Wasiq Ansari’s World

High-quality online video has been in high demand in China, and Chinese search provider Baidu is hoping to fulfill that need.

Baidu announced on Wednesday that it is creating an independent company to offer premium online videos to Chinese Internet users. The new entity is designed to work with content providers to supply copyrighted material, including movies, TV shows, sports, and animation, and it will generate its revenue through advertisements.

“As China’s Internet industry evolves, we have seen increasing demand for high-quality video content on our search platform. By establishing this new company, we will be able to better serve our users and customers with superior content and focused resources,” Xuyang Ren, Baidu’s vice president of marketing and business development, said in a statement.

“Online video is a rapidly growing sector in China, and I believe Baidu’s search platform will provide a solid foundation for the new company to address the increasing demand for premium content,” said Yu Gong, former president and chief operating officer of China Mobile’s 12580 hotline service, who is set to head the new venture as CEO.

Baidu, which has outshined Google’s Chinese search engine to become China’s top search provider, has been eager to get into the online-video business.

But video has long been a thorny issue in China, as the country has grappled with video piracy for years. DVDs of pirated movies and TV shows have been a lucrative business in the Chinese market, with obviously no compensation to the studios, networks, and other content providers. Pressure from the United States has pushed the Chinese government to try to crack down on the illegal trade. But the low cost and wide availability of pirated videos have kept it a thriving market.

Piracy has gone more high-tech in recent years. More and more illegal videos, including full-length movies and TV shows, have shown up on popular Chinese video-streaming sites such as Youku and Tudou. A group of content providers filed a lawsuit late last year against some of these Chinese sites, charging them with copyright violation, China.org reported. So far, the case has resulted in a legal judgment against Youku, ordering it to pay a small sum in damages.

TVs with Internet access have also become a new haven for video piracy, as Chinese users can now download illegal videos directly off the Web into their living rooms. The Google-funded service Xunlei, a Chinese peer-to-peer file-sharing service, has been the target of lawsuits, alleging that it distributes copyrighted movies and TV shows without compensating the studios or networks.

Source: news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10426495-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Bit.ly Partners with Security Firms to Block Spams, Scams from Twitter

Bit.ly, the service Twitter uses to shorten URLs to keep them under the service’s 140-character limit, announced partnerships on Monday with Verisign, Websense and Sophos that are designed to keep spam and malicious software off of the network.

The partnerships should help solve a major problem with the service: that you don’t know where your browser will take you after you click on a shortened link, which makes Twitter the perfect potential hideaway for spammers, scammers, phishers and the like. Concern about the security of Twitter links spread last month, after “search engine optimization experts” Roman Latkovic and Robert LaQuey, Ph.D claimed in a $8 study that Bit.ly and other URL shorteners pose a dangerous threat to Twitter users.

“Bit.ly is not alone; there are more than 100 URL shortening services online and each one of them could be used to plant malicious codes and to infect users computer, or to steal her or his data or even identity,” wrote LaQuey in an e-mail to wired.com.

Bit.ly’s new partnerships aim to solve that problem in three ways.

Verisign’s iDefense service will screen IP addresses, domains and URLs based on its reputation database, to find those that “host exploits, malicious code, command and control servers, drop sites and other nefarious activity,” according to Bit.ly general manager Andrew Cohen.

WebSense’s ThreatSeeker Cloud will analyze the content on pages linked to through Bit.ly in real-time to identify and block “spammy URLs, malicious content and phishing sites.”

Meanwhile, Sophos rounds out the equation by analyzing the behavior of potential spammers to “go[] beyond blacklists, to proactively detect spam and malware.”

Bit.ly owes much of its success to its status as Twitter’s URL shortener of choice — one reason the company raised $2 million earlier this year, while Redirx (coded by a friend of mine), which also shortens URLs, is on sale for $47.

“Bit.ly is one of the largest sharing services on the Web, with millions of shortened URLs created every day,” said Cohen in a statement. “A large part of our success is due to the trust users have in our service and we work hard to earn that trust by warning our users about spam and malicious content.”

Blocking every single malicious link from Twitter is likely an impossible task, but these partnerships should go a long way towards putting Twitter and its users at ease about their URL shortener of choice.

Source:www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/11/bitly-partners-with-security-firms-to-block-spams-scams-from-twitter/

Today is a significant day.  Not only did comScore rank Technorati Media as the fifth largest social media property, we’re also pleased to announce the re-launch of a wholly new Technorati.com. Technorati was founded to help people find great blog content, and with this launch, we’ve improved some of the existing ways and added a couple new ways.

