Items tagged with URL
A pair of publishing groups -- the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers -- are against Amazon's plans to take control of new top-level domain (TLD) names that recently became available. The publishing groups argue that giving Amazon access to addresses that end in ".book," ."author," and ".read" would be a threat to competition, The Wall Street Journal reports. Barnes & Noble also filed an objection with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), stating that Amazon could use the Internet domain suffixes to effectively stifle competition. That sentiment was echoed by the Authors Guild. "Placing such generic domains in private hands is plainly anti-competitive,"...
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Microsoft didn't waste any time swooping in and snatching up the domain name SkypeSexFinder.com after it became available, according to Whois records online. Fusible was first to discover the domain name registration and noted that it was redirecting visitors to its Bing search engine, though not Bing's homepage. Instead, it brings up Bing search results for SkypeSexFinder, which lists plenty of sultry links. It doesn't appear Microsoft is trying to assist sex starved Web surfers with a fetish for Skype chat, and it's far more likely the SkypeSexFinder.com domain grab was simply a preventative measure. If that's the case, Microsoft might be facing a losing battle because it can't possible lay...
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Well, this is clever. Google has just pulled off what may be the biggest URL acquisition of the year. URL shortening applications have become a hot commodity, as micro-blogging tools like Twitter only give people a limited amount of characters to get their points across. Even though ICANN announced a few months ago that consumers and businesses would be able to apply for non-traditional URL enders, the short ones are still the best ones. Sure enough, Google has just announced its intentions to buy a three-letter URL: g.co. It doesn't get much shorter than that, at least with the existing plate of TLDs available. This is obviously far shorter than Google's previous URL shortener: goo.gl....
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Domain registrar GoDaddy.com has been on the auction block since September of last year, and it appears the site has finally found a buyer willing to pay a high enough asking price. Actually, three buyers, including private equity-firms KKR & Co. and Silver Lake Partners, and private equity and venture capital firm Technology Crossover Ventures, the Wall Street Journal reports. Citing "people familiar with the matter," WSJ says the deal will go down for between $2 billion and $2.5 billion, with an official announcement potentially coming as early as next week. During its 14-year tenure on the Web, GoDaddy.com has grown into the world's largest registrar of domain names. The site also sells...
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Talk about Google Translate gaining a whole new level of importance. The Internet as we know has officially changed today. For well over a decade, every single URL registered through ICANN has used Latin numbers, letters and characters. Even foreign language sites have been forced to use characters found on a typical Western/U.S. keyboard in the URL. But in October of last year, ICANN (the Internet regulator over URL name registrations) decided that the barrier should be torn down, and non-Latin characters should be allowed in URL names. This week, the world's first domain name using all non-Latin characters went live, and it's an Arabic URL that is getting loads of clicks simply for being "first."...
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It must have been World URL Shortener Day yesterday. First came the news that Facebook has been testing a URL shortener, fb.me. Then Google announced the arrival of Goo.gl. And though it wasn't as flashy as the first two pieces of news, those paying attention saw that URL shortener powerhouse bit.ly announced a new Pro version that allows users to create custom shortened URLs. Let's face it. Some URL are so long and cumbersome that there's no way to even read it to someone over the phone or shout it across the room. When you're linking to an image on a page in a subdirectory, the URL can go on for approximately 12,000 pages, it seems. So even before Twitter, there was a call for tinyurl.com (which,...
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The Internet could be described as something of a youthful beast. But even still, the very first domain name to be purchased and registered brings a tear to the eye of anyone that remembers when the Internet was only accessible via a 14.4k modem and an ISP that charged by the minute. Believe it or not, it wasn't www.internet.com or www.dot.com that was purchased when the Internet was "born." Instead, it was the somewhat off-the-wall symbolics.com.It's hard to say why this domain name was the first purchased back on March 15, 1985, but for obvious reasons it holds a special place in history. What's even crazier is that the original owner has paid the dues in order to retain it for nearly 25 years....
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We have relatives who won't trust the cloud, fearing that a company will either go out of business or end a service. After all, if a company as large as Yahoo! can shut down a service like Yahoo! Briefcase (admittedly, a laggard among cloud storage services anyway), what else can happen. This is a perfect example, with URL shortener tr.im announcing Sunday it was shutting down service, effective immediately. URL shorteners are in vogue now, what with the popularity of Twitter and its 140-character limit. Much as when a service such as Yahoo! Briefcase shuts down, what now when tr.im shuts down? How long will the shortened URLs continue to redirect? Here's what they said in their blog post / announcement:...
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