Twitter, Wikileaks Data named in U. S. Court Orders

Talk about the cat that ate the canary. Remember when Twitter  was just a funny sound birds made? Wikileaks, the Australian website now synonymous with expose information on the scale of the infamous Pentagon papers, is in the news again. Wikileaks, Wix, for short, is surely the domain hybrid of the decade, marrying the Wikipedia lexicon of data integrity to a brand of Internet age journalism. Wikileaks is now the target of a privacy demolishing attempt by the United States Government to acquire Twitter data in the form of messages form and to its principal news sources.

But if Wikileaks is Australian and America is another nation, how can Uncle Sam breach privacy with such a long sword? The Wix (Wikileaks) site now says the U.S. wants private messages, contact information and personal details of founder Julian Assange, Pfc. Bradley Manning and others. Wix also claims that Uncle Sam ordered Twitter not to disclose its court order action to Assange or any of the others under investigation. Remember when Twitter was just a funny sound birds made? Now it’s the faith and hope of new media freedom, like Iceland.

Twitter, one of many social network and media messaging sites that utilize wireless high speed technology for communications between individuals with private accounts, affirmed its practice of disclosing investigation and interest of government into their account . Webmasters and domainers everywhere are watching the Internet privacy of history sniffing, data trading, and marketing programming for abuses against individuals without their knowledge.  While such actions are draped in the mantle of august justice, they actually wear the mantle of an embarrassed administration as well.

The Twix scandal (Twitter plus Wikileaks) and legal machinations trying to oust Wikileaks sources will be closely watched by all citizens interested in preserving and protecting their rights to privacy. Birjitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic citizen, got news of her subpoena Friday. The Virginia court that landed its order in San Francisco based Twitter has no known link to the newly dead Pentagon official John Wheeler, killed by a homicide this week. Found in a Delaware landfill, the former Pentagon official (and West Point alumni) is still a mystery.

Wheeler, 66, had been working on promoting discussions about cyber-defense among governments, industry and academia, according to a company statement. A veteran of the Reagan, Bush and Dubya administrations. Wheeler is characterized by media statements as outspoken and a true patriot”.He even started a discussion forum online which had a host of curiously posthumous entries, as late as December 28th (2010).  Wheeler’s 225 pound body was found December 21st, 2010. Wheeler’s phone, which he was known to post on his site from, has been found. (Authorities may want to check his Twitter account).

FaceBook Makes the Cover of Time

When is a website a socially defining cultural phenomenon? When it begins to define the way we live. The cover of Time magazine and the interior article by Dan Fletcher explores not only the popularity of this website that started as a domain name, and encompasses the vast scope of social interaction as the Internet has changed it forever.

FaceBook has 500 million users. There are entire countries whose hosting capability doesn’t have the capacity to host that kind of traffic. On page 37 of the current edition of TIME there is a global penetration diagram showing how Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook share world domination. But the real news is how the evolving practices of online sharing and information architecture delimit security and privacy in an increasingly transparent internet social living space.

Domain Market Update

The recent six figure domain sales have given rise to the hopes of many a aftermarket domainer in these troubled economic times. Whereas some domainers may see a shrinking buyer’s market, other experts disagree. Noted domain bloggers have been consistently commenting on the healthy resale market and auction robustness catching the domainer headlines of late.

The legitimate monetary revenues derived from domaining have not shrunk so much as sharply diversified into more competitive markets. Domain development and domain resale via auction sales seem as healthy as they were in pre-recession late 2008. Furthermore, shifts in the domain marketplace, such as the closing of Bido and the auction privileges extended by certain registrars to some auction sites, symbolize not the expiration but the maturation of the domain market.

Domain sales across all TLD’s can still be savored, but the bonanza market of the initial land grab is past over with. Career domainers with specialized long game interests and savvy marketing skills can promote their chosen domain sale with an optimum chance of ultimate domain profit from resale. Choosing development options, hosting accounts, parking page and template versiosn as well as direct domain marketing to possible buyers brings the steady domain money home.

Google Courted by Would-Be Speedy Cities

The final phase of Google Fiber Town is approaching. As the March 26 deadline for applications for the key enhancement of the high speed fiber installation has past, the process has advanced another block, and interested parties are watching closely.

Google has become the courted object of many town’s desire. All across America, the cities identified as potential guinea pig test cities for the primary launch of a high speed network through an entire geomap have been vying for favor. The advantage for residents and businesses, home businesses and internet service related vendors for products and consumer spending to maximize value and opportunity is a test case the world will b watching.

