Today, the largest tobacco tax increase goes into effect. The per-pack tax jumps from $0.39 to $1.01. Yes, that is per pack. I read that Texans will now be paying over $7.00 per pack. I quit smoking 4 years ago, this time I think for good. I know how tough it is to quit so to all who have that will, I wish you the best. I am always amazed that even in times of need or desperation a person can still afford a drink and a smoke. They may starve to death, but at least they won’t go sober or smoke free.

Also, as of today, the Conficker Worm is supposed to return to it’s roost after having robbed you computer of every thing and await on further instructions. The quickest way to tell if you have it is to type the address of one of the popular anti-virus sites, like Symantec.com. If the page does not resolve, you may have the worm. It has been instructed not to open those sites as a means of self preservation.

The government is going to back my auto warranty. Does that mean that, for the most part, the service will get better and I won’t be overcharged? Yeah, I thought so.

Speaking of autos, I read that Ford will cover your car payment if you lose your job. Restrictions apply: they will only cover up to $700.00 a month. I did not know Ford made anything worthy of a $700.00 vehicle payment. Apparently the rest of the US feels the same way.

None of the above is an April Fool’s Joke.

I’m ready to be humored.

Understand this from the getgo…this is not about .mobi. It happens to be a popular dot mobi forum, Mobility.mobi.

The issue is HostGator shutting down Mobility.mobi because of one complaint from one person.

The issue is if you use HostGator, this can happen to you.

Here’s the storyline.

One Friday March 27, Mobility.mobi was off the internet and the site resolve to a HostGator page telling webmaster to contact HostGator.

What happened and why this happened is the basis of the blog post.

A person complained to HostGator that he was getting spam because Mobility.mobi had his email address posted.

HostGator shut down Mobility.mobi from this one complaint.

That is it. That is all. There is no more to the reason.

Last year, America.mobi popped up for sale. First on eBay and then other sites. The greatest concern was there was a TM attached to the registration as this was a reserved name awarded to a TM holder.

But the burning question was, Was the TM legitimate?

Information from the public WHOIS database was published. This had the registrant’s name, address, phone number and email. I called and had a lengthy discussion with the owner. Long story short, the TM was legit. The holder was a programming whiz kid and he developed a search engine. The result was a product that stole the show at a competition. At the urging of many notable MS, Apple, and other big names in attendance, this kid created a name for the product and registered the TM – America.

That teen is now studying law at University of Florida. Being into tech and new tech and armed with a TM, he successfully applied for and was granted the domain name America.mobi.

This information is NOT second-hand as I personally called to inquire not only about the domain but the TM also. No way would I ever consider buying any product or service (tangible or intangible) with a TM attached unless I had the rights to the TM.

I did not end up buying it and the TM holder (at the time) would sell the TM seperate from the domain sale but to the new owner. In other words, the TM was not part of the package but was branded software and scripts.

As a side note, if what the TM holder says is true, then he should have gotten patents instead of a TM. According to the TM holder, many search engines including google now have some of his TM material written perhaps a decade ago as part of their search engines.

But lets move forward to now.

This past Friday morning around 830am, the phone rang while I was still in bed. The answering machine picked up the message left. Around 11 am I get around to playing back my messages. There was a lengthy message from the TM holder. He wanted me to call him back but went on to say that the reason for his call was he was getting spam mail to his email address because his email was posted on the forum. He wanted me to go back to almost a year ago and delete his email.

A quite odd and unfounded request but, nonetheless, I would oblige.

When I attempted to log onto the Mobility.mobi site that was when I landed on the HostGator lander.

This is no lie – I immediately thought about the Sechlist.org debacle with GoDaddy a couple of years or so ago. A complaint regarding MySpace personal information that was posted on Sechlist.org. Host by GD, MySpace filed a complaint and GD took Sechlist down without notice.

Okay, that was absurd thinking as this kid complaining to HG would not be sufficient to take the site down.

That is exactly what happened.

The entire event and what was said in a letter has been posted and discussed at length at Mobility.mobi. It has been moved to the legal section of the site. This might require you to be a member to view.

