HostBlog - incoherent ramblings of a hosting provider.

Deep in an underground bunker, mad scientist geeks are working night and afternoon (real geeks are like vampires, alergic to sunlight) on the next google launch …

ANDROIDS

This week the big-G registered and drop-caught a number of new domains now sitting on the G’s nameservers including…

• androidhandset.com
• androidhandsets.com
• androidmobile.com
• androidphone.com
• androidphones.com
• androidplatform.com
• androidsdk.com
• androidsoftware.com
• androidtechnology.com

Plus all the usual org/net variations.

No official comment has been made yet about the rumoured launch of the first human looking g-phone.

Personally I’m hoping it looks a lot like a cross between the current bionic woman, seven-of-nine and Caprica-6 with big buttons

The founder of dotMobi - the company behind the first mTLD (mobile TLD) - stepped down last week, to spend time with his family.

Neil Edwards returns back to the US from Dublin where .mobi was based to pursue other projects, having successfully taken the idea behind a non-geographic domain extension from concept through launch.

Despite massive hype, advertising campaigns, attempts to make the mTLD “premium”and even take up by some of the worlds largest corporate entities - Disney and Sony for example - overall adoption of the TLD to-date has been poor, with it almost entirely being occupied by cyber-squatters hoping for big payoffs when it eventually does become popular.

In order to drum up some interest in {domain}.mobi Othello::Names have significantly reduced the pricing on new dot mobi registrations permamently

So grab you domain.mobi now while its still available at .MOBI Domain Registration

We’ve had a number of calls this week from clients regarding domain names and competitors “reserving” existing client domains in alternate extensions.

The bunch behind the latest round of the age-old scam are Main Stream Tech who trade from :

• www.streamlineltd.co.uk
• www.mainstreamtech.co.uk
• www.loovar.co.uk

and many others.

They’ll claim their address is

23 Castalia Square

Docklands

London

E14 3NR

Phone 0870 850 282

But thats just a forwarder to another address Wales that’s just a forwarder … you get the idea.

If you’ve been approached by any of these scumbags and sold something under VERY false pretences, immeditely report them to

• Trading Standards
• Nominet

And then contact your bank - and get the payment you were conned into making stopped.

The basis of this (recurring) scam is:

You’ll get a phonecall from a slick salesperson …

Hi, my name is (made-up) and I’m from (official sounding non-existant organisation), we deal with (large number) of business domain names and hosting.

The reason for the call is we’ve just taken an order from
[ one of your competitors / another local business / a domain squatter]
(select as appropriate)
for domains similar to your existing domain/business name.

You have xxxxxxxx.co.uk and we have been asked to register: xxxxxxxx.com/net/org/biz/info/mobi/eu/ch/mx/tw etc

At the moment these domain have been “reserved” and placed on hold for an hour, to give you opportunity to object. Often these domains are registered in order to
[ damage your business / steal your customers / ruin you reputation ]
(select as appropriate)
and you have this one opportunity to stop that from happening by buying the domains yourself from us now at (vastly inflated price)

If you want to stop this person registering your domain, we need to take your name and card details now, and can block the existing registration attempts.

Followed by lots more pushy sales tactics, attempts to sell you 10 years of hosting, offers of “free years” (for example pay for 5 years and we’ll register the domain for an extra year free for you) etc.

This current bunch of fvckers bounce around from host to host (as they get each of their reseller accounts cancelled) so any hosting they sell you isnt going to be online for long.

Sadly *LOTS* of people regularly fall for this scam, which is why it’s so popular - my advice is *NEVER* buy something from people who randomly call you up !

For a quality domain regsitration, forwarding and hosting service, which doesnt cost the earth and will still be in business this time next year, visit OthelloNames.net

So things look like they are going from worse to downright abysmal for the many beleagured registerfly clients.

What should have been a realtively painless excercise in admin contacts migrating domains away to a new supplier, with ICANN assistance if the RF systems failed, looks like an ever growing c*ck-up, with class action suits, domains getting deleted, and complete pandemonium.

Many of the RF-Refugee camp are switching to equally poor “cheapo” domain companies, litterally jumping from lifeboat to the next titanic in my opinion, selecting Yahoo, 1&1 and others for their new domain home !

An ever growing FAQ has appeared on the ICANN blog, and all those looking to exit RegFly are advised to read :
http://blog.icann.org/?p=85

Remember OthelloNames.net are offering FREE transfers until the end of May for anyone stuck in this fiasco - use Voucher Code RegisterFly at the checkout to get 8.95+vat off our usual costs.

In a 2 week long madcap race against reality, registerfly has managed to change hands twice

• first back to the original registration company that started it
• second by US Federal courts handing control once more to K Medina
  - the man now (in)famous for spending his customers money not on the renewals they paid for, but on his much needed liposuction instead.

But all good stories have to come to a close, and last night ICANN pulled the plug on the beleaguered registrar with:

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-16mar07.htm

So, no happy ever after in this woefull tale of the domreg company run by a big fairy … several thousand domains already lost by distressed and angry clients, and now a rescue-plan has to be enacted for the remaining 800,000 domains. No more RegisterFly - in 14 days they’ll have to rebrand as RegisterWalk.

From tomorrow until the end of March, our OthelloNames.net Domain Registrar, will be offering free domain transfers and as much assistance with domain recovery as we can to any RegisterFly refugees or anyone looking to move away from their existing registration companies.

Just enter voucher-code RegisterFly on the order to get your domain transfer for free.

ICANN finally announced that the Ã…land Islands country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) .ax has now become operational.

The announcement follows formal approval of the new ccTLD by the ICANN Board on the 9/June/2006 and addition of the .ax domain to the root zone shortly afterwards.
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