As most companies look to renewable energy sources like wind and and water, data center firm Infinity is building a facility to take advantage of a much different power source: methane from cows.

The company is building a data center in East Anglia, England that will use biomaterial from local farms to generate electricity. The conversion process will also generate fertilizer as a byproduct. The firm has given the process the name “Dark Green Energy.”

Continue reading: Methane-powered data center under construction in UK

While the passing of the Digital Economy Bill by Parliament last week changes quite a few things, one of more important inclusions in the legislation deals with domain registrars. Among other things, the government now has the right to regulate any “UK-related” domain registrar.

Most notably, this includes Nominet, the operator of the .uk ccTLD. In the event the government concludes it is not up to snuff, authorities now have the power to replace it with a more competent registrar.

While there is currently no need for the government to act on its new powers, I think this component of the law is a great thing for website owners the public at large. Registrars need to be held more accountable for their actions.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: UK government gains power over registrars

Citing recent statistics issued by ICANN stating that 3/4 of WHOIS data is inaccurate, Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is calling for more rigorous accuracy requirements.

SOCA says it is too easy for organised crime to fake domain contact data and wants ICANN to make falsifying contact data more difficult. This would make it much easier to track down scammers, phishers, and other cyber criminals.

Short of verifying every domain registrant’s contact data and instituting criminal penalties for data-fakers, I really don’t see how this is going to happen. Even if more stringent efforts were taken, I’m sure criminals would find a way to bypass them. After all, don’t criminals still manage to get credit cards, passports, and drivers’ licenses all the time?

Continue reading: SOCA calls for better WHOIS accuracy

The Metropolitan Police’s Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) announced today that it, in conjunction with the .uk registry, has shut down more than 1200 .co.uk domains.

The domains in question were used by organised criminal networks for scamming. Many contained fake online stores where consumers could order designer goods for low prices, but these people ended getting conned out of their money instead. The names are thought to have generated millions of pounds in revenue.

It’s great to see something being done about Internet fraud. Cyber criminals are often times very difficult to prosecute, but in this case the PCeU found a way it could take action with minimal effort.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: UK police shut down 1200 .co.uk domains

The Digital Economy Bill, currently in Parliament, could have major implications on the domain industry. It contains a broad clause that, if approved, will give the government the right to nationalize any failing domain registry based in the UK.

Some domainers are crying foul over this, but in my opinion, this legislation is a good safety net for domain owners. In the event a registry fails, would you rather lose your domain investments or have the government take over the extension so you can keep them? Think about it like government-insured bank deposits.

Hopefully the bill will also force registries to operate more ethically. As politicians gain more awareness about web issues, expect them to get more involved in Internet governance.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: UK could obtain right to nationalize domain registries

A report on advertising spending conducted by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that UK advertisers have spent more money on Internet advertising so far this year than on television adverts.

In all, the web accounts for 23.5% of advertising expenditure, or £1.75 billion. Still a dominant power, TV made up 21.9% of spending.

This is important to domainers because it shows that companies and marketing firms value the Internet just as much as any other communications medium. Thus they are more likely to understand the value of a premium domain. Because of increased advertisement spending, website owners stand to make more from PPC ads.

Source | The Domains

Continue reading: New media advertising report is good news for domainers

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is pursuing litigation against a California-based company called Balls of Kryptonite for allegedly using using websites on two .co.uk country domains to trick UK customers into thinking the company was local. According to the charges, the company had two domains, bestpricebrands.co.uk and bitesizedeals.co.uk, and used the websites to sell electronics such as cameras and video games.

UK customers saw no indications that the company was international and purchased goods from them. But when the items arrived, they received unexpected import charges, invalid warranties, and huge cancellation fees. Customers sent complaints to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) which in turn collaborated with the US-based FTC.

This is not the first time that foreign companies have used UK domain names to appear local. Reports estimate that there could be as many as 480,000 sites with co.uk country domains that are not based in the UK. Most of them are based in China. Customers should therefore use caution when ordering from unfamiliar companies, and if they are not sure, they can use Whois lookup to determine the location of the domain’s owner.

Source: The Independent
Photo: Flickr

Continue reading: FTC: Company Tried to Trick UK Customers

As if the .ae top-level domain craze could stand to get more sensational, Michael Reed, a businessman from the United Kingdom, is complaining that the UAE domain regulator, .aeDA unlawfully took back a domain he had legitimately registered. The domain in question is Irena.ae. Reed owns a 12-year-old trademark for Irena, a nutritional supplement, in Europe and the UK.

