademark holders and domain name owners. Some were between domain name owners themselves. These decision namely Rediff Communication Ltd. v. Cyberbooth and Anr. 2000 AIR(Bom) 27), Yahoo Inc. v. Akash Arora (1999 PTC (19) 201), Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. v. Manu Kosuri 2001 PTC 859 (Del), Tata Sons Ltd. v. Manu Kosuri 2001 PTC 432 (Del)), Acqua Minerals Ltd. v. Shailesh Gupta and Anr. 2002 (24) PTC 35.5 (Del). In the case of Rediff Communication Ltd. v. Cyberbooth, the Bombay High Court deliberate upon the Indian Jurisprudence on domain names. The Court said that “A domain name is more than an Internet address and is entitled to the equal protection as trade mark”. In this case the domain name owner of (rediff.com) filed a case asking for the injunction against the use of domain name (radiff.com). The court after looking into the matter said that there was a clear intention to deceive and that is the only purpose of registration by the defendants was to trade on the goodwill and reputation of the plaintiff’s.

The first case that came up before the Indian Courts probably was the case of Yahoo! Inc. v. Akash Arora in which an attempt was made to use the domain name (yahooindia.com) for Internet related services. Yahoo alleged that by using a quite similar domain name and format to their domain name i.e. (yahoo.com), their must be a charge of deceit and “Passing off”. Thus, by looking at the passing off doctrine, the court granted an injunction restraining the domain users from dealing in service or goods on the Internet or under the trademark/domain name (yahooindia.com).

In the case of Titan Industries Ltd. v. Prashant Kooapati, the plaintiff had extensive use of “Tanishq”, although its trademark application in India was pending at the time of 1998 hearing. The Delhi High Court enjoined the defendant from registering a name or operating any business, making, selling, offering for sale, advertisement and in any manner dealing in goods, under the name…or containing the said trade mark as n essential or dominant feature…on the Internet or otherwise.

Then again the case of Investsmart India Ltd. v. ICICI, an injunction was sought by the plaintiff against the use of domain name (invetmartindia.com) because according to them this is similar to their domain name i.e. (investsmartindia.com). Court applied the case of Yahooindia and Rediff and granted the injunction.

Looking upon the number and nature of cases that are coming before the Indian Courts, there is a great need of a proper law with regard to domain name dispute like that of ‘Concept of Dilution’ which the USA has.

The author Sachin Waze is a former police officer of Indian Police. Original article can be read at http://www.knowyourlaw.com

Author: Sachin Waze
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

The problem with domain names that are on sale is that they’re more expensive than buying a regular, new domain name.

If you can come up with a good, new domain name that hasn’t been registered yet, it should cost you around $10 per year. If you need to buy a domain name that someone else is re-selling, then the initial asking price can be considerably higher. (But, after you buy the domain name, it will only cost $10 per year, or whatever your domain registrar charges.)

What does Domain Names for Sale mean?

When you see lists of domain names that are on sale, it means that either

1. Someone owns the domain name and is now trying to re-sell it (premium domain name)
2. Someone bought the domain name, let it expire, and the domain name is now getting re-sold (expired domain name).

If you’re the only person trying to buy that domain name on sale, then you’re in luck. You just need to meet the minimum (reserve) price and it’s yours. But chances are several people are trying to buy that domain name (especially if it’s a popular domain name or a one word .com domain name). These domain names usually get sold on auction to the highest bidder.

Where to buy domain names for sale

All of the major registrar websites will have lists of domain names for sale in their aftermarket section. Here are some things you need to know when you try to buy a domain name for sale…

1. You may win the auction bid for an expired domain name, but if at the last moment the previous domain owner decides they want their name back, they win automatically.
2. You may see premium domain names listed on several registrar sites. That’s because the domain owner has signed up with several domain registrars to sell it for them. They pay a cost upfront to open an account, and then they pay a yearly fee to renew their account.
3. If the domain name you are looking for is taken, but you see the option to buy it on backorder, think very carefully. Usually the deal with backordered domain names is if the name expires or is cancelled by the registrant, then the registrar will try to grab it the instant it becomes available.