The Technorati.com beta site you see today has literally been rebuilt from the ground up. When you take a look at the new site, you’ll see some things you like, and you’ll notice some things that are gone (some of which will be back soon). But we guarantee you’ll see a more stable site that helps you find the blog content you’re looking for. We’ve already gone into a lot of the “why” behind the changes, so without further ado, here’s what’s changed.

Technorati Authority:
In the past, we based Technorati Authority on six months of blogosphere data. Because most searches are looking for items less than a month old, we’re going to narrow that window in a similar way. In the past, because the data window was so long, Authority and the Top 100 lists it powered were relatively static.  With the new algorithm, the resulting Authority will better reflect the fast-changing nature of the blogosphere.  Its new inherent volatility will also show which blogs are rising and falling in authority, rewarding authors on posting frequency, context and linking behavior, as well as other data inputs.

We are also excited to announce Topical Authority. As opposed to overall Technorati Authority, Topical Authority is limited to a specific category. Some blogs may rank in more than one category.

Search:
Our search previously prized recency above all else – the real time web – and the old algorithm delivered the last result, not the best. As many high authority blogs have earned a mainstream media status, we’ve added more weight “relevancy” to deliver the most relevant results from authoritative sources while still acknowledging timeliness. Simply put, when you do a search, the results should be a lot better.

Improved blog directory:
The new blog directory is vastly improved.  Of note, you can now view top blogs overall by Authority, AND top blogs by category by Authority.  The results are something readers have requested for years: Top Lists for major categories, AND the daily risers and fallers in each category as well.

Original articles:
Bloggers can now directly publish articles on Technorati.com.  This provides a unique opportunity and yet another way for authors to present their content to a larger audience, directly by presenting articles to millions of readers and indirectly by receiving traffic from links back to their own blog or site.  Conversely, it also provides the audience yet another way to discover great content and new authors.  Down the road, we envision further opportunities for some participating authors who may choose to also join Technorati Media.  As this is a totally new feature, we want to stress that this is additive to the discovery process: readers will still be able to search algorithmically selected content, browse the directory for blogs in favorite categories and now read a selection of in-depth articles. Find out how you can contribute an article.

What’s gone for now?
With six years of history behind us, we have also discovered what’s important and not important in our offerings.  As such, some things will go away permanently, and others will return later with enhanced utility that reflects the new features of the site.  Here’s what’s coming back shortly after launch:

• Technorati Charts and API: both will be returning later.
• Widgets – For those sites with widgets on their sites, there’s no need to worry.  Some widgets will continue to serve as they have in the past, and some that utilized legacy Technorati technology will either change slightly or temporarily disappear without any affect on web pages. Technorati will be developing some exciting new widgets that match the new features in the site.
• s.technorati.com is still there, but it’s moved to the main site at Technorati.com/search.
• Watchlists are gone.
• Some (but not all) RSS feeds.

And a special mention to our partners:

• JS-Kit for providing comments.
• ShrinkTheWeb for providing site thumbnails.
• Get Satisfaction for support

And finally, we want to thank all of the publishers that are part of Technorati Media. In the 15 months since we launched, Technorati Media has grown into the largest social media advertising network.  With over 400 influential blogs and niche social networks and communities, the network reaches 108 million monthly unique visitors.  We enable marketers to engage with social media at scale by approximating the audience reach of a large social network. Our publishers have enabled five quarters of consecutive growth, and the new Technorati.com.

Next week, we’ll release the 2009 State of the Blogosphere report (with a preview at Blog World Expo this Friday). This is our biggest effort yet with a survey executed by the well known political polling firm Penn Schoen and Berlind, interviews from more than a dozen of today’s most successful professional bloggers, and additional data sources.

Source: blog.technorati.com/2009/10/a-totally-new-technoraticom-technorati-media-rising.html

Twitter Adds "Report as Spam" Button

Today we’ve added another tool to our spam fighting toolbox that will give users the ability to flag bad accounts on Twitter.

Folks can now help us conquer spam by calling our attention to a profile they find questionable. Click the “Report as spam” button under the Actions section of a profile’s sidebar and our Trust and Safety team will check it out to see what needs to be done. No automated action will be taken as a result of reporting a user as spam (in other words, it can’t be used to incite an angry mob against an account you don’t like.) And once you report a profile it will automatically be blocked from following or replying to you. You nailed it!

Our spam fighting tools will continue to evolve as new behaviors emerge, and as always, we’ll keep trust and safety at the top of our list.

S0urce: blog.twitter.com/2009/10/help-us-nail-spammers.html

Google search results sometimes include documents that were not originally formatted to be viewed in a web browser, such as PDFs. In the past, the only way to view these documents was to download them and open them in a separate viewer application. To provide an alternative, we made it possible to quickly and easily view these files as HTML right in a web browser by clicking “View as HTML.” This was an improvement, but unfortunately the “View as HTML” option loses some of the formatting from the original PDF, such as graphics, tables, fonts and other elements.

