HUGE STORY ON DOMAINS - Business 2.0 on Kevin Ham

[DomainsInc]

Very well said Steven.... very well said... the second the business world really gets it... alot of domainers will be sitting pretty

Yeah, as long as you aren't still building your portfolio. Be prepared for over inflated prices for a period.

 

[acronym007]

I don't know about the rest of you but my moral convictions tell me that what Ham is doing is a disgrace to all Americans and especially to domainers. There should be laws that would prohibit people from making shady deals with the crooked elements in any government that would deny the common people what is legally theirs. The people of Cameroon are being cheated out of the use of their country name extention by the extremely high registration fees so the vast majority of names will remain unregistered and thus provide more profits to the criminals by the use of Ham's shady scheme. This is very unethical in my opinion and reflects a bad image on the whole domain industry. This is the kind of stuff ICANN should put a stop to immediately.

If you haven't already done so, go to http://blogs.business2.com/sloan/2007/05/yahoo_outsmarts.html and read the article posted by Frank, a Cameroonian IT professional. Thanks to "thevirtual" who gave us that story in post #27.

I wouldn't argue your point on ethics/moral as they are a highly unique and personal subjects. The one thing you have to understand about business is that legal is legal and with that business and ethics really have nothing to do with one another. It's unfortunate but there is nothing ethical about the porn business but it sure is a huge money maker. Cameroon probably doesn't even have a legitimate government, can anyone name a stable African government besides Egypt? He made his money legally and people of Cameroon, the majority probably have no clue what's going on. I agree it's unfortunate but the only people I fault really is ICANN because they gave them the .cm, just like .tv look at what they're doing, no different. Anyone even heard of Tuvalu before .tv, not me. It's like Wild West out there on the net. Grab your saddle and go for the gold. Yehaw!!! LOL

 

[H2FC]

I wouldn't argue your point on ethics/moral as they are a highly unique and personal subjects. The one thing you have to understand about business is that legal is legal and with that business and ethics really have nothing to do with one another. It's unfortunate but there is nothing ethical about the porn business but it sure is a huge money maker. Cameroon probably doesn't even have a legitimate government, can anyone name a stable African government besides Egypt? He made his money legally and people of Cameroon, the majority probably have no clue what's going on. I agree it's unfortunate but the only people I fault really is ICANN because they gave them the .cm, just like .tv look at what they're doing, no different. Anyone even heard of Tuvalu before .tv, not me. It's like Wild West out there on the net. Grab your saddle and go for the gold. Yehaw!!! LOL

I don't agree at all that business and ethics have nothing to do with one another. Business with no ethics is one of the major things wrong in our world today. Its obvious that Cameroon doesn't have a legitimate government and thats exactly what I'm talking about....those who would practice unfair and unethical actions against a poor people who aren't represented by a legit government and in fact would deal with their oppressors to steal from them don't deserve any respect in my book. The internet may be like the wild west in some ways but ethics should still be an important part of it.

 

[DomainMagnate]

very interesting, thanks for sharing.

the article mentions that Agoga.com gets 8 million uniques per month.
I would have expected the figures to be much higher, what do you think?

 

[acronym007]

You and I may have morals and ethics but most businesses do not. Let's look at your local bank for example. They rob the poor people daily, yes outright rob, they charge the poor fellow who's working 3 job to support his family a $35 overdraft fee for a $0.35 overage. UNETHICAL. Cost them nothing and the guy gets direct deposit but hey it's bank policy, let's add that $35 x 100,000 people at say Bank of America. That's 3.5 million they make in overdraft charges from poor or wealthy people, but most likely it's the poor overdrawing. Is that ethical? How about insurance, in my state it is mandatory to have insurance on vehicles. I don't believe it is fair to do this when they charge $3,000 per year for a 16 boy citing that boy drive more reckless than girls. Shouldn't they have some restrictions on costs seeing it is mandatory? You legally do not have to homeowners insurance but you have to have car insurance? Hrmmm... Every business is a business and money is made any way it can be made, ethical or not. I would love for it to be different but it is not. If ethics made money then the porn business would have been bankrupt years ago for using whitehouse.com as a porn site but it is not. So, H2FC, I wish ethics mattered more in business but they don't. We agree 100% together that they should matter .

very interesting, thanks for sharing.

the article mentions that Agoga.com gets 8 million uniques per month.
I would have expected the figures to be much higher, what do you think?

I think he is being conservative and I don't think they would reveal the actual amount anyway. Do you?

 

[DomainMagnate]

I think he is being conservative and I don't think they would reveal the actual amount anyway. Do you?

obviously he won't reveal the real figures, but I'm asking about your estimates

 

[acronym007]

obviously he won't reveal the real figures, but I'm asking about your estimates

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I don't know Micheal but that is a great question and it really makes you wonder. Personally I have to believe some individual sites get x,xxx-xxx,xxx.

 

[thevirtual]

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I don't know Micheal but that is a great question and it really makes you wonder. Personally I have to believe some individual sites get x,xxx-xxx,xxx.

Here is something interesting, overture stats with the .cm extension :lol:

10,084 overture for "google.cm"
7,779 overture for "yahoo.cm"

of course this is only overture stats, not actual typeins

 

[typist]

rpm for .cm is low.

 

[DomainQuay]

Very informative article...

 

[Sarcle]

Not mine. But needs to be dugg.

http://digg.com/tech_news/TechCrunch_Michael_Arrington_loses_it

 

[Raider]

Full article in CNN Money....

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/busi...01/100050989/index.htm?postversion=2007052205

Very interesting article Tony....Thanks!

Sarcle, Are we without a doubt certain that Kevin Ham is V-Axis?

 

[fischermx]

very interesting, thanks for sharing.

the article mentions that Agoga.com gets 8 million uniques per month.
I would have expected the figures to be much higher, what do you think?

I didn't like that amount either.

 

[Raider]

What Kevin Ham did with .CM, is very similar to what Verisign did with "Site Finder", if you think about it.

Last I remember, ICANN pressured Verisign and they caved in, I dont see why ICANN cant do the same with Cameroon.

 

[typist]

Very interesting article Tony....Thanks!

Sarcle, Are we without a doubt certain that Kevin Ham is V-Axis?

that's a fact.

just have a look at the whois on some of the domains mentioned in the article.

 

[snicksnack]

there are other countries which are wildcarded. Nobody says anything against them. I assume that most of the people here which think that this is a disgrace and so forth are simply jealous! I assume that each of them would make the deal in a heart beat if they would know how to.

 

[typist]

What Kevin Ham did with .CM, is very similar to what Verisign did with "Site Finder", if you think about it.

Last I remember, ICANN pressured Verisign and they caved in, I dont see why ICANN cant do the same with Cameroon.

They can't because Cameroon, unlike Verisign, is a sovereign country.

 

[Raider]

They can't because Cameroon, unlike Verisign, is a sovereign country.

I would think they can, since they control it.

As for the comment by snicksnack, I'm sure many are envious, this is not about that, its about 8 million hits a month being diverted elsewhere.

 

[snicksnack]

I would think they can, since they control it.

no they cannot.

As for the comment by snicksnack, I'm sure many are envious, this is not about that, its about 8 million hits a month being diverted elsewhere.

sorry don't get this. if he wouldn't do it, someone lese would and if nobody would do it, the traffic would go nowhere.

 

[Raider]

the traffic would go nowhere.

Your right, it would go nowhere, and most visitors would realize they made a mistake by entering a typo, but by seeing a active page, visitors could easily be fooled into thinking they are somewhere where they are not....

This happened to me a few times before I even knew .cm existed, I knew instantly I made a mistake, but the less savvy users dont realize it and click away, diverting traffic away from where the intended to go.