False Security: 'Scareware' Spreads

• APRIL 15, 2009

By JOSEPH DE AVILA

While surfing the Web in December, Keren Brophy got a message on her computer screen telling her to update her antivirus software. The pop-up message looked similar to Windows security warnings she'd routinely received. She paid $49.99 for a program called Antivirus 2009 from a company calling itself Meyrocorp and thought she was safe.

A few days after she installed the software, Ms. Brophy's computer wouldn't boot up properly and soon was unusable; she noticed the desktop icon for the software she'd bought had disappeared. She had to wipe her hard drive clean to get the computer working again. Hoping for a refund, she sent email to Meyrocorp but got only automated replies.

"I never got a dime back from them," says Ms. Brophy, a 37-year-old restaurant hostess from North Port, Fla. Meyrocorp couldn't be located for comment.

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Microsoft

Web sites selling phony antivirus software can appear legitimate.>>>

Wireless Cybercriminals Target Clueless Vacationers

Friday, July 10, 2009
By Steven Kotler

The newest trend in Internet fraud is "vacation hacking," a sinister sort of tourist trap.

Cybercriminals are targeting travelers by creating phony Wi-Fi hot spots in airports, in hotels, and even aboard airliners.

Vacationers on their way to fun in the sun, or already there, think they're using designated Wi-Fi access points. But instead, they're signing on to fraudulent networks and hand-delivering everything on their laptops to the crooks.

"More and more people are traveling with Wi-Fi devices like smartphones and laptops," says Marian Merritt, Internet safety advocate at the computer-security giant Symantec. "Airports and airlines and hotels are responding. They're setting up free Wi-Fi networks to lure in customers. Now they're luring in hackers as well."

In 2008, Silicon Valley-based AirTight Networks, a wireless security company, sent a team of "white-hat" hackers — good guys who try to thwart "black hat" hackers — around the world on an international airport study.

They checked the Wi-Fi networks at 27 airports — 20 in the U.S., five in Asia and two in Europe — and the results were not good.

At John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the baggage-handling system was being run on an insecure network. At other airports, ticketing systems were similarly exposed.

And everywhere they looked, they found fake Wi-Fi hot spots set up by hackers phishing for suckers — and there were plenty of suckers to be had.

"We found a lot of people using insecure Wi-Fi,">>>

GoDaddy Wants You to Go Twitter

July 2nd, 2009 | by Adam Ostrow

Ideally, your brand has the same name across all of the social sites you use, and, it matches your domain name (for example, we’re mashable.com, twitter.com/mashable, and facebook.com/mashable).

Realizing this fact, popular domain registrar GoDaddy has integrated Twitter () registration into its domain manager, allowing you to see if the Twitter username that matches your URL is available, and if so, register it.

The target here is GoDaddy’s small business users. >>>

GoDaddy Files Patent for Method of Selling Equity in Domain Names

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Domain registrar files patents for system to sell equity in domain names.

Go Daddy Group Inc. has filed a patent for a method of selling equity in domain names and protecting the domain names in which the equity is issued.

The patent is for a system that will facilitate the sale of shares in a domain name. The patent application explains that a number of institutions are interested in investing in domain names, but there isn’t a simple mechanism to do so. Conversely, many domain owners are interested in selling equity in their domain names, but need a way to connect with investors.

The sale of shares of equity in a>>>

Domain Name Help

By Henry Gold

Building a presence online has become a simpler thing to do. Whether you're a professional career person, a family hoping to stay up to date with current events or creating a business presence to display your latest products and services, creating a domain name the right way is a significant part of this puzzle.

There a few things to watch out for when registering your new domain name.

Don't get taken to the cleaners.

Domain names have come way down in price within the last five years or so. No longer is it necessary to spend more than $15 to get outfitted for a new web address. Don't believe the hype or fall for this expensive trap.

Buying your domain name from the same place as your hosting company.

Unfortunately, this is a bit more riskier than it sounds. Just like in today's economy we should all spread our financial assets and risks in a variety of places, it's also good idea to do the same when it comes to our business assets too.

Trust me, your domain name will become a business asset at some point in the future.

When it comes to your home on the internet, for safety sake, it's a good idea to not have all of your resources housed in one place.

Giving your credit card information to an unknown entity.

Did you know that anyone can sign up to be a reseller and become a domain registrar? This in and of itself is not a bad thing. I respect any ethical, business person who bootstraps their way and provides a good product. Unfortunately, if there business goes under, it's quite possible retrieving your information may prove to be very difficult to achieve.

Spam is not man's best friend...either online or off.

In the domain registry world, there's something commonly referred to as the blacklist. The blacklist consists of companies who often have spam related business complaints. Both domain registrars and hosting companies are oftentimes measured by this standard.

Don't leave your online reputation in the hands of unknown domain registrar companies.
Brand your projects the safest way possible.
Order a domain name today with one of the internet's top domain registration companies in the nation.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Henry_Gold

Domain Name - How Important is a Domain Name For Your Business?

By Ujwala Bapat

A domain name is the name of your website that you will use for reaching out to the millions in your niche online. Amongst other things like publishing articles or using social marketing websites that create your identity online, a domain name too can help you give your personalized touch on this massive information highway.

Millions of websites currently exist on the internet; each one tries to use the name of their niche. It is therefore, you will find some of the most alluring names already claimed by someone or the other. Therefore, finding a domain name to your liking is a chance of luck.