Today, we’ve added new links to “Quick View” PDFs in your browser with the formatting intact. The new links are based on the same technology that’s available in Google Docs and Gmail, as well as to webmasters through the Google Docs viewer. We’ve been rolling this technology out to the search results page since July, and as of today we’ve added “Quick View” links to more than 50% of the PDFs in our index. The new links appear at the end of the second line of the result, right underneath the title.

For example, here is a search result for the IRS 1099 form:

Google Adds "Quick View" of PDFs to SERPs

Clicking “Quick View” will open up the PDF right in your browser with graphics, formatting and tables preserved. This is what it looks like after opening:

Quickly view formatted PDFs in your search results

Over time we’ll be rolling out the viewer for more documents and file types. In the meantime, in some cases you’ll see the “View as HTML” link, which allows you to see a basic HTML-only version.

Viewing PDF documents in your browser might not make paying taxes any more fun — but hopefully this feature will make it a little bit faster!

Source: googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/quickly-view-formatted-pdfs-in-your.html

Google acquires reCAPTCHA

The image above is a CAPTCHA — you can read it, but computers have a harder time interpreting the letters. We tried to make it hard for computers to recognize because we wanted to give humans the scoop first, but we’re happy to announce to everybody now that Google has acquired reCAPTCHA, a company that provides CAPTCHAs to help protect more than 100,000 websites from spam and fraud.

Since computers have trouble reading squiggly words like these, CAPTCHAs are designed to allow humans in but prevent malicious programs from scalping tickets or obtain millions of email accounts for spamming. But there’s a twist — the words in many of the CAPTCHAs provided by reCAPTCHA come from scanned archival newspapers and old books. Computers find it hard to recognize these words because the ink and paper have degraded over time, but by typing them in as a CAPTCHA, crowds teach computers to read the scanned text.

In this way, reCAPTCHA’s unique technology improves the process that converts scanned images into plain text, known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This technology also powers large scale text scanning projects like Google Books and Google News Archive Search. Having the text version of documents is important because plain text can be searched, easily rendered on mobile devices and displayed to visually impaired users. So we’ll be applying the technology within Google not only to increase fraud and spam protection for Google products but also to improve our books and newspaper scanning process.

That’s why we’re excited to welcome the reCAPTCHA team to Google, and we’re committed to delivering the same high level of performance that websites using reCAPTCHA have come to expect. Improving the availability and accessibility of all the information on the Internet is really important to us, so we’re looking forward to advancing this technology with the reCAPTCHA team.

Source: googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/teaching-computers-to-read-google.html

Combined Company Will Deliver Comprehensive Solutions for Creation, Delivery and Optimization of Content and Applications

SAN JOSE, Calif. and OREM, Utah — Sept. 15, 2009 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and Omniture, Inc. (Nasdaq:OMTR) today announced the two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for Adobe to acquire Omniture in a transaction valued at approximately $1.8 billion on a fully diluted equity-value basis. Under the terms of the agreement, Adobe will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding common stock of Omniture for $21.50 per share in cash.

Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture furthers its mission to revolutionize the way the world engages with ideas and information. By combining Adobe’s content creation tools and ubiquitous clients with Omniture’s Web analytics, measurement and optimization technologies, Adobe will be well positioned to deliver solutions that can transform the future of engaging experiences and e-commerce across all digital content platforms and devices.

The combination of the two companies will increase the value Adobe delivers to customers. For designers, developers and online marketers, an integrated workflow — with optimization capabilities embedded in the creation tools — will streamline the creation and delivery of relevant content and applications. This optimization will enable advertisers, advertising agencies, publishers and e-tailers to achieve greater ROI from their digital media investments and improve their end users’ experiences.

“Adobe customers are looking to us for solutions to deliver engaging experiences and more effectively monetize their content and applications online,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer of Adobe. “This is a game changer for both Adobe and our customers. We will enable advertisers, media companies and e-tailers to realize the full value of their digital assets.”

“Omniture’s mission has been to enable our customers to optimize every digital interaction,” said Josh James, CEO of Omniture. “By joining forces with Adobe, we will accelerate our ability to deliver on that vision and together bring new innovation to the market that improves content engagement, advertising effectiveness and the overall user experience, which will drive more advertising dollars online.”

Expanded Opportunities for Adobe and Omniture
This acquisition will significantly expand Adobe’s addressable market and growth potential, broadening solutions Adobe provides to the rapidly growing Internet advertising, e-commerce and digital media markets.

