Tag: google

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Google registers ‘Value of the Web’

Value of the Web

It looks like Google is getting ready to market another one of its products or services.

On December 14, the search engine giant registered the domain name valueoftheweb.com through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.  Google also picked up the dot-net and dot-org.

As with many of its thousands of names, they may end up being nothing more than part of the company’s defensive domain strategy.

Recently though, new registrations have hinted at something more.

In late November Google registered a number of Google Gives Back domains, then launched its Google Gives Back 2011 website this week. It also purchased the domain Schemer.com in early November, which launched online earlier this month and is currently in invite-only beta period.

Last week, the search company accidentally revealed the acquisition of RightsFlow through domain registrations.  As first reported here, news of the registrations appeared online hours before an official announcement was made.

On the same day Google registered valueofthweb.com, it also registered betternet.org and its typo beternet.org.

Discussion: Search Engine Land

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News

Is Google planning to be more than just a client of RightsFlow? [UPDATED]

Google Rights Flow

Updated at 2:38pm EST:  Just as I speculated early this morning, RightsFlow has been acquired by Google.  The news was announced only news minutes ago.

***

Original post 4:11am EST: Google has made some interesting domain name registrations this week, revolving around the phrase “Rights Flow”. 

The search engine giant which officially launched its music streaming service Google Music last month, registered eight different names like GoogleRightsFlow.com, GoogleRights.com and GoogleFlow.net (GoogleFlow.com is owned by someone other than Google). 

It’s fun to speculate about Google domain registrations, although often they turn out to be nothing more than part of the company’s overall intellectual property strategy to protects its brands, not a product or service that is ever launched.

If you’re not familiar with the company, RightsFlow, which counts Google among its clients, provides intellectual property and copyright management services. 

According to the company’s website, RightsFlow is a leading technology-enabled provider of a mechanical licensing and royalty payment technology platform for online music services, record companies, distributors and artists.

Could Google end up being more than just a client of RightsFlow, to help it with its music service?  RightsFlow also has a product called Limelight, that allows anyone to clear cover songs quickly and easily, for one low price.

Guess we’ll have to wait to see what the domains end up as, or, to see if Google makes an announcement in coming days. 

Today, none of the domains resolve to a web page.

Here’s a look at the domains acquired on December 8, 2011, through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.

Googleflow.net
Googleflow.org
Googlerights.com
Googlerights.net
Googlerights.org
Googlerightsflow.com
Googlerightsflow.net
Googlerightsflow.org

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Disputes National Arbitration Forum News

Google going after YouTube typo domains that lead to survey scams

YouTube Scam Survey site

Google is going after several popular typos of the web address YouTube.com, all owned by the same person. 

Each typo domain leads unsuspecting users to a site that looks confusingly similar to the official YouTube site (as shown in the picture above of YouTub.com – minus the ‘e’).  Instead of landing on Google’s YouTube, users are taken to a survey scam that asks a series of questions and attempts to gather personal information by promising free gifts like Best Buy gift cards.

Google filed the complaint (Case No. 1416796) with the National Arbitration Forum this past week over the domain names: youtbe.com, youtub.com, youtue.com, youube.com, and yutube.com. 

The names are all registered to the same person as seen in WHOIS records, allowing Google to file one complaint that relates to more than one domain name, under UDRP rules.

According to rough traffic estimates provided by Compete.com, visitors number in the thousands to each site every month.  In October for example, YouTub.com reported over 6,000 unique visitors.

As with all domain disputes, each panel examines three elements before reaching a decision:

(1) is the domain name identical or confusingly similar to a trademark in which the complainant has rights
(2) the owner has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name and;
(3) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith. 

If all three elements are satisfied, then the domain names will be ordered transferred to Google.

This will likely be an open-and-shut case for Google.  Earlier this month, Twitter Inc. won a similar dispute over the highly trafficked domain Twiter.com after filing a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

I’ve reached out to the owner of the disputed domain names for comment, and will update this story if I hear back.

Google had its own share of problems with the YouTube web address early on, but it found itself on the other side of a dispute.

Just weeks after acquiring the video site, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment filed a lawsuit in 2006 after its site (utube.com) continuously crashed because of millions of people looking for YouTube.  Universal Tube ended up using utubeonline.com for its business web address, and kept ownership of utube.com – a site that today averages a million visitors per month according to Compete.

Discussion:TechCrunch, Silicon Republic, The Verge, Softpedia, Techmeme, iG Tecnologia and Punto Informatico

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News

Why? Google registers GoogleGoro.com

Google Goro

Update 1 at 6:42am EST:  Google Goro appears to be a web application that uses the Google App Engine.  According to Google, there a number of URLs like, ‘https://wow.goro.appspot.com/worldwondersproject/cuenca/index.html, however when you try signing into Google Goro using Google Accounts an error page appears.  You might also notice the subdirectory in the URL contains ‘worldwondersproject’.  In late October I wrote about Google acquiring the domains Worldwondersproject.com.   At the time of this update, neither WorldWondersProject.com nor GoogleGoro.com resolve to a web page.  There are plenty of other goro.appspot addresses that include different subdomains and subdirectories.

***

Google’s domain portfolio took a strange turn this week as the search engine giant registered GoogleGoro.com, GoogleGoro.net, and GoogleGoro.org.

Trying to figure out what Google plans to do with Goro (the name of which was used by the four-armed half-human, half-dragon sub-boss in the Mortal Kombat franchise) has proved to be difficult.

Google registered all three names on November 18th, through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.  However at the time of this story, none of the new domains resolve to a web page.

GoogleGoro may end up being nothing more than part of the company’s defensive domain strategy like Googlepoo.com, one of the company’s stranger names that it apparently has no plans for.  

It’s likely Google has plans for GoogleGoro as it took the .net and .org in addition to the .com. 

Here’s a look at the WHOIS record for GoogleGoro.com:

Registrant:
        DNS Admin
        Google Inc.
        1600 Amphitheatre Parkway 
         Mountain View CA 94043
        US

    Domain Name: googlegoro.com

        Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
        Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
        Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com

    Administrative Contact:
        DNS Admin
        Google Inc.
        1600 Amphitheatre Parkway 
         Mountain View CA 94043
        US

    Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
        DNS Admin
        Google Inc.
        1600 Amphitheatre Parkway