The owner/admin of mobility posted the entire complaint submitted.

Again, let me remind you that this is not about .mobi or anything other than a complaint submitted to the host of the site.

The basis of the complaint is as follows:

MOBILITY.MOBI and ANDRES KELLO have violated your Terms of Service
(TOS) by hosting illegal and/or unacceptable material and/or content,
including, but not limited to the following: “Harassment”, “Sites
promoting illegal activities”, “Fraudulent Sites,” and/or “Forums and/
or Websites that distribute” illegal content. Furthermore,
MOBILITY.MOBI has violated Florida Libel and Defamation Statutes,
including Fla. Stat. �836.01, �836.04, �836.09, and �836.11, that
prohibit defamatory content from being posted on the internet.

Under Florida Law, intentionally communicating false statements about
a person with the intent to damage his reputation constitutes the tort
of defamation for which an entity may be held liable for civil
damages, including punitive damages. Intentionally making false
criminal charges against a person without probable cause is also
actionable for civil damages as an abuse of process or malicious
prosecution. MOBILITY.MOBI’s conduct, at the very least has been
reckless, if not intentional.

MOBILITY.MOBI has violated the United States Federal Trademark
Dilution Act (“FTDA”), which prohibits Registered United States
Trademarks from being diluted. The content and information posted on
above URLS violate the FTDA as well as numerous other Federal
Trademark and Copyright Laws, including the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (“DMCA”).

Quite crafty. Keep in mind that this person is a law student at the University of Florida. Oh, and last year he was working at the USPTO while on summer break.

Basically, someone at HostGator freaked out and pulled the plug. Now, remember, this is really over someone’s allegations of a site being responsible for some email spam he is getting.

A forum with nearly 2,600 members was shut down and taken off line because of this complaint. Think about it. Without any investigation, any confirmation, any notice to the site webmaster, any notice to anyone, without any anything the forum was shut down by a legaleese sounding letter. When the site was back on, that is when Andres posted the complaint.

Hostgator was invited to the forum to respond. And they did.

Here are some points you need to be aware of and HostGators stance on this issue:

“…legal complaints that appear to be legitimate.

“If the datacenter gets a complaint, however, that could result in them disabling the entire server, which will bring down not only the particular website complained about down, but also every other site on the server.“

Did you just read that?

I want to know what HostGator considers legal complaints. Does this apply to any complaint as being legal and legitimate based purely on the premise that a complaint was made? Or is it the legal sounding or composed or tonal complaints that causes HostGator to respond in such a manner?

But here is the real kicker.

How many of you use HostGator? I have two hosting accounts with HostGator, over 80 active sites with them including DNhop.com.

“If the datacenter gets a complaint, however, that could result in them disabling the entire server, which will bring down not only the particular website complained about down, but also every other site on the server.“

How many of you have a dedicated server? How many don’t? How many of you have a shared server?

How many of you would like your site(s), your livelihood(s), your revenue stream(s) shut off because someone registered a complaint?

Do you want to know what this is really about?

He did not know that his registry information is a matter of public record and available to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. He had no idea who, what, where a WHOIS database is, how it is accessed, or what it does.

He had no idea he could get WHOIS privacy.

He is not a domainer.

He was nothing more than a consumer who was getting spam email and the only reason he could think of was his email being posted on a forum (of which he joined in on the discussion) nearly a year ago.

It does not matter if the complaint had any basis or legitimacy to it.

It does not matter because noting was investigated, discussed, or looked into.

It was easier just to pull the plug.

Upended.com

One word dictionary domain.

6 years old

Currently $300.00

In less than 12 hours since posting Name Spotting VWN.com, the domain bidding is now at $8,565.00 with 65 bids and still, and 8 days-23 hours remain.

VWN.com

9 days remain, currently $2,420.00

TDnam

XMLe.com

9 years old

As if I did not have the time to do what I already have going.

Let’s just add more to the menu.

Because I like WordPress so much I have decided to construct another site, DNhopper.com.

DNhopper was concieved utilizing the old southern (perhaps more widespread than that?) for a storage bin – hopper. And, by golly, it fit as a companion site to DNhop.