The combination will also expand Adobe’s offering of mission-critical solutions to the enterprise customer. Adding the capabilities of Omniture will further enhance Adobe’s offerings and ability to appeal to online marketers, including chief marketing officers.

The acquisition of Omniture will further diversify Adobe’s business, adding a scalable SaaS platform that captures over a trillion transactions per quarter, an expansive partner ecosystem, and a recurring revenue model.

For Omniture, joining Adobe will provide global operational scale and the ability to more quickly penetrate new geographies and markets, thereby accelerating its go-to-market strategy and growth potential.

Integration and Closing Details
As part of the expected integration of the two companies, Omniture will become a new business unit within Adobe. Omniture’s CEO, Josh James, will join Adobe as senior vice president of the new business unit, reporting to Adobe’s president and CEO, Shantanu Narayen.

The completion of the transaction, which is subject to customary government approvals and the satisfaction of other customary conditions, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Adobe’s 2009 fiscal year.

The proposed offer represents a premium of 45 percent over Omniture’s average closing price for the last 30 trading days through yesterday’s close.

Adobe believes the acquisition will be accretive to Adobe’s non-GAAP earnings in fiscal year 2010.

The companies will make information, including an FAQ and other details about the acquisition, available at http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandomniture.html.

Conference Call Scheduled for 2:00 p.m. PDT Today
Adobe will comment on the acquisition of Omniture today during its Q3 FY2009 earnings conference call, which is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m. PDT today. Investors, analysts and press can participate in a live Webcast via Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro or access the live conference call using the following access information:
Webcast: Go to http://www.adobe.com/ADBE and click on the Q3 FY09 Earnings Conference Call icon
Live Call: Dial 888-213-3930 and use passcode 3412311
Questions: Contact Adobe Investor Relations at 408-536-4416 or ir@adobe.com

The call and Webcast will last approximately one hour. An archive of the call will be made available in Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro for approximately 45 days. Listening to the live Webcast works best with Adobe Flash Player version 10 or later. Firewalls designed to protect corporate information can prevent listening to the Webcast.

Forward-Looking Statements Disclosure
This press release includes forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, including the risks to both companies that the acquisition of Omniture will not be consummated, as the transaction is subject to certain closing conditions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including statements regarding: the anticipated timing of filings and approvals relating to the transaction; the expected timing of the completion of the transaction; the ability to complete the transaction considering the various closing conditions; any management for future operations; any statements of expectation or belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. In addition, if and when the transaction is consummated, there will be risks and uncertainties related to Adobe’s ability to successfully integrate the products and employees of Adobe and Omniture, as well as the ability to ensure continued performance or market growth of Omniture’s products. These risks, uncertainties and other factors, and the general risks associated with the respective businesses of Adobe and Omniture described in the reports and other documents filed by each of them with the Securities and Exchange Commission, could cause actual results to differ materially from those referred to in the forward-looking statements. The reader is cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to Adobe and Omniture and are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Neither Adobe nor Omniture assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements or other statements included in this press release.

Additional Information and Where to Find It
This press release is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to buy or the solicitation of an offer to sell any securities. The solicitation and the offer to buy shares of Omniture’s common stock will only be made pursuant to a tender offer statement on schedule TO, including an offer to purchase and other related materials that Snowbird Acquisition Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adobe Systems Incorporated, intends to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, Omniture will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission a Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Scheduled 14D-9 with respect to the tender offer. Once filed, Omniture stockholders will be able to obtain the tender statement on schedule TO, the offer to purchase, the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14D-9 and related materials with respect to the offer, free of charge at the website of the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov, from the information agent and dealer manager named in the tender offer materials or from Snowbird Acquisition Corporation. Omniture’s stockholders are advised to read these documents, any amendments to these documents and any other documents relating to the tender offer that are filed with the SEC carefully and in their entirety prior to making any decisions with respect to the offer because they contain important information, including the terms and conditions of the offer.

About Omniture
Omniture, Inc. is a leading provider of online business optimization software, enabling customers to manage and enhance online, offline and multi-channel business initiatives. Omniture’s software, which it hosts and delivers to its customers as an on-demand subscription service and on-premise solution, enables customers to capture, store and analyze information generated by their Web sites and other sources and to gain critical business insights into the performance and efficiency of marketing and sales initiatives and other business processes. In addition, Omniture offers a range of professional services that complement its online services, including implementation, best practices, consulting, customer support and user training through Omniture Education. Omniture’s over 5,000 customers include eBay, AOL, Wal-Mart, Gannett, Microsoft, Neiman Marcus, Oracle, Sony and HP. www.omniture.com

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Abode revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com

Historical Information:
Note to Readers: The press releases, presentations and printed remarks and materials are included on this web site for historical purposes only. The information contained in these documents should be considered accurate only as of the date of the relevant document. This information may change over time. Visitors to this web site should not assume that the information contained in these documents remains accurate at a later time. We do not have any current intention, and expressly disclaim any obligation, to supplement, update or revise any of the information in these documents.

