Most people may use a search engine to go to their website of choice, but there are still some internet users who go to at least some of their websites by typing in the domain name, and the most popular type-in is Facebook.com followed by Google.com. And if you want to typosquat a domain name, the best domain name to have is Faceboook.com. These are the findings from six months of data collected and analysed by Chris Finke from his Firefox browser add-on URL Fixer. URL Fixer corrects typos in URLs that you enter in the address bar. For example, if you type google.con, it will correct it to google.com (asking first, if you enable confirmation). Finke analysed more than 7.5 million URL bar entries and he found that facebook.com is by far the most typed in domain name, three times more popular than the second most popular typed in domain – google.com, although google.com is still the most popular website. The reason for this is many people get to Google via the search or address bar in their browser rather than going to the Google website. Likewise, Yahoo is the seventh most popular address but is a top five domain. The top ten type-in domain names are facebook.com (with 9% of all type-ins) followed by google.com (3.3%), youtube.com (3.3%), gmail.com (1.1%), twitter.com (1.1%), mail.google.com (0.6%), yahoo.com (0.6%), hotmail.com (0.6%), amazon.com (0.5%) and reddit.com (0.5%). The most commonly mistyped domain names after faceboook.com are googe.com and goole.com. However as a proportion of typed-in domain names, very few end up at scam websites with only one type-in ending up at a scam site once for every 7,390 times the correct Facebook address is typed in. And .COM domains make up 63 per cent of all typed in top level domains followed by .ORG (4%), .NET (4%)and .DE (4%), reflecting both on some of the more popular TLDs and where Finke’s add-on is popular. Rounding out the top nine are .RU (2%) then .HU, .FR, co.uk and .BR (all 1%). The top 17 TLD typos are all variations of .com. In order of frequency, they are .com, .ocm, .con, .cmo, .copm, .xom, “.com,”, .vom, .comn, .com’, “.co,”, .comj, .coim, .cpm, .colm, .conm, and .coom. The most popular non-.com/.net/.org domains: google.de, vkontakte.ru (a Russian social network), and google.fr. Facebook and Google dominated worldwide according to Finke’s analysis with the only locales where neither Google nor Facebook control the most popular domain are ru-RU (Russia – vkontakte.ru), fi-FI (Finland – aapeli.com, a gaming website), ko-KR (Korea – fomos.kr, an e-sports website), and zh-CN (China – baidu.com). And finally in his analysis Finke notes that none of the domains with more than a 0.0005 per cent share are unregistered, indicating that this kind of usage data would not be very useful to a scammer or phisher looking for new domain names. The full analysis by Chris Finke is available at www.chrisfinke.com/2011/07/25/what-do-people-type-in-the-address-bar .

It was with great interest that I read a recent announcement about a plan by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to publish template answers on a wiki for the 22 questions relating to registry technical operations contained within ICANN’s new Top-Level Domain Applicant Guidebook. As someone who has spent the best part of six years following the development of the program (witnessing first-hand each evolution of the Applicant Guidebook) my first thought was one of bemusement – How can a generic solution taken “off the shelf” accurately demonstrate whether an applicant is capable of understanding the technical requirements for setting up and operating a new Top-Level Domain? Quite frankly, it can’t. The application process for new Top-Level Domains (TLD) has been carefully designed by ICANN to thoroughly examine whether an applicant has performed the required research to adequately understand what it means to own and operate a vital piece of Internet infrastructure. Operating a TLD is a huge responsibility that should not be taken lightly. The application process has been created in its current format to determine this. For the applicant, the risk of landing in Extended Evaluation, ICANN’s special audit system for applications that require further attention, is far too great to be toying with a one size fits all approach. In an attempt to save money, applicants will instead be at risk of losing at least $150,000 should their application fail the evaluation criteria set by ICANN. While consultants working closely with the ITU are correct in stating that applicants do not have to be currently operating Domain Name Registry Systems, they still must identify the technical solution that supports the specific Registry requirements of the application in question. The financial and organisational descriptions must do the same. The solution proposed by the ITU becomes even more unrealistic when you consider the following: Registry technical operations must identify the intended registry system specifications such as: domain name lifecycle, servers, software, infrastructure, data centres, bandwidth providers, policies & procedures etc. Those who know will agree that this is impossible to do generically. Any Registry Services provider worth a pinch of salt is offering the ‘technical operations’ component of the application free of charge with their back-end registry services solution. One has to question whether the approach suggested by the ITU is one that delivers a significant increase in risk without actually delivering any tangible cost reduction? This is not a turnkey solution. Applicants will still be required to provide answers to non technical and financial sections, answers which need to be consistent with the information provided in the technical sections of the application, so those who consider the ITU’s approach will struggle to establish consistency throughout all sections of the application. Without having properly researched, designed and finally settled on a technical solution, whether that be to outsource to industry experts, or build in-house, Applicants will not have the ability to identify information for other areas of the application such as Registry set up and operational costs that will be critical to the successful development of sound and accurate financials. Further, how will applicants be able to demonstrate to ICANN that the technical specifications provided can be delivered on? From my perspective, taking answers from another entity (whose content has no relation to any registry system (real or proposed)) clearly demonstrates two things: 1) You are proficient with the cut and paste function of your keyboard and; 2) You clearly lack the understanding necessary to manage a critical piece of Internet infrastructure such as a new Top-Level Domain. As any high school student can tell you, cutting and pasting answers from a wiki is prone to failure. Although the ITU claim that only ‘approved contributors’ will be able to edit the information, it is unclear how someone would be granted ‘approved contributor’ status. With the highly competitive nature of the TLD process, Applicants should be aware that the accuracy of the information contained within the template has the potential to be highly dubious and potentially even prone to subtle sabotage. I have no doubt that ICANN’s evaluators will be on the lookout for these responses, just like any good teacher would do. The message to prospective applicants here is simple: If you show disrespect to the evaluators and don’t give the technical criteria of your application the attention it truly deserves, then why should they take your application seriously. I am left with two equally horrifying questions: 1). Is this simply an attempt by the ITU to devalue and undermine the entire new TLD application process (and therefore ICANN)? 2). Does anyone at the ITU truly understand the goals of the application process and what it is intended to do? Were the ITU’s ambitions truly altruistic, they would spend their efforts providing capability advice and skills to the community. This approach would be useful and would not water down the quality of submissions to ICANN, as this solution almost certainly will. Finally, this blog does not set out to be self-serving. Yes, there is a level of confidence that comes with choosing a back-end registry provider that is established and experienced. However, ICANN has ensured that anyone who can fulfil the technical requirements will be awarded a TLD Registry. So, the point I am making is that the process of fulfilling the technical requirements of a new TLD Registry involves more than a simple cut and paste. It requires communicating a level of understanding that a new TLD is a piece of mission critical infrastructure and that there are enormous responsibilities that come with this. This posting by Chris Wright, Chief Technology Officer at AusRegistry International , was sourced from: www.ausregistry.com/blog/?p=823

