Sex.com has made the news again, this time because it’s on the market. First listed as part of a foreclosure auction at Maltz Auctions, it was recently pulled to be sold separately, apparently in an effort to not devalue the domain name.

Entrepreneur Gary Kremen, a man also linked to match.com, first registered the domain name in 1994. Soon after, Kremen realized that he had lost ownership of the domain; a con man named Stephen Cohen had forged documents and stolen it. The site was reportedly getting 25 million hits a day and generating between $50,000 to $500,000 per month from the advertising, just not for Kreman.

In 1995 Kremen undertook the most expensive battle in dotcom history. Sex.com became the focus of a highly publicized legal battle about domain name ownership and the case inspired not one but two books. It also established the public value of a domain name as property in the eyes of the court, something we may take for granted now.

Sex.com made the news again in 2006 when it was reportedly sold for $14 million, making it the most expensive domain name ever. With all the internet buzz about the domain I am sure there will be some high bids when it is finally up for grabs this Summer.

It has been almost precisely 25 years since the first .com domain was registered by VeriSign, the first operator to register domain names. The company arranged a .com gala to celebrate the long success of the internet on 26th May, 2010. The event was hosted by the famous comedian Dana Carvey.

The purpose of this event was to celebrate the 25th year of the domain names as well as honoring the entrepreneurs, innovators and companies whose contributions towards the internet made it a great source of knowledge that led to make significant effect on the societies. The event was attended by internet enthusiasts and representatives from internet giants such as Google, Amazon, eBay and Napster.

The event also brought a platform to the audience to bring forth their ideas on the possible innovations that can happen to the internet in the coming years. It was filled with humorous entertainment, questions and admiring the contributions from individuals and companies which made the internet a success story.

VeriSign also revealed their plans to give four research grants of $75,000 each to help the innovators bring new ideas and transform internet into an even better resource for knowledge and entertainment. The grants will be given by the end of this year to groups from Europe, India, Asia and North America.

Although internet has seen drastic changes since its inception, some of its basic standards have remained the same that is hindering its acceptance in some areas. Internet Domain Names Addressing has always followed the same pattern with Latin based naming and an ending with ‘.com’(or others). This restriction of domain names hindered the extension of the internet to languages that are not derived from Latin alphabets, thus forcing a large portion of world’s population to be aware of the language in order to get access to the internet.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages the domain naming standards and has recently approved the usage of non-Latin web addresses. This will enable the countries with non-Latin languages to make domain names using their native alphabets. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are the first three countries whose Arabic IDN ccTLDs has been approved in this program, and we can see the early adopters following this new standard emerging.

This new standard also supports languages which are written from right to left, as is the case with Arabic. Now you can visit http:// مصر . وزارة-الأتصالات .موقع which follows the new standard, however it displays correctly only on Apple’s Safari browser for now. According to ICANN, applications from 11 other languages are awaiting approval that includes Chinese, Russian, Thai, Tamil and Sinhalese. TE Data, Vodafone Data and Link Registrar are among the first few companies that have been authorized to sell the Arabic based domain names for now.

This new feature will certainly bring the web content to a large community, and we can see Internet to extend further in the coming years with more content in non-Latin based languages. We expect this change to be adopted by all web browsers soon.

The web hosting industry serves arguably the most loyal customers in the entire business world. Whether the host is bad, too expensive and simply doesn’t cut it, once people have chosen a web host it will take more than plain disappointment to change host.

Little Know-How

This makes even less sense if you keep in mind that web hosting customers are generally very needy. People are launching websites everyday, often without any knowledge in server hosting or the ability to host their own sites. The demand of good service in web hosting should hence be a critical requirement. But still we stick dutifully to our web hosts because in this business of domain re-directs and advanced configure parameters, changing to a new and better host means simply too much hassle.

The hassle of moving your domain

Much of the “hassle” with a web host change is not buying new storage space or enrolling in a new hosting plan. No, what is perceived a problem by many is in fact the domain transfer. Depending on the current web host the process of bringing your registered domain name with you can be either very hard or done by 2-3 mouse clicks. Unfortunately, if you’re stuck with a bad web host they might be less than happy to help you move, declining to offer any assistance at all.

Furthermore, hosting plans can have the right to hold your domain on their server for several months before allowing it to moved. An example is the blog host Blogger that does not allow registered domains to be moved to another host within 6 months after registration.

Bridging the gap

Since most web hosting customers today lack the know-how when it comes to web hosting and they find the prospect of switching web hosts quite complicated, there is really only one way to solve the “freedom of choice” problem.

Web hosting companies must come down from their pedestals and understand that the web hosting experience right now is paralyzing their customers with incomprehensive technical terms and other mumbojumbo.

“Freedom is not a matter of choice, it is a destined path, an undying yearning for the peace of one’s soul until attainment.”  /Unknown