Source: www.omniture.com/press/777

Many of the readers of Marketing Pilgrim likely had a rough 100 or so minutes yesterday when Googles popular Gmail application crashed and went dark via the web. Watching the Twitter stream of panic and rage caught in 140 character snapshots was amusing for a while but when everyone tries to out Tweet the next guy with some witty musing on the event it gets real old real quick.

As I sat and pondered life without Gmail for a while I was wondering if someone in Mountain View wasnt lamenting the removal of the beta tag from the service earlier this year.

In looking for an explanation, its best to turn to the source. The old adage is that Its not that you have a problem but rather how you handle it that is most important., applies here in a way that Google would like to not repeat. Heres some official words from the official Gmail blog.

Gmails web interface had a widespread outage earlier today, lasting about 100 minutes. We know how many people rely on Gmail for personal and professional communications, and we take it very seriously when theres a problem with the service. Thus, right up front, Id like to apologize to all of you ” todays outage was a Big Deal, and were treating it as such. Weve already thoroughly investigated what happened, and were currently compiling a list of things we intend to fix or improve as a result of the investigation.

The blog then goes on to explain the 5 Ws of the situation in laymans terms and, in my opinion, provided an appropriate mea culpa as well as showing that there is work taking place to ensure that this would not happen again to the same degree. What was most interesting was the recognition that the way that the architecture was at the time of the failure caused the shutdown rather than a slowdown and that Gmail is opting for slow service over no service for the future. Good choice.

Whats next: Weve turned our full attention to helping ensure this kind of event doesnt happen again. Some of the actions are straightforward and are already done ” for example, increasing request router capacity well beyond peak demand to provide headroom. Some of the actions are more subtle ” for example, we have concluded that request routers dont have sufficient failure isolation (i.e. if theres a problem in one datacenter, it shouldnt affect servers in another datacenter) and do not degrade gracefully (e.g. if many request routers are overloaded simultaneously, they all should just get slower instead of refusing to accept traffic and shifting their load). Well be hard at work over the next few weeks implementing these and other Gmail reliability improvements ” Gmail remains more than 99.9% available to all users, and were committed to keeping events like todays notable for their rarity.

For something of this magnitude I give Google a decent grade for being transparent enough to say Yup, were not perfect while working to get it right for the future. Today will be a great day for all of the Google haters out there. I on the other hand, have decided to realize that since I am far from perfect myself, that to expect from others is, well, a waste of time. Does that mean I will welcome future outages with open arms? Of course not. Based on what I have seen here though, I suspect that Google wont either.

Source: http://www.searchnewz.com/topstory/news/sn-2-20090902WhatIfGmailWasGone.html

Over the years hundreds of stories of domain name theft have been reported, most famous among them of course is the theft of Sex.com. Even as recent as last week, reports of stolen domains sent a chilling reminder through the domain industry as valuable domains Before.com, Adios.com and others were stolen from Warren Weitzman. Until recently, there hasn’t been a case of a domain theft where the thief was caught and arrested. However, on July 30th, Daniel Goncalves was arrested at his home in Union, New Jersey and charged in a landmark case, the first criminal arrest for domain name theft in the United States.

In a similar fashion to the Sex.com theft, the events that led to Goncalves arrest involve a long back story, one that spans well over 2 years, and many players. Although insiders familiar with this case contend that Goncalves has stolen other valuable domains, this case centers on the theft and subsequent sale of the domain name P2P.com.

The Victims:
In 2005, internet entrepreneur and domain name investor Marc Ostrofsky and attorney Albert Angel along with his wife Lesli Angel partnered to purchase the domain name P2P.com for $160,000 from a Wisconsin company, Port to Print Inc. The domain industry was heating up in 2005, as was the emerging peer to peer music business and the co-owners of the domain name saw a great deal of potential with this investment and future development of the domain.

Ostrofsky is a well known investor in the domain space. His name was etched in domain name history with his 1999 sale of Business.com for $7.5 million and the multi-million dollar domain holding company, IREIT.COM, that he helped form with investment backing from Howard Schulz and Ross Perot. Albert Angel is an attorney and former Justice Department prosecutor with a background in internet payment processing. Angel and Ostrofsky have known each other for over 25 years and have done business together in other ventures.