SIDN have launched a new programme for .NL registrants whose domain names are vital to their activities or have a high financial value. The new service provided by the .NL registry gives registrants extra control over their domains and means registration details cannot be changed without the registrant’s explicit agreement and prior consent. To receive this service registrants need to apply through their registrar. For full details, see the information leaflet, procedural description and Terms and Conditions of Service, all of which are available from the SIDN announcement page for .NL Control in the bottom right corner under ‘Downloads’ here or contact your registrar. To register your .NL domain name, or if you want some more information on .NL Control apart from what is available on the SIDN website, check out Europe Registry here .

Web Hosting – NUREMBERG, Germany – Open-Xchange, the supplier of business-class email and groupware for cloud providers, today announced that it continues to build momentum with Parallels, a worldwide leader in hosting and cloud service enablement, via their cooperative technology development and sales initiatives. The two companies have partnered since 2008 delivering integrated products that work in hosting and cloud computing. “Our work with Parallels has propelled our business and will help us increase from 24 million to 40 million users this year,” said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange.

Regardless of your feelings about GoDaddy’s moral standing , its service is frustrating and restrictive. If you’re sick of paying for crappy hosting and want to jump ship, here’s how to leave GoDaddy behind for one of many better web hosts on the net. A Personal Note: Why GoDaddy Sucks A lot of people feel they shouldn’t support GoDaddy because GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons shot an elephant

Screenshots of Open-Xchange’s email hosting platform (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) – Open-source collaboration software provider Open-Xchange ( www.open-xchange.com ) announced on Tuesday that it has established a new agreement with Parallels ( www.parallels.com ) that includes six new hosting companies offering Open-Xchange through existing Parallels platforms. This announcement comes a week after Open-Xchange appointed Chris Latterell to vice president of marketing .  “Our work with Parallels has propelled our business and will help us increase from 24 million to 40 million users this year,” Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange said in a statement. “When we committed our company to transition from developing on-premises software to provide software optimized for cloud providers, we started working with Parallels and now we’re moving forward with our second generation agreement.” The six new hosting companies already use Parallels’ products but have added Open-Xchange email and groupware to their services.

A screenshot from Virtual Internet’s website (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) – In the week ending April 15, 2011, there were many exciting promotions, including a free iPad 2 with colocation. Web host Virtual Internet is offering corporate customers who sign-up for colocation a free iPad, AvailHosting is offering half off its new VPS hosting plans, 1&1 Internet is offering 50 percent of its .co domains and German web host Strato is offering two servers for the price of one for a limited time. Web Host Virtual Internet Offers iPad 2 with UK Colocation Packages  Web hosting provider Virtual Internet ( www.vi.net ) is offering its UK corporate colocation customers who sign up for a one year contract a free iPad 2.

The US government seized the domains for Poker Stars, Absolute Poker, and Full Tilt Poker and charged the site principals with bank fraud, illegal gambling offenses and laundering billions in illegal gambling proceeds.

Company upgrades its corporate website with new plans and promotions.

Small web hosting firms are trying to poach customers from industry leader Go Daddy, which continues to suffer fallout after its CEO posted a video showing him kill an African elephant. A number of companies have recently launched campaigns to snare customers — with HostPapa being the latest — and some have seen a boost in their revenues because of it