You’ve got 3 things going against you in a backorder.

1. The domain owner might not let the domain name expire. They always have first shot at renewing it.
2. If the domain name expires, your registrar might not managed to get hold of the expired domain name. (Remember, every registrar and company specializing in dropped domain names may be fighting to get that expired domain name when it is released into the public again.)
3. If the registrar does get hold of the domain name, then you have to outbid anyone else interested in buying that domain name.

Bottom Line: Read the fine print before you sign up to buy a domain name on sale. It may be more trouble and money than it’s worth.

If you’re ready to register domain names [http://domainnames.webdiggin.com/register-domain-names/] for your website or blog, we’re here to help at http://domainnames.webdiggin.com where you’ll find this information and more detailed information about why we switched to BlueHost [http://domainnames.webdiggin.com/bluehost-review/] and WordPress.

Author: Mark Shin
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Selecting the right domain name, hosting provider and website design, plus website development is not a small job.

The domain name market

A study of internet businesses showed that most of them spend less than 2 hours choosing their domain name, web hosting providers or doing a detailed plan of their website requirements. This can only lead to problem later on in the website development process and could cost you a lot of money.

The report also said that 45% of those businesses thought that they had chosen the wrong domain name and could increase sale with a better name. No surprise there when they are putting less time into the decision than they do deciding on the venue for the office xmas party. Using domain names that are complex and too long for your customers to remember and you will miss out on traffic and valuable business emails.

Although there is much controversy around the whole domain name business one thing is for sure…can you really afford to let someone else capitalize on your company domain name or names. The number of domain names is increasing with most of them linked to geographical locations such as .nl for Holland, .de for Germany and .FR for France.

These local TLD’s or Top Level Domains help to categories the internet and help the customer find a supplier in their own country.

Every country in the world has been supplied with a Top Level Domain and so you can imagine the choice of TLD’s is vast. There are also continental TLD’s that are now available such as .eu and .asia, again this allows you to have a presence in a specific area of the globe.

There are other TLD’s that are Global such as .com and .net and these tend to bee used by people or businesses who require a global presence. Of course this will also make them very sort after and extremely valuable.

There are constantly new TLD’s coming online all the time for example we now have .mobi domain that are primarily for mobile devices .xxx for the adult industry.

Many other domain names are in the pipeline and I’m sure will eventually cover most categories from .clothes to .cars. This idea is generally to help make addresses more relevant.

How Domain Names Work

Domain names are a shortcut to a designated Internet address. The internet works by giving every device that is connected to it a unique identification number called an IP address and packets of data sent to and from that device are marked with that ip address.

IP addresses are not the most friendly of address to remember and can bee up to 12 digits long so the number is converted into something we all understand, “domain names” They are used as direct links to web and e-mail servers. If you Type 216.109.112.135 into your browser you will find that this takes you to yahoo.com as a good example.

The domain names and IP Addresses that are relevant to your searches are stored in a domain name server or (DNS). So when you type the URL you want to find into your web browser, your computer sends a request to the DNS at your Internet service provider in order to find the IP address of the web server.

Once it has the correct address it can talk directly to the web server and you can search the site for as requested. I quick way to find the ip address of any web site is to use the ping command. Go to Start – Run and type, for example ping yahoo.com into the box.

A small window will appear with the IP address of the web server. There are also many great domains that supply this service and more, try ip-adress.com and see what I mean. Knowing this can help you understand why you will get delays when you register a new domain name and web site or any changes you make to an existing web sites dns settings.

The DNS information need to propagate correctly and this can take up to 24 hours for all the DNS servers globally to update and list your new domain setting that hold your website.

Who Controls Domain Names?

Domain Names are controlled by an organization called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN. They are responsible for deciding how the internet TLD structure should look and what TLD’s should be used.

ICANN is a non-profit organization acting under the authority of the US Government, Department of Commerce.

Although ICANN make the big decisions on what TLDs are available, each TLD or country has its own domain registry.

Nominet for instants looks after all .uk domains and decides on the structure and release of the UK’s second level domains. Second level domains can be useful for a country and can include many variables such as .co.uk, .sch.uk and .me.uk.