The Angels had already invested in a small portfolio of domain names including profreedom.com and drugoverdose.com (2 more domains reportedly stolen by Goncalves). As a nurse who dealt with teen drug abuse issues, Lesli Angel became interested in buying and building sites on domains in the late 90’s. Domains such as drugoverdose.com gave her a means to reach out to some of the same audience that she was already helping as a nurse.  As the domain space heated up, Angel continued buying domains and built up a portfolio of around 800 domain names.

The Accused:
Daniel Goncalves, the 25 year old law firm computer technician arrested on Thursday, reportedly hacked in to the Angel’s AOL email account, used that information to retrieve the login details for the P2P.com from the Godaddy.com domain account. Goncalves performed an internal “domain push” transfer,which in effect transfered the domain name to another Godaddy account that he owned. Goncalves reportedly also falsified Paypal.com transaction records in an attempt to cover his trail and provide evidence that made it appear that he purchased the domain name for $1,500 from the Angels. The domain was listed in the name of Daniel Louvado during this time period (a bogus name consisting of Goncalves first name and his fiances last name).

In late 2006, Goncalves put the domain name P2P.com up for sale on eBay.com and on September 24, 2006 the eBay.com auction for the domain P2P.com closed in the amount of $111,000.  The Angels pointed out to DNN that from their investigations Goncalves already owned his own home with a new inground pool being installed (in New Jersey?), drove a Lotus and Mercedes and was frequently bragging about his travels.

The Baller:
Caught in the middle of this and claiming to be a “good faith” purchaser is Mark Madsen, NBA basketball player with the LA Clippers. Madsen is reportedly also a domain name investor and was the buyer of the P2P.com domain name on eBay.com.  Domaintools.com Whois history shows that Madsen took ownership of the domain name on February 28, 2007. Current whois records for the domain show that the domain name is protected with whois privacy protection, but according to insiders familiar with the case the current owner is still Madsen.  Madsen has been investing in domain names for years and has been linked to the user name thecollins2 in some domain name forums and the company Woodside Technology Group.

The Gatekeepers?
Godaddy.com is the world’s largest domain name registrar. With over 30 million domains being managed, it’s safe to assume the registrar has been faced with a few cases of domain name theft.  The domain name P2P.com was registered with Godaddy.com and all evidence from whois history records points to the domain name being moved internally to a new account within Godaddy.  The domain name now uses Godaddy’s whois privacy services to hide the ownership. According to the Angels, Godaddy stone-walled any efforts to investigate the theft and in a final passing of the buck, the Angels say that Godaddy told them that they should have been better defended against hackers and must bear the risk. It’s clear that the domain name was pushed between 2 accounts.  The Angels contend that subpoenaed Godaddy.com records reveal that the registrar knew that Goncalves was implicated in two other domain thefts at least one month prior to the P2P.com theft.

In many cases, intricate registrar contracts, safe-harbor laws and statutory exemptions protect domain name registrars from being held liable in domain theft cases. Cases like Kremen v. Cohen (Sex.com stolen) and  Solid Host v. Namecheap however have carved new paths in applying the law to cases involving registrars and domain name theft. The P2P.com civil and criminal cases will use these decisions and likely even lay new ground for future decisions.

The Professionals:
Joshua Pelissero, a self-described legend in tracking domain thieves, was enlisted by the Angels to help unwind the events that happened after the domain theft and to find additional evidence of Goncalves online activities. Domain investor Richard Lau and expert witness from the Sex.com case,  Ellen Rony was also tapped to help uncover more information about the case. The Angels and more specifically Lesli Angel have been tracking Daniel Goncalves and building up evidence for over 2 years. With the help of Pelissero, Lau, and Rony the pieces of the puzzle began to fall together and the evidence began to become more clear. Angel told us “this business is not for the faint of heart. You have to know what you’re doing and be educated.” With these pros backing up their efforts, the Angels made a great deal of progress.

The Case:
In the Spring of 2007, the Angels took their case to prosecutors in both New Jersey and Florida. The investigation proceeded in Florida since the Angels are Florida residence, meanwhile the New Jersey police, where the accused resides, put their case on hold.  Three months after taking the case, Florida prosecutors dropped it for “lack of evidence”.  The only recourse left for the Angels was to pursuit Goncalves through a civil action. They used the Freedom of Information Act to gather up the evidence from the Florida prosecutors investigations and continued in their vigilance, building up an even stronger civil case.

