I firmly believe we could actually use Several Mods in this section ... As there are obviously going to be more and more languages. For the most part - We're looking for longer term members with a sense of Fair Play. Also - If you're looking for a paid position , May I point out to you that this is still a Free Forum that gives out Revenue sharing and Has high Hosting expenses ? Thus , why we need Sponsors
I don't necessarily think all threads should be deleted or shunned immediately just because it isn't considered a valid "IDN" keyword or phrase though, "Domain Hacks" and "Novelty" Domains should be welcome IMO - But labeled as such.
When I said "hire me", it was a figure of speech. Of course I don't expect to be paid anything.
But if you're looking for long-term active members, then I've only been a member for a little over a year and have been lurking most of that time.
Please read the last reply to my post in the reported threads section to see an explanation why I think these domains are so bad. Maybe you will change your mind about them. Or maybe you already read it and didn't change your mind.
I actually couldn't believe the guy who said that these type of domains are far more valuable than "the real idns". If I evoked him to say that in public, imagine what he's telling everyone who PMs him to inquire about his cool-looking spoof domain?
I don't think you will attract any respectable and knowledgeable moderators if they need to allow this sort of stuff in, as then it seems like their endorsement.
jacksonm is right all the way, and a man on a mission is hard to stop
He'd make a good moderator for IDNs for sale because there's a seemingly fine point bandied about here that few fully appreciate that is very important. There is a huge difference between "novelty" IDNs and those bought and sold with the sole intent being to defraud others.
Domains that look confusingly like ASCII equivalents of well known trustable institutions should be presumed to be traded in either ignorance or bad intent. Banning trade in obvious phishing domains is not a judgement call, it's a requirement of a good moderator for IDN sales threads.
Finding a legitimate buyer who knows exactly what they're buying... fine. Misleading some poor sap into thinking these names are "rare" or anything but novelty domains... unacceptable and should not be tolerated.
just like anything else for sale....caveat emptor. i find it hard to believe someone could be misled into buying one of those names thinking they're anything but what they are.....
Trading in them isn't the biggest problem, it's the proliferation. The main use for these "Look-alike" domains is phishing. This is the reason the firefox team decided to only display punycode for IDN.com and IDN.net. That policy is seriously damaging to the international uptake of IDN, and the aiding and abetting of the phishing ecosystem does not help the situation at all.
Oh well I have seen a few in the Sedo auctions so I guess there are cases of newbies buying from other newbies
IMO Mark it totally right: nothing wrong with registering hacks or novelty but treat them as novelty items, not investments
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Script and language descriptors are only marginally useful and should be self-evident in most cases. In the cases where the buyer does not recognize the script they should reconsider why they want to buy the domain! It's not useful, for example, to require a seller to disclose that a Japanese domain is mixed script Kanji + hiragana, as that either doesn't mean anything to the buyer, or they already know it by inspection.
Meaning is a dangerous one. First of all, if I don't know the meaning of a domain should I NOT be allowed to sell it? Secondly how many times have you seen people misled, buying lousy domains that were accurately translated? That's because more context is required - like whether or not it's the primary term, whether or not it's a phonetic transliteration of an English word (think about Katakana Japanese domains), etc. Even then it's hard to be sure sometimes.
Finally there is the matter of putting undue burden on the seller. Requiring too much detail prevents sellers from holding large "clearance" sales. As you all know it is common practice to post large groups of domains up for sale or auction because managing large amounts of domains is time-intensive. Requiring more detail really puts enough burden on the seller where you'll see fewer large sales. Besides, why shouldn't I be able to post 100 Chinese domains for sale at a flat rate and offer no translations at all? That's not the battle we need to fight - we need to fight against fraud and dealing in domains obviously intended for nefarious use.
I agree with Jackson. With the upcoming releases of idn.idn (in addition to idn.com, idn.net, idn.jp, idn.cn etc.) the sales activity for IDN will no doubt increase substantially and there should be some firm ground rules on the sales forums.
I see alot of problems with IDN sales in the future. Even those well intentioned can misrepresent their domain.
Many people don't know what to look for in an IDN and just see what they want. Even reason doesn't sway them. Those looking for a quick buck will run into trouble. Those that choose to learn how to successfully evaluate an IDN will do alright.
I don't see that anything has changed, so please help me out here.
I tried to run ads with IDN display URLs and the Adwords system rejects them. I mailed adwords support for manual approval, and they refused - told me that Google classifies IDNs as "vanity URLs".
From the article you mentioned:
Adwords support basically told me that you can't use "köln.com" as a display URL because it doesn't match the real domain name, which is "xn--kln-sna.com". I was back and forth with them about this all of January, February, and also in March.
Google is probably working on this now. They do want to monetize the rest of
the world. They're biggest competitor will be Baidu (if it's not already)
Once IE6 is banned from banking and credit card sites, things will move fast.
Paypal is already considering banning IE6. As IE6 loses ground, and IE7/8 becomes the world standard, google will be forced to allow urls in Native languages. They wouldn't want to miss out on all that dough.
I understand the phishing situation is a sticky one but I really dont like the calls for censorship Im reading in this thread.
It may be a small niche but I have bought, sold and developed a number of domain hacks (sigh7ings.com z1p.us ect) that are totally valid. Ive seen no problems with sellers misrepresenting these domains in any way.
Its fine to have an opinion on good and bad investments or TM infringement but the rules here should be the same as the rest of the forum where people are free to buy and sell what they choose.
I'm on the fence on this one right now. I feel it could be useful to own televisîon and actually develop it. I wouldn't really agree with the "unfit for development" bit. If it's developed well, visitors will remember the "î".
On the other hand, people who register such domains should understand what they're registering and why. I personally don't know which combination of keys on my keyboard will get me that "î", so I have to literally copy & paste it. The site will probably never have natural typed-in traffic because nobody is likely to type that.