So, laugh as I struggle to figure out WordPress in a 3 column lay out. Actually, the struggle is not that bad after having spent years inside a Joomla administrator control panel.

I have been approached by several people over the years to help broker names. Well, I am going to do it on DNhopper’s (and DNhop’s) site. A fee will typically be 10% of the selling price. This is, of course, subject to change dependant upon the contacts (potential end users) and the amount of work involve in the personalized contacting of those end users.

And don’t forget…you can follow me on Twitter (DNhop) to see the latest acquisitions and domaining news and newsworthy events. Plus, there are many more great domainers to follow.

I was reminded yesterday about the short comings of mobi. How to monitize.

Perhaps this is not a domainer’s domain. If you are looking to make money by parking a domain, it better not be a dot mobi.

If you are looking for a quick-up way of getting a website on the net and creating an internet presence, this is it.

But when do domainers stop being concerned about money and start connecting with the real world.

Several months ago, perhaps a year or so, I regged the domain name iCPR.mobi. I immediately set out to make a web site to illustrate and provide to all the life saving technique of CPR. Not one before, during, or after the initial reg have I ever been concerned about making money on the site or of the domain. In fact, the site is add free. At the bottom are other beneficial ad-free sites.

The reason for this was due to the creation of a new CPR technique called Hands Only. The reason for the development of this technique is silly and true at the same time. There were studies that related the best survival rates were ones that kept the pump pumping (heart) and not stopping this process with rescue breathing. The other reason was simply because, Ooo…I’m not giving mouth-to-mouth to someone I don’t know.

That is the reality and the long and short of it. Hands Only CPR was developed out of neccesity and essentially saying, Ok, you don’t want to give mouth-to-mouth. Then don’t.

So I created a site that walked and talked anyone through these steps, step-by-step, for giving CPR to adult, child, and infant.

Since the creation, and from tooting my own horn to having a few sites pick this up, I have seen mention of this site in numerous places. That’s good. Everyone should have access to knowing how to do CPR.

I also added a module to make it translate into 13 languages as well as English.

I didn’t stop there. I created iHosp.mobi. This is basically a local locator for hospitals, clinics, doctors and specialists. This is really cool because when I say local, I mean local no matter where you are. NYC, LA, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo…no matter where you are you have access to all the assistance.

Next up was EmergencyGuide.mobi. Someone suffering a heart attack is not the only thing to happen around us. So I created this Emergency guide as a site that includes CPR (icpr.mobi), where to find a clinic or hospital (ihosp.mobi), and added in Poison Control and The CDC. Basically, the only thing missing is the First Aide Kit (Hmm…).

There are two features to point out.

First, because they are .mobi compliant these sites will work equally well and equally fast on any mobile device and on the PC. There is nothing to download and they are free. No subscription necessary. So bookmark them and share them.

Secondly, and most importantly, they are ad free. Let’s face it. We are domainers and we can spot an ad no matter how it is disguised. Guess what. So can’t the rest of the consumer base. If you are sick and tired of looking at ads then rest assured you are not alone.

I did not want any ads simply because with these sites I have nothing to promote except assisting and helping someone in times of need. I did not want any distractions or any interruptions in the flow of communication. The user does not have time to inadvertently click on an ad when their child has swallowed a potentially harmful chemical from under the sink.

Saving a life has no price.

I just want to take a moment to pass on the eternal graditude to an outstanding man.

Dr. Walter Bo recently passed away. He was the father of my next door neighbor.

Dr. Bo, aged 86, worked up until recently as one of the faculty members at Bowman Grey Medical School, Wake Forest University.

His career at Wake began in 1960.

Yes, he taught for 49 years at Wake.

He taught gross anatomy and physiology to interns and medical students. He pioneered ways of instruction and teaching that predates most of the diagnostics we take for granted today. Books that he authored and co-authored 40 years ago are still part of the cirriculums of medical schools across the globe.

Dr. Walter Bo.

Husband, Father, Grandfather, Teacher, Friend.

BoSox.net

10 years old

Accepting offers.

info@ceuq.com