The civil suit against Daniel Goncalves and Mark Madsen was filed in November 2007 to retrieve the P2P.com domain name. After further discovery, the filing was amended in June of 2009 to include new defendents, Goncalves brother and wife (on RICO conspiracy grounds) and Godaddy.com (for negligence and contributory trademark infringement under Anti-Cyber Piracy statute). The civil suit is still ongoing but but as of Thursday Goncalves is also now facing criminal charges.

Months after the Florida prosecutors dropped the original investigation, Detective Sergeant John Gorman of the New Jersey State Police Cyber-Crimes Unit reviewed and reignited the P2P.com case, asking the couple if they would like to pursuit it further.  The Angels traveled to New Jersey and presented the mountains of evidence and findings that they had been accumulating over the last 2 years.  In May of 2009 the NJ District Attorney approved the indictment and on July 30th Goncalves was arrested at his home and his computers seized.

According to the P2P.com theft victims, this marks the first time in the US that a domain name theft has resulted in an arrest.  Detective Sergeant, John Gorman of the New Jersey Cyber-Crimes Unit is responsible for reviving this case. Without his push to move this case forward it’s likely another domain theft would have just been left to be handled through a civil case. Albert Angel told DNN “these hackers basically thumb their nose at the legal system.”  With the criminal prosecution moving forward, these cyber-criminals, who often taunt their victims with a brazen “what are you going to do about it” attitude, now may actually face the long-arm of the law.

So why are these thieves escaping justice and why aren’t we hearing more about these cases?
Simply put, Complications

Cases of domain name theft have not typically involved a criminal prosecution because of the complexities, financial restraints and sheer time and energy involved. If a domain name is stolen, the victim of the crime in most cases would need experience with the technical and legal intricies associated with the domain name system.  To move the case forward, they would also need a law enforcement professional who understands the case or is willing to take the time to learn. For example, the Angels told us that in their case they called their local law enforcement in Florida who sent a uniformed officer in a squad car to their home. The first thing you can imagine the officer asked was, “What’s a domain?”.

Additionally financial restraints play a major role. Often times the rightful owners of these domains simply can’t justify the thousands of dollars in legal fees necessary to handle a case like this. Domains that don’t have the sort of value that a domain like P2P.com has in the aftermarket may still contain a value that only the original owner can appreciate. Good luck convincing a law enforcement professional that your domain name is valuable under those circumstances. It’s likely that many small business owners faced with this situation would simply give up. Lesli Angel told DNN “we’re fortunate enough to be in a position where we can go after the criminals . . .what if you weren’t in our position though?”  Pelissero stated that most of the domains he has helped recover were owned by people who didn’t have the means, desire or knowledge to track down the thieves and get their domain name back.  “I had a domain stolen from me before, so I know what it’s like to have that happen. It’s horrible and I was only out $10,000″ said Pelissero. “This could happen to anyone and there really is no recourse especially for someone without financial means,” stated Angel.

Complicating the matter further is that domain names are globally traded assets and jurisdiction muddies the waters further. In this particular case, the domain name was stolen from a registrar headquartered in Arizona, the domain was owned by a Florida resident and the accused is a resident of New Jersey. Add to it that the domain registry is located in Virginia.   Frankly, the owners were lucky that this all took place on US soil. Imagine how much more complicated a case like this could become if involved international parties.

Attorney Paul Keating told DNN that most cases of domain theft recovery that he has dealt with have been complicated at best.  The real problem stems from the fact that domain names aren’t considered property. “The laws do not specifically identify domains as property. That has been the subject of various court decisions. Not all courts have issued consistent decisions. For example, bankruptcy courts have no difficulty treating domains as property. The IRS treats domains as a form of intellectual property and allows amortization along the lines of a trademark though over a shorter period,” Keating said.  Further complications come in to play when we look at the rulings in different states. “California is believed to treat them as property after the Sex.com case but that was a federal decision interpreting California law. The Eastern District of Virginia (where the Verisign registry is headquartered) clearly holds domains to be the subject of a license and thus not property. I have been involved in various state-level cases seeking recovery of stolen names or trying to specifically enforce a domain purchase agreement in California and the courts have always honored the claim.”

Albert Angel summed it up well “If your car is stolen and you demand its return from a subsequent purchaser for value, you recover your car in 50 states, on well-settled common law principles. Try to recover a stolen domain name, and you have a decent chance perhaps in one state (CA) but you have bought yourself an expensive, and legally uncertain lawsuit in most other states. Short of such laws being created on a Federal basis or by each State, any business owner could lose their domain name and website and never legally be able to retrieve it.  Federal laws are needed to protect every company and individual domain name owner.”