Registering A Domain Name?

To register a domain name, there a few thing you need to know. First need to check that the domain name you want is still available.

The easiest way to do this is to just go to the top of this page and use the domain name search box supplied. Anyone can register a domain name within the framework of allowed suffixes provided it isn’t already taken.

There are some restrictions on TLD’s such as .eu, .us and .Asia requiring to registrar to reside within a specific geographical location. But be careful in your choice of domain name, although there a few restriction on registering a domain name this does now mean that someone may not consider they hold title of the name.

This could result in a person or company taking action against you through the disputes tribuneral in order to protect their names and trademarks or worse still take over your domain name. This is known as cyber squatting – where an individual as registered a domain name purely in the hope they can sell it on or cause disruption or brand damage to the rightful owner.

Domain Auctions

If the domain name you want is not available it’s still possible you may bee able to buy it. If the domain name does not have a web site you can find out who owns it and contact them about the possibility of purchasing the name from them. There is nothing stopping you doing this and it is perfectly legal to do so as long as both parties are in agreement.

To find out who owns a domain name you can do a search on websites like whois.net A search with Whois will show you details on who registered that domain, their name, address and contact details. Once you have decided on your domain name or names you need to contact a domain registrar. Domain registrars are approved companies that can register domains on your behalf.

It pays to shop around when choosing your domain registrar and often several are needed depending on amount and type of TLD’s you wish to purchase. Prices can vary widely due to the global nature of the web. It doesn’t really matter where the domain company is based and big saving can be found by selecting a registrar based overseas.

Once you have successfully acquired your domain name you will want to setup your web site, before you can do this you need to research web hosting providers. They will supply you with a web hosting and email hosting package. This basically means that you have hired web space on that companies web servers.

The beauty of owning your own domain and setting up a web hosting account is that it will give you full control of how you want you domain structure and control over the email for that web site and domain name.

Web hosting providers and the services they supply could be a whole article in itself but I will not go into to much detail here. Basic web hosting packages supply you with about 50MB of space and usually there will bee bandwidth restriction on the amount of data you can downloaded per month.

You need to spend a little time working out exactly what your site will be doing and what kind of services you require. It’s no use paying $100 a month for a dedicated server just to run a word blog that’s updated once a month.

New category-based TLDs are coming online all the time and available for the general public to register. When a new TLD becomes available, there is a period of time where businesses get the chance to apply for domains to register that they consider as their trademarks ahead of the general public.

The .asia TLD is going through this process now. During this ‘Sunrise’ period, companies and individuals have the chance to apply for specific names or trademarks before the general public. The sunrise period lasts for four months and names that are not allocated in this period are opened up to the general public on a first come first serve basis.

There is now an entire industry setup to help you get your name from these situation and it is called the pre-registration scheme. For an extra fee you can be top of that companies attempt to secure your name. Depending on the name and amount of interest this process can be a good way of ensuring your domain name or names.

Some companies use a slightly different approach and start a pre or post auction on the domain name they manage to acquire. Great business when you think of it, if they manage to register hosting.eu or hosting.asia for $15 then auction it to the highest bidder they can make themselves a lot of money for very little work.

This in itself is a very contentious issue but until the different governing bodies get their act together you have little choice to play the game. If you do find a company that will pre-register your domain name for a fee make sure they ensure a full refund of all fees if they are not successful in registering your chosen name.

The pre-registration service is not officially recognized by the domain registration organizations and so you have no rights to that name until it is fully registered.

Brian Harrison is a writer for Bee Ltd a domain acquisition and development company that has many years experience in the domain name and internet market. You will find many useful articles and advice on all manner of subjects associated with domains names, SEO and web development at our site: Bee.eu

Author: Brian Harrison
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

You might have thought that this review is about Estibot.com getting better and better, but it isn’t. It is about my experience which I had with Estibot in 2 months. I’ll talk about advantages and disadvantages I found at the site during that time.