However, success of your website would not depend on the domain name, though it can be helpful in getting you the rankings with search engine. Some of the most successful and well known website names are not even related to the job they do. One of the best examples is the Google and another one would be Yahoo. Both the websites were created on a concept that filled up the basic requirement on the internet, and today these domain names are the most used.

Almost all SEO professionals would want that the name you finalize for your website should be absolutely in sync with the functions it will do. For example: Keywordcounty.com. This name tells us it has everything to do with finding keywords. This will help anyone coming across this domain name decide whether or not he wants to visit it.

It is a fact that perfectly chosen SEO domain name will help you in gaining high rankings at the search engines. However, it does not depend on the name alone, rather overall SEO of your website will have a lot to consider when gaining top rankings. Therefore, whatever the name, it will all boil down to the perfection in handling the optimization.

Your website is your identity. Some people have chosen lovely names for their websites. Since these are highly colloquial and easy to remember, people find searching and visiting these quite simple. One of the most successful of these is the www.craigslist.com, this is not just a personalization, it also signifies that it is a listing service or a classifieds website. No wonder this smart yet simple concept is gaining more than a million visitors everyday.

Most website naming blunders are done by those who do not have a huge experience in the field of internet. During the trials they end up getting such names that cannot be classified neither do these strike a chord with the users. For these websites to be successful the person could want to revamp. Ideally, the domain name for any website should be

• Easy to remember;
• Words should be from regular use;
• Should be related to the niche of the website.
• It should be short.

These are the basic tips. You can go ahead and find names that will come easily to users' minds. These can also be the top ranking keywords. However, if you check out the domain name registration, you will find most top ranking ones have been taken.

Get a great idea, and find a domain name to go with that idea?

There are many who love the internet, but also are quite busy in their own chosen professions. Many of whom would love to start an online business someday. In such a case, if you have an idea of what business you would like to start, you can start by finding a domain name. If you have found the perfect domain name for your business, it is most advisable that you do not waste time. Instead you should try and park it or rather register it so when you find the time to start your website you have it available.

Domain name registration does not cost much. Most hosting companies would do it for you for as low as $10 per year. Is that not a good bargain? There are many who also buy names and sell them for some profit. Whether or not you want to stay with the same hosting company later is your choice. You can easily transfer the domain name to another hosting company for meager charges or at times no charges at all.

Finding a perfect domain name will always help your online business succeed.

Online shopping for all your internet and other needs. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ujwala_Bapat

Finding Premium Domain Names

By Blake Worthington

Finding a premium domain name can be a really tough challenge to most people looking for domain names. The fact is that most premium domain names least in .com have been registered for many years and will be registered for a long time to come. Most of these domains are owned by people holding them for a nice payoff on there investment. There strategy is simple they pay registration fee which is usually $8 a year and hold on to the premium domains until a buyer comes along and pays $xx,xxx amount of money. Now I'm not saying this is a bad practice but I feel It actually rather stops the further progress of the internet by keeping more business from coming online. Most people that you may talk to will tell you that if you want an online presence you must have a .com and that's simply not true.

The old saying is .com is king when it comes to online development and selling of products. Now I agree that over the years people have had it ingrained in there minds that the only extension available is .com and that's just not true. There are literally hundreds of extensions available to register and many have premium domains still available to be registered right this moment. Now you may say well since .com is so common how would I ever be able to compete with the .com version. Well simply speaking most of these same folks holding premium .com domains fault in the fact they don't develop there domain names. Now with search engines content is king and without content being unique and updated routinely search engines give it less and less of a high rank. Now in order for you to compete you must provide content to your visitors and on a very frequent basis. Now there are many extensions that all do very well with proper development and by adding unique content.

Now you can start your journey to finding premium domain names by visiting "Namepros.com" which is actually where I started my journey. Namepros is a domain forum with information that is invaluable to anyone searching for domains or interested in making money online.

Finding premium domain names can be quite easy and to start your journey you should sit down and think about what your website will be providing or selling to the traffic. I mean if your selling golf balls the most obvious domain name would be GolfBalls.com and alas that name is taken. Most people unfamiliar with other extensions move on after checking the .com version. Now is where it gets interesting as you can find other extensions where Golf Balls may be available. Here are some very popular alternatives to .com and this is just a starting point: .Net, .Org, .Info, .Us. These are considered by many to be just as good as .com but many will tell you not to waste your time with anything other then .com as well.

Now if you live in a country outside of America and even If you do live in America finding premium domain names can be quite easily with CCTLDS. Now CCTLDS are a short acronym for Country Code Top Level Domains and what that means is simply domain extensions for countries. For example someone in Australia is likely to choose GolfBalls.au rather then GolfBalls.com and that is why premium domain names are easily found in cctlds. Now we are starting to see that premium domain names are not quite as hard to find as first thought. Now cctlds are becoming a hot market in the domainers world and I would advise people considering premium domain names to search out and find premium domain names in there native country.

Now at this point you may be saying well I'd like to get some premium domain names for other countries but I don't speak their language. Well that's fine Google has a translator that works great and is easy to use and free to all. Now you may want to test the market with premium domain names in other countries before doing any heavy investing in that department.

This article is a series that I plan to write about the next article will discuss and show you how to find premium domain names that are dropping. I will explain what drop lists are and how to narrow down your search and find the truly great domain names. Also I will show you a few drop catching services and how they can work with you or against you. I hope you enjoyed my first article and walk away knowing that securing a premium domain doesn't have to be that hard.

Blake Worthington http://www.usualcliche.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Blake_Worthington