These complications and hurdles however seemed to be no match for the vigilant Albert and Lesli Angel. In fact when talking to the victims, one realizes that the hacker who stole the P2P.com domain from this group couldn’t have picked a worse target. I’m sure if Goncalves knew he was going to be facing the challenge of a team consisting of Ostrofsky, a well-known and connected player in the domain space, Albert Angel, an experienced attorney and Lesli Angel, a vigilant former nurse who told us she “just can’t stand to see anyone suffering”, he may have reconsidered some of his actions.

When asked what drove their continued vigilance in pursuing this case for over 2 years Lesli Angel told DNN “Besides wanting our domain back, we want to carve a path for others. Let’s face it the legal system has not caught up with the growth of the internet. We hope the outcome of this case paves the way and makes it easier for victims of this type of crime. These guys are thieves! Why are they not being arrested? Why are they continuing to get away with this?”

Goncalves is now out of jail after posting $60,000 bond.  He will be facing at least 2 court cases soon and this time it’s not just a civil suit.  The NJ prosecutors intend to push forward with the criminal case and press for a felony conviction.  DNN will be following the case closely and provide updates as we receive them.

So, what do you think about this case?

• Should a domain name registrar be held responsible for domains stolen from accounts?
• Do we need new laws that protect domains and classify them as a form of property with certain protections?
• Do we need reform in the current domain name registry contracts and ICANN policy which would also classify domains as property rather than a contract?
• Who will be the overseer and enforcer of these new rules?
• Lastly, What would you do if your most valuable domain name was stolen?

There are a million opinions about the announcement this week of the Microsoft and Yahoo! joining at the hip (in a businesslike way). Fortunately, it is a big Internet and there is always room for one more. I have been looking at this entire proceeding now for several months and just at the start of this week had become so tired of the chatter around who did or didn’t do what that I whined about it.

Yup, I whined. I got fed up with all the speculation, rumors and outright fables being spread around that I threw up my hands and asked, “Who cares?”

Well, now that the union has been announced with signings using oversize pens the time for real “What ifs?” can start in full, so I will offer up a few of mine right now.

What if these two corporate monoliths sign all the necessary paperwork and do all the glad-handing in front of the cameras, and then the two companies just can’t get along? Sharing search engines (Bing will be the search engine for both entities although Yahoo will retain its current look and feel…supposedly) and sharing a sales effort sounds great on paper, but in practice? While I hold out hope that these two can do something to pull this off as smoothly as possible, I have also been around enough to know that the train has left the station, and the potential wreck that lies ahead could be of spectacular proportions.

What if Yahoo! has truly turned itself into AOL v2? Larry Dignan over at ZDNet goes over this possibility in great detail and with great insight. Remember when AOL had it’s own search function then it handed over the reigns to Google? Does anyone really recognize AOL as an online leader anywhere and for any reason at this point in history? As for Google, well, they have done OK, despite losing their shirts on their investment in AOL, which was just bought back by Time Warner this week at bargain basement prices. In fact, an AOL SEC filing spells out some interesting details.

In 2008, search advertising revenues comprised approximately one-third of our total advertising revenues and was the only category of our advertising revenues that grew year-over-year. Changes that Google has made and may unilaterally make in the future to its search service or advertising network, including changes in pricing, algorithms or advertising relationships, could adversely affect our advertising revenues.

Yahoo! can still sell the search but they can’t control the search. Eerily similar to the AOL / Google relationship isn’t it?

What if Steve Ballmer and Carol Bartz were put into a cage and allowed to go after each other MMA (mixed martial arts) style? So, that’s a little over the top, but after the initial Ballmer psychotic outburst and chair-throwing tactic, my money is on Bartz. I think she would clean his clock.

What if one of the most important SEO tool features just went away? For you SEOs, it’s time to start looking for a replacement for the ‘link colon operator’ (site:yourdomain.com) that has been a mainstay of examining Web site back links since both Google AND Microsoft scrapped their offerings years ago. Oh, and all those other need search tools? Well, all bets are off for now. For me, it was actually the only time I used Yahoo! for anything other than e-mail and the occasional news piece. If they take that away then there will be some SEOs that are SOL.

What if this thing really worked as designed? Imagine a day in the somewhat distant future where Google actually has a competent competitor and the market is driven by the competitive forces. Could that lead to, dare I say, real innovation? Wouldn’t that be cool?

So, to sum it up, I am actually rooting for this thing to work. Why? I want to see someone push Google a bit. Honestly, I depend on Google for far too much but they are the best at what they do and it happens in one place. Convenience and performance are key for anyone. Hopefully, the new union between Microsoft and Yahoo! turns into a winner, and not the kind of unholy union of our worst fears.

Source: searchnewz.com/topstory/news/sn-2-20090731WhatIfScenariosforMicrohoo.html