<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, domainers]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, domainers]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/domainers http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/domainers <![CDATA[Dirty dotcoms, done dirt cheap]]> The downright nasty domainsNo wonder TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, formerly CEO at domain-name trader Pool.com, was so eager to get out of what he's called the "extremely dirty domain name business": Moniker.com is now putting 257 ultrafilthy domains up for sale at a live auction to be held August 4 in Hollywood, Fla. The list includes domains like Jiggly.com, Poledancing.com, and Lactationnation.com — and those are some of the more pleasant ones. We're curious how Floridarentalproperty.com made it onto such a raunchy roster. Is there something we should know about what people are doing with all those condos on the market?

]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=284070&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The domainers' worst enemy]]> Trust the Gray Lady to suck the drama — and the sense — out of a tech story. The New York Times profiles David Ulevitch of OpenDNS, an entrepreneur who's trying to make the Internet's domain-name system work better and faster. That means, of course, killing off the practice of "typo-squatting." Since the Times couldn't manage a decent explanation of this conflict, we'll oblige.Typo-squatting is a particulary unsavory side of the domain-name business. Clumsy Web users mistype website addresses all the time. Domainers, those wily entrepreneurs who register domain names in the hopes of making a profit, register common misspellings like "google.cm," and throw ads up on those websites, making a cheap and fast buck. (Business 2.0 recently profiled Kevin Ham, a domainer who's built a $300 million business on typo-squatting and other domain-name maneuvers.)

Ulevitch's OpenDNS would make typo-squatters an endangered species. By redirecting mistyped Web addresses to the correct site, Ulevitch makes life easier for Web surfers — and impossible for domainers. But then how does OpenDNS make money? Through advertisements displayed when an OpenDNS user accidentally types a search-engine query into his browser's address bar. Sounds like Ulevitch, just like his enemies, aims to profit from your mistakes. (Photo by Jim Wilson/The New York Times)]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=276297&view=rss&microfeed=true