The man owns the internet

[goodkarmaco]

Worship him or not, he is garnering a big portion of the net traffic. How he got there is not by handing out rosaries either.

Enjoy,

Roderick

http://money.aol.com/b20/investing/canvas3/_a/the-man-who-owns-the-internet/20070523114109990001

 

[movingconcierge]

This was posted several times about 2 weeks ago

 

[goodkarmaco]

Sorry, I did not see that as I was in the middle of moving and have not logged on for a while. Mods can delete this if needed, thanks.

 

[deet]

a nice read for sure

 

[AzN]

Yup, Ham is very good domainer. :D

 

[larryharlow]

whtas up wiht those .co colombian domains, they aint even avaliable yet, right?

 

[samuofm]

He's a smart guy, and I'm thinking that article will get more people into the domain game which will shrink supply further.

 

[godumbe]

I m goin to sell my domains to him :D

 

[goodkarmaco]

I live about 80 miles from Vancouver, Canada and he is pretty well known around here, even though he says he likes to keep a low profile. I think to he is a pretty smart guy. His advantage over myself Imo is he writes software and got his break with that catching names.

I think he is an example of how mavericks paved the way for us with ppc parking.

Like alot of the big shots we like to bow to, I think some of his regs are in the shady area. We almost never look at that as we are so into the amount of money some make that how he got it is not so important as the fact he does. The way I see it if the names are taken away from him for tm or such that is a good run up to then and money in the bank I suppose. I do know he is not building names now that are in the grey area and his expertise is great keywords now. What is a great keyword worth?

According to him, you own the keyword you own the internet. I like it!

 

[IAmAllanShore]

The argument in the article is that Ham is safe based on his not "registering" the domain names (The .cm issue, etc.). Tell me what I'm missing here:

15 USCS § 1125

(d) Cyberpiracy prevention.
(1)
(A) A person shall be liable in a civil action by the owner of a mark, including a personal name which is protected as a mark under this section, if, without regard to the goods or services of the parties, that person--
(i) has a bad faith intent to profit from that mark, including a personal name which is protected as a mark under this section; and
(ii) registers, traffics in, or uses a domain name that--
(I) in the case of a mark that is distinctive at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to that mark;
(II) in the case of a famous mark that is famous at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to or dilutive of that mark; or
(III) is a trademark, word, or name protected by reason of section 706 of title 18, United States Code, or section 220506 of title 36, United States Code.

-Allan :gl:

(The big word here being "or" not "and", :imho: )

 

[think]

The argument in the article is that Ham is safe based on his not "registering" the domain names (The .cm issue, etc.). Tell me what I'm missing here:

15 USCS § 1125

(d) Cyberpiracy prevention.
(1)
(A) A person shall be liable in a civil action by the owner of a mark, including a personal name which is protected as a mark under this section, if, without regard to the goods or services of the parties, that person--
(i) has a bad faith intent to profit from that mark, including a personal name which is protected as a mark under this section; and
(ii) registers, traffics in, or uses a domain name that--
(I) in the case of a mark that is distinctive at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to that mark;
(II) in the case of a famous mark that is famous at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to or dilutive of that mark; or
(III) is a trademark, word, or name protected by reason of section 706 of title 18, United States Code, or section 220506 of title 36, United States Code.

-Allan :gl:

(The big word here being "or" not "and", :imho: )

It was explained to me by another domainer that it is a wild card system that sends all traffic to him and no domains are involved.

***.cm can be anything before the dot cm tld.

The person gave a great example of a wildcard using subdomains:

Insert your best friends name as a sub domain for the domain justgotowned.com

In this case we'll use Allen
http://www.Allen.justgotowned.com

 

[hugegrowth]

Ham lives in Canada
.cm is controlled by the Cameroon government
the domains typo'd with .cm that redirect to Ham's site aren't owned by anyone, it's a wildcard feature that redirects ALL unregistered .cm names, whether it's a trademark name or not.
Yahoo admits to serving up the ads for Ham's site, so they must not have a problem with it.
the lawyers quoted in the article seem to think it would be hard to bring a case against Ham and Cameroon for doing this

Sure it's a grey area but I think legally it would be hard to stop them from doing this, it sounds like some people are challenging it with lawyers so we'll see where it goes.

To me it's similar to when you buy a domain at a registrar (say Godaddy), and if you do nothing with it they leave it on a parked page and collect money on any click-thrus. Even if I had a trademark and registered the domain for it, Godaddy would still do this.

 

[IAmAllanShore]

The arguments presented seem to be contra-indicated by the bolded text above. True, he's not "registering" the domain name, but would what he does not qualify as "using or trafficing in" domain names?

-Allan

(Unless you are arguing that sgkshgksjgskd.cm is not a domain name)

 

[goodkarmaco]

I want to know how did a man who had to study medicine until his eyes bled and run a doctors office have the time to develope this software, his domain business and come up with these tactics. Got to hand it to him, he put great effort forward as a business person.

 

[Dave_Z]

Tell me what I'm missing here:

These:

(I) in the case of a mark that is distinctive at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to that mark;
(II) in the case of a famous mark that is famous at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to or dilutive of that mark; or

IMHO he should've kept that low profile like Yun Ye rather than be interviewed
or something. Now he's a bit more known to the online public eye.

 

[IAmAllanShore]

These:

Again, I'm the strict constructionist who would say that those are not in regards to the actions of Ham, but instead the domain names in question (At the time of the drafting, and now, I can't think of any other definition of what domain names can be other than "registered"). The line that governs the action being the bold, the lines that govern the qualification of the TM rights being the two you highlighted. I see your point, and I get it, but I think that was an oversight on the part of the drafters, and the intent was clear from the line I (Oh shit, just went all "natural law" by accident... ).

So I was wrong on your agreeing with me on this one

-Allan :gl:

 

[Dave_Z]

but I think that was an oversight on the part of the drafters

Maybe because no one foresaw a Registry would wildcard its DNS. How many
even knew that, much more a country code one?

That's happened a couple of times in various areas, you know.

 

[Kenny]

(Oh shit, just went all "natural law" by accident... )

-Allan :gl:

Nice.. You kiss your children with that mouth?

This kind of thing goes hand and hand with Domeys post,
Registrant Code -- of Rights and Responsibilities.
Just because it's legal, doesn’t make it right. Whether or not this is legal isn't as important as the damage these types of monetizing practices do to the entire industry. We are so very close to having the government step in and start regulating our behavior because we accept this and similar actions as part of doing business, it's is their model, don’t form groups to speak out against what is obviously blatantly stretching boundaries of ethical behavior.

Personal freedoms are as important to me as anyone, but with freedom comes responsibility. One of those responsibilities is to not stand idle and allow the greed and selfishness of anyone take food off your plate.

That's what happened to the stock traders, they were given freedom to abuse and a few did just that. They abused it to the point ALL traders now have to pay for the actions of a few.

We are grouped within the same industry, and those that are making headlines are not a fair representatives for who we are.
I have said it; I will continue to say it...
If we don’t police ourselves a governing body soon will.

It is our duty to protect ourselves and OUR freedom and speak out,... no! Shout out that we have rights too, and one of those is the right to not let "you", "them", "they" diminish our livleyhood.

Cyberian

 

[scandiman]

If the Cameroon govt was doing this on their own and rich guy Ham wasn't involved I believe no one would care. This is more about envying the smart rich guy than it is about ethics.

 

[cache]

well the traffic has to be directed somewhere, either to Ham's site or to
yahoo or msn site usually.