How does this affect domain names? The geological place names and related domains for the selected town or city that gets the high speed internet fiver trial will instantly become huge attractions enabled to reach global traffic by the nature of the physical location alone.  Startup enterprises in the selected region will have enhanced telephony capacity for any type of Internet venture or online presence.

Google, a $23 billion enterprise, has announced it plans to provide an undetermined number of communities of between 50,000 and 500,000 people with ultra-high-speed broadband network s  The implementation is considered an experiment in next generation applications. The focus cities will become test beds for high speed fiber enabled communities, measuring growth when potential is infinite due to the residents using fiber-optic cable.

L.A. Ordinance Cuts Internet Taxes

The age of the internet business just got more affordable. As many Southern Californians know, the Santa Monica corridor is full of dot-coms working hard to stay afloat in the new recession. Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa signed a measure to cut business taxes for Internet-based firms, many of which last year saw their tax rate jump from the lowest in the city to the highest.

Villaraigosa signed the ordinance at the Westside Internet firm Shopzilla. Many dotcoms threatened to move if tax issues were not addressed. Under the new classification, dotcoms were placed in the “business and professions” category, which has a tax rate of $5.07 per $1,000 of gross receipts. Godo to keep in mind when starting up an American dotcom.

Google China: What Went Wrong?

Evidently the overarching deal terms to whatever agreement Google had with China didn’t stipulate clearly enough that Google’s brand and emechanisms would be falling under the red banner. Did China backwards engineer a Google fault or did they use proprietary technology to spark a lethal cyberattack against (American) competitors online?

     It would seem that some code originators in China are not nearly as scrupulous as the Chinese government would believe. Experts say Google has a case to proceed no matter what. Either (A) malicious hackers are so prevalent in China nobody can stop them, and hence Google can proceed unimpeded by censors, or (B) China’s Internet policy is hopelessly imperialistic given the elasticity and speed of the Internet andthe genie can’t be put back in the bottle for billions of Chinese Internet fans.

China’s unilateral policy towards Internet use is ungovernable and technically indefensible, as the last week’s hacking activity shows. If China wants to control the Internet and write dictatorial policy for the entire planet, such as altering Google engines would demand, they need to address more internal matters before presuming to articulate market forces.

China delimits Internet Webmaking

As befits a national government free of corruption, China today underscored its intent to censor Internet activity centered on website launches and content creation, citing prevention of child-based pornography, piracy, and fraud.

Yet transparently this seems to many to be a way for the current political establishment to elimination development of the opposition. And, ironically, these efforts to shut down sites leave the options to buy .Cn domains to foriegners.

“Individuals have also been banned from registering Web sites ending in .cn, China’s country code domain name. That domain is now limited to registered businesses.

 Although individuals can still register Web sites in other domains, such as .com and .net, the new rule “will have a negative impact on the vibrancy of the Chinese Internet,” Kenneth Jarrett, vice chairman of the communications firm APCO Worldwide’s China region, said in an e-mail message.

“Local e-mail e-commerce startups and individuals will find it difficult to apply,” he wrote.”

from the New York Times

Bing has SEO Fling, Twitted on Facebook

 

 

African Internet Boom

Africa is finally getting up to speed with cable Internet connectivity, a sigh of relief from expensive satellite connections. Faster than you can say dense division wave multiplexing, an undersea cable will connect continental Africans with global e-commerce and the information superhighway. The cable links southern Africa to Europe and Asia.

Provider SEACOM lit its 17,000 kilometer submarine cable, capable of 1.28 terabytes per second, allowing the region true connectivity. Gone will be the lines around the block for an hour to load a Youtube. New business will ‘springbok” from the region, domainers anticipate.

SEACOM, privately funded/75% African-owned, will provide retail carriers with open source access to inexpensive bandwidth. The 3 year project, providing landing stations at South Africa, Kenya, Madagascar and other points along the east coast of Africa, has had Africans holding their breath for connectivity with the rest of the world.

Burfurcated Internet China

Those looking to do business in domaining in China can scratch their heads. Amid reports that the idn.mobi agreement and press conference  just took place in China and accomplished that idn.mobi registrations will be going live in a few weeks, the unknown horizons of Chinese business frontiers loom. Billions of Chinese consumers are lurking?

Domain and internet global commerce is welcome,  but at the same time, the Chinese government requires internet filters and standard ‘policing’ webware to govern its citizen’s Internet habits and World Wide Web use. Who will the Chinese domain name customers be? Who will be the end user market for Chinese domain name development?