I have started using Estibot for free, which gave me only some features, such as 50 domain appraisals per day and couple domain idea generating per day. I liked it, though I saw couple major problems in it. Still, I decided to pay $50 for «Domainer Pro Exclusive» membership. I thought that it will help me to find more worthy domains. Let’s check out what Estibot offers for that $50. I’ll talk only about things that I tried.

1. Domain name appraiser.

This is the tool why Estibot is so popular. It suggests You the price of Your domain. Well, after using Estibot for two months I saw that You have to use technique to correct it’s suggestions. Let’s take not premium domain like Mafia-Wars.net for example. Estibot writes that it is worth about $3,400. Why is it writing this? Well, MafiaWars.com was sold for $31,103, keywords are the same – «Mafia Wars». Is it really worth $3,400? The answer is no. My domain Mafia-Wars.net is hyphenated domain and this drops down my domain quality and worth, but Estibot don’t care about that hyphen and it still thinks that it’s the same domain as MafiaWars.net. That’s really not the right suggestion, hyphen is cutting off domains worth about 10 times, so this means that my domain Mafia-Wars.net is worth only about $340, not $3,400. Same happens with almost any other not premium domain, if Estibot says that it’s worth $10,000, You should ask no more than 50% of Estibot’s appraisal for it. I saw that one guy is selling domain Stylist.info, at DnForum.com couple people appraised it for $500-$800. What does say Estibot? It says $2,000. Couple times I saw major problems at Estibot. «Bulk domain appraiser» gives not the same amount as single domain appraiser sometimes. Another very big problem is taken «TLDs» column which shows wrong information very often. After all these problems Estibot appraisal tool is not so good as it supposed to be, but still, it is a good tool to evaluate Your domain if You don’t have any idea what Your domain price should be. RATING: 4/5. It could be 5, but You have to correct price a little bit by Yourself and You don’t get the right information all the time, sometimes Estibot shows wrong information and You can’t see that without other tools.

2. Domain Lead Generator & End-User Finder Tool

I have tried this tool only with couple domains – Continuing.co and Mafia-Wars.net. The tool is really well done, You don’t have to use Google for searching people who would like to buy domains from You, tool finds it for You! I have contacted about 100 people at all and I have received only one serious offer for Mafia-Wars.net ($300 offer, now You see what I was talking about Estibot’s appraisal). Other offers that I have received were kind of jokes or I received an offer to buy domain by other sellers. I am not really sure about this tool, but I think that it is good for domains which are worth much. RATING: 4/5. Not 5 because mostly You’ll contact other sellers who are going to offer to buy domain name from them. Also, You will contact people by e-mail, which can be called spamming or just You can easily lose Your connection to buyer.

3. Appraised Drop Lists

I use this only for available domains search. Lists are huge, about 60 000 available domains list every day, but it’s not really that good as it could look like. You will download the list in excel sheet, You won’t be able to sort domain names by it’s worth for example. I use excel function called find text ant write in «amount», then I’m able to see which domains are evaluated for example for «2000″, but it’s pissing off, because there are not much domains worth that price, so You just sit and type in different amount all the time. RATING: 3/5. Could be much easier to use, also You will see some dumb valuations.

4. Domain Idea Generator

There is almost nothing to say about it, it is the worst thing at Estibot. You can add your keyword and it should write You domain ideas. But You will get ideas like for example, I wrote in word «Free» as a keyword, and this is what I get: FreeACappellaArrangement.com, FreeAbcKidsGamesEducational.com, FreeAbiTitmusVideo.com (what the heck is the last one???). RATING: 1/5. Well I would give 0/5, but it at least generates anything.

5. Domain Sales History

This tool is really nice and good working. You can see what domains have been sold today or any day at almost any place. You can do basic search, You can do advanced search. There is nothing more that I can tell about it, because it is just a great tool, that is doing its job in a right way. RATING: 5/5. Just excellent.

FINAL ESTIBOT’S RATING: 3.9/5.

CONCLUSION: With free tool You won’t get many features which this site has, also You will get little amount of valuations. It is worth registering, but You are still going to be disappointed with Estibot sometimes. It could be a great tool, just it really needs several crucial changes and fixes in the system. I am quite happy that I bought «Domainer Pro Exclusive», but also I can’t be very satisfied with it.