Posted: 04 Dec 2009 09:50 AM PST

By Incurable Hippie (Flickr)

With some of the recent sales of .CM (Cameroon) domains at various domain auctions, we asked what those domains were actually worth. Well, it seems their resale value just took another drop, as McAfee called .CM the “Most Dangerous Country Domain” in their latest “2009 Mapping the Web” report. .CM replaces .HK (HongKong) from this spot and .JP (Japan) is considered the world’s safest ccTLD and .GOV the safest non-country TLD.

"This report underscores how quickly cybercriminals change tactics to lure in the most victims and avoid being caught. Last year, Hong Kong was the riskiest domain and this year it is dramatically safer," said Mike Gallagher, chief technology officer for McAfee Labs. "Cybercriminals target regions where registering sites is cheap and convenient, and pose the least risk of being caught."

Cameroon, a small African country that borders Nigeria, jumped to the number one spot this year with 36.7 percent of the .cm domain posing a security risk, but did not even make the list last year. Because the domain .cm is a common typo for .com, many cybercriminals set up fake typo-squatting sites that lead to malicious downloads, spyware, adware and other potentially unwanted programs.

More details can be found in McAfee’s report summary.

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eNom Increases Redemption Fee for Domains to $250 USD

Posted: 03 Dec 2009 07:50 PM PST

In an announcement mailed by the company today, eNom states that they have increased their Redemption Fee for domains in the Redemption Grace Period (RGP) to $250 plus the fee for a 1 year renewal of the domain. The redemption grace period follows the deletion of the domain by the registrar and was introduced by ICANN as an additional means to recover expired domains by the original registrant. The process of restoring the domain results in a higher charge by the registry and is a process consisting out of more than one step.

In many cases registrars such as eNom “simulate” this period for domains since they will offer domains in their partner marketplaces for purchase or auction after the domains’ expiry. Should a domain in this state be returned to the original registrant, the registrar will not occur any additional charges from the registry aside from the renewal fee.

Read the full email after the jump.

Date: 3 December 2009 20:39:20 GMT
Subject: Update to Redemption Grace Period

Dear <RESELLER NAME REMOVED>,

We wanted to ensure that you are aware of the Redemption Grade Period changes that went into effect on Tuesday, December 1, 2009.

The New Domain Redemption Process is as Follows:

A domain will go into a Redemption state (RGP / ERGP) when the domain registrant fails to renew a domain. While a domain is within this state, the original web site will not be active and any services associated with the domain name (such as email) will stop working.

All domains within a redemption state will be held for 30-days where the original domain registrant may retrieve the domain from within the eNom system for the current Redemption Recovery fee of $250 + 1 year of renewal.

If the original domain registrant does not renew during the 30-day RGP window it may be deleted or removed from the account & become no longer recoverable.

The redemption recovery process can be a manually intensive and costly process. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you help your domain registrants renew their domains early to prevent a potentially frustrating experience.

Prevention Tactics Offered at eNom:

While eNom will continue to offer the non guaranteed 29 days grace period after expiration on most TLDs. During this time, there is a loss of service to the end user. The site / email / etc. will no longer function with the original settings. NOTE: Not all TLDs offer this grace period (example = .EU has special restrictions and offers no grace period before entering this status). Therefore, encourage you to use the tools below, or other such means, to encourage your client to renew well before the expiration date on the domain or service.

Set "Auto Renew" On: For your own domains, set this within the eNom system. For your client’s domains, turn the default domain setting comment to "Auto Renew ON" within your own billing system. This will ensure customers pay you for the domain before expiration. NOTE: For API resellers, you can use API calls to get specific details on individual domains. Use this to update / maintain your own DB or as needed.
Domain Registrant Messaging: As the account holder, you will receive renewal notifications for domains that are coming up for expiration. Assuming you prefer for us not to message your clients directly, you can use these, domain reporting, or API calls to keep up on which clients are in need of renewal and when. We recommend notification to the end user a minimum of 30 to 45 days in advance of a domain or service expiration to prevent any loss of service to the end user.
Reporting: You can run reporting based off domains that are expired, or expiring within a giving time frame, and then use those for your sales staff to contact the registrant (your client) directly for renewal before service interruption. You can also use this to create your own domain expiration notifications to your clients. We have several clients that use these for automated messaging, as well.

If you have any questions, or need further ideas on how to prevent domains from entering into a redemption state, please feel free to contact me or the reseller sales team at <EMAIL REMOVED>.

Sincerely,
<ENOM EMPLOYEE NAME REMOVED>

Google Introduces Public DNS Service

Posted: 03 Dec 2009 12:00 PM PST

Google has just launched a Public DNS service according to a post on the Official Google Blog. The goal of the service is “to benefit users worldwide while also helping the tens of thousands of DNS resolvers improve their services, ultimately making the web faster for everyone“. On their product page they promise that the service is more secure as well as faster than many traditional domain name service resolved provided by the ISPs.

The OpenDNS like service will as a side benefit Google would also be able to see and track DNS queries of the users on the service and potentially redirect unresolved searches into Google Searches, similar to what many ISPs already do today. The company does promised not to use the data for anything else, but does state that non personal data will be stored for an indefinite period.

Google would also be able to block sites through the service that are for example suspected phishing sites. Depending on adaption the service could even introduce alternative TLDs, comparable to alternative root systems like new.net. For now their policy states that their service “never blocks, filters, or redirects users“. ICANN has recently issued an memorandum speaking out against NXdomain resolution for new gTLDs.

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.TO ccTLD Becomes Worlds Shortest URL Shortener

Posted: 03 Dec 2009 11:43 AM PST

Until ICANN releases One Letter TLDs (no plans have been announced so far), .TO has now introduced the world’s shortest URL shortener in partnership with eCorporation.com. Unfortunately the new service comes with some problems:

When you try to access the service from your webbrowser, you can however not just enter “to” in your browser’s address bar, as that will trigger a search in most of today’s browsers. So you will have to enter “www.to” instead. So the site will also append the “www.” in front of the shortened URL and thus actually negate their advantage of having the shortest URL – however without doing so, the generated addresses would most likely not pass the validation for a valid link used on most sites. The only alternative option is to write the addresses like this “http://to./d6Goe“, which most webbrowsers will then again correctly identify as a domain.

[via YCombinator News]

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