According to Reed, however, when the UAE government made a deal with IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Association, they snipped his registration from over his own registrar’s head. The regulator .aeDA argues that Reed did not register the domain until two days after the IRENA EU statute and that he posted a “for sale” advertisement on youcanbuythiswebsite.com. When they contacted him, they said he did not respond in a timely manner.

Reed contends that he never offered the domain for sale. The .aeDA asserted that its policies grant it permission to revoke registration of domains that are identical to inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), but there is no mention of it in the policy document. Reed is threatening to pull his business out of the UAE completely. Now it will be up to the UAE to decide which is more important to them: their inter-governmental agreements or the business interests and potential commercial benefits of one man.

Source: Arabian Business
Photo: Flickr

Continue reading: UK Businessman in Heated Dispute Over .AE Domain

Last week, I covered what is undoubtedly one of the most secure data centers in the United States, if not the world. But a UK facility, dubbed “The Bunker,” may give the Americans a run for their money.

The government-owned data center is located in Kent and sits 30 meters underground below a secure fenced-in area. Like the American facility, it features guard dogs, cameras, and armed guards. Routine patrols and encrypted keys are also used to prevent unauthorized access. Oh, and did I mention that the whole place is designed to survive a nuclear blast?

Triple redundancy ensure the power never goes out. Air-tight doors and thick steel walls are also present to prevent any type of electronic eavesdropping equipment from monitoring the facility. Is it me, or is the government a bit paranoid?

Continue reading: Meet "The Bunker"

According to new Internet data, there are now more websites than people in the world — over 1 trillion. With such large numbers, there are 150 domains per person, and it would take 31,000 to read all of them, even if you spent only one minute on each and never slept. Still, just 1.46 billion out of 6 billion people in the world use the Internet, meaning it would take a long time even for all of them combined to see all websites.

China leads the list with 338 million users, with the US trailing at 227 million. Japan, India, and Brazil round out the top five. The UK is a bit lower with 48 million users, reflective of its smaller population. The interestingly neglected part of this data and most raw data like it, is that there is no analysis of the website content.

Of the 1 trillion websites out there, how many are made up of malware, spam harvestors, phishing, fraud, schemes, ad portals, parked domains, and cybersquatting? Furthermore, of the sites that are none of the above mentioned, how many are actually useful and worth visiting? While it may be the job of Google and Bing to index legitimate sites, it will be up to someone else to catalog and evaluate them. As the Internet continues to grow, so does the need for some time of organization.

Source: News.com.au
Photo: Flickr

Continue reading: The Internet is big, really big

A twenty-four-year-old woman in Manchester, formerly known as Claire Forshaw, has officially changed her name to Princess-Rainbow.com. She had apparently been contemplating such a move for quite some time, but her boyfriend dissuaded her, arguing that it would cost a lot of money. She finally investigated and found that she could do it for only £10.

The young woman does own the domain name princess-rainbow.com and plans to use it to sell her art online. Her reason for changing her name, however, is quite simple. She wanted to be the first to have a domain name as her name.

“When I realised it actually cost as little as £10 my boyfriend said that Princess-Rainbow.com was ideal for me because I am mad on rainbows!”

While it is amusing, the story does raise some questions. As the legal owner of princess-rainbow.com, which she intends to make a business, does she also have some right to the name? Can another person change her name to Princess-Rainbow.com? What about Princess-Rainbow.net or .org? Furthermore, it does open up a whole range of possibilities about other domains. Can I change my name to Internetblog.org.uk?

Source: The Independent
Photo: Flickr

Continue reading: Woman changes name to Princess-Rainbow.com

Following suit with the American announcement of a new cyber security advisor position, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to announce the creation of Britain’s own cyber security chief. The new chief will be responsible for protecting the country from hackers, cyber spies and every other sort of tech baddie out there.

Brown’s plan was endorsed by the Cabinet, and sources anticipate that he will name Neil Thompson to the position. His biggest concern, upon taking the position will be hackers in China and, to a lesser degree, Russia, where the cyber worlds are essentially lawless by UK standards. He will also have to tackle the possibility of terrorists who decide to attack through viruses and network security breeches rather than conventional means.

A lesser publicized role of a nation’s cyber chief might also be developing cyber warfare to attack enemy infrastructure, as the U.S. has used in the past to disable Taliban anti-aircraft systems. One can only imagine how many other countries will soon have their own cyber chiefs, which does raise a question. Will the “cyber czars” of the world’s nations have their conferences on Twitter, or will they start a Facebook group?

Source: Independent
Photo: Flickr

Continue reading: UK to get its own "Cyber Czar"