Safe buying and selling is a major concern for domainers. Nearly everyone in the domain industry has at least one story of a transfer gone wrong, payment that was late or never received, or scammers extorting money for bogus appraisals or domain listing services.

As secure as Sedo's sales process may be, they are failing miserably in another area of domain security: fraudulent domains.

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DNLocal.com, the premier multi-lingual domain name forum on the Internet, announced a new incentive contest for its members today - The "Poster of the Month."

Starting February 1, 2007, the DNLocal.com member with the most posts for the month of February will receive three professionally designed minisites for use on domains that they currently own.

"This is a great opportunity to give back to our members," said Michael Schneider, part of the DNLocal.com leadership team. "Our members are always looking for great new ways to monetize their domains, and a minisite can be very valuable."

The DNLocal.com member with the most posts for the period beginning February 1 and ending February 28 will be declared the winner. In the case of a tie, the winner will be chosen at random from the tied members.

The winning member can choose from minisites in four languages: Russian, Hebrew, Japanese or English. Winners must provide their own domains and hosting.

For contest rules and information, visit www.DNLocal.com/rewards.

Two rare symbol domains, ©.com and ®.com, are being offered for sale through Sedo's auction service.

The domains, owned by IDNF.com and DNLocal.com forum member "joeyskip," are being offered with a $2,000 reerve price per domain.

The auctions started with a $2,000 bid on each domain, so based on Sedo's auction rules and barring any unforseen circumstances, the reserve is met and the domains will sell.

The auctions are currently underway and will close on January 16, 2007. To bid on these one-of-a-kind domains, visit ©.com or ®.com.

Moniker CEO Monte Cahn will feature an interview with a prominent member of the IDN community on his regular radio show. The show will air tonight, January 3, at 7pm EST (12 Midnight GMT).

Known at various domain forums (such as DNLocal.com and IDNF.com) as "Mulligan", tonight's guest speaker owns an impressive IDN portfolio, operates IDNPool.com, a domain showcase and resource site; and is half of the team at IDNBond.com, the first escrow site to specifically cater to IDN domains.

Moniker's Radio Show has an over-40,000 domainer listenership. To tune in to the show, visit WebMasterRadio.fm and look for the 7pm EST live show "Domain Masters" here: Domain Masters.

Also, for those unable to tune in live, expect the show to be posted at Moniker in the next couple of days.

Milwaukee, Wis. (December 27, 2006) - IDNcyclopedia.com, an Internet domain information and development resource, is auctioning off multiple Arabic domain names on eBay this month, including the Arabic equivalents of "Bush.com", "Saddam.com" and "America.com".

Internationalized Domain Names, such as the Arabic domains on offer, have been gaining popularity recently due to the release of the Internet Explorer 7 web browser, which allows Internet users from around the world to access Internet domain names in their native language. The Arabic domains for auction - صدام.com, بوش.com and الأمريكية.com - are examples of these types of domains.

"This is the right time to auction these domains," said Jesse Lee, owner and operator of IDNcyclopedia.com. "The increased popularity and awareness of IDNs is important, not only to developers but also to people throughout the world who have been forced to use English online, rather than their native language."

While Lee understands that detractors may see these names as unnecessarily controversial, he points to the historical and cultural importance of the names.

"These sites have amazing potential for development," said Lee. "The historical importance of these domains makes them highly sought-after commodities, regardless of any perceived controversy."

The English domain Saddam.com sold on eBay for over $3,000 earlier this year. The auctions will start December 27, 2006 and will end January 6, 2007. To access the auctions, search eBay for "Bush.com in Arabic", "Saddam.com in Arabic" and "America.com in Arabic".

IDNcyclopedia.com includes resources and information on IDNs and other Internet domain names. IDNcyclopedia.com has domain names in various languages, including Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, Farsi, French, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. For more information, visit www.IDNcyclopedia.com.

View the eBay listing for صدام.com ||| View the eBay listing for بوش.com ||| View the eBay listing for الأمريكية.com

DNLocal.com, the premiere International Domain Name forum, recently made a significant platform change.

The change is more than cosmetic, adding important functionality to the forum, including full Unicode search functionality, as well as paving the way for easier integration of important features in future upgrades.

Users need only log into the site using their existing usernames and passwords to use the new forum.

To check out the premiere native-language domain name forum online, visit DNLocal.com.

Microsoft has announced the availability of the Japanese version of Internet Explorer 7 - but only through manual downloads at this point. Auto updates for the Japanese version have reportedly been pushed back to "Spring," much later than Auto updates for most other languages.

This push has led to claims of "racism" on the part of Microsoft. Microsoft maintains that it is a technical issue, giving Japanese businesses more time to ensure IE7 compliance for their existing systems. In the meantime, Japanese users can download the new Internet Explorer 7 HERE.

To read the full story, click HERE, and to discuss this topic, visit the DNLocal.com posting.

On the same day that DNForum suffered a horrendous attack at the hands of a malicious hacker; while other major domain forums were going on the defensive, frantically backing up databases and beefing up security; a small group of forward-thinking individuals was meeting to discuss the birth of a new forum - one that could have the opportunity to bring the domain world together in a way like never before. That forum - DNLocal.com - opens today, and is poised to be the premier domain name forum of its kind. IDNcyclopedia went behind the scenes to get an exclusive first-hand look at the creation process of this ambitious project.

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October 26, 2006 - DNForum.com, one of the top Domain Name industry forums, was hacked today. A hacker calling himself "Dnjournal2005" hacked the page early this morning, removing all traces of the forum, and leaving a black page with red and white lettering, a fluttering Iranian flag at the top, and a message that read:

"This Site Has Been Hacked -- Dnjournal2005 back again..... i'm told you do not report stolen domains here if not owning by you are........................... In next time i'll move your domain to other registrar , so you site will down for 2 week.......;) (Recommend you remove legal isuse place and suspend Stupid peoples) So Database has been terminated and site defaced I think you forgot SnapNames,NamePros,Dnjournal.com And more sites, Yes???? DNJOURNAL2005@YAHOO.COM"

The site also included a "shoutbox" where people could post messages about the hack. It was also reported that the hack included some Google Adsense ads, however, at the time of this writing there was no evidence of advertising. While this has shaken up the domaining community - especially the line "So Database has been terminated..." - most forums do perform routine backups as a safeguard against losing massive amounts of information.

To view a mock-up recreation of the hack, click here.

October 18, 2006 - Microsoft released the latest version of Internet Explorer - Internet Explorer 7 - today. The browser includes many outstanding updates and security features, but most importantly, allows for the use of Internationalized Domain Names, or URLs in native languages.

To learn more about Internet Explorer 7, and to download the full version of the browser, visit the Internet Explorer 7 page.

IDN Club was founded in October 2005 as a place for those who are interested in IDNs to share, discuss and exchange information about the field.

To celebrate their first anniversary, IDN Club will be holding an IDN exhibition. Dubbed IDN Show 2006, the exhibition will be held from October 23 to November 22, 2006, at IDNShow.com. If you have IDNs and would like to show them, you can contact the show coordinators at 2006@idnshow.com, or visit IDNShow.com for more information.

According to a breaking news post on the International Domain Name Forum GotIDN.com, Internet Explorer 7 will make its debut on October 18, with auto-updates to follow on November 1. This is a giant leap, not only for the IDN community, but for all Internet users who will soon be able to navigate the web in their native language.

We will keep a close eye on the release and continue to provide coverage as new information is available. In the meantime, you can read the original post on GotIDN.com. To learn more about IE7, or to download the browser, visit the official site.

Whether you agree with him, disagree, or agree to disagree - if you are a domainer, chances are that you've run across Dave Wrixon on the various domain name forums. Or you've at least heard of him, most recently by his nickname "Rubber Duck," accompanied by the iconic avatar shown here.

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公司.com (Chinese for "Company.com") brought $10,750 at a Snapnames Auction on September 25. The domain is important both for its meaning (company), as well as for the fact that it is the proposed Chinese transliterative equivalent for the ".com" extension. Read more about this sale at the GotIDN.com Forum.

When Craig Nine – a 32-year-old SEO consultant and web developer living in Japan – first became interested in IDNs, he didn’t just register a couple of domains to test the waters, he dove in headfirst. Nine is not only the owner of one of the strongest Japanese IDN portfolios, he is also the owner and founder of IDNForums.com, the premier IDN discussion and sales forum, and one of the top sites about Internationalized Domain Names.

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"They blew it…that’s the short of it. They failed to recognize the single biggest bonanza since the gold rush over 100 years ago. They failed to recognize it was time sensitive so they had no sense of urgency to act." - Rick Schwartz, the Domain King, on the .com Bonanza of the 1990’s (in a 2004 interview with DNJournal.com - http://www.dnjournal.com/columns/cover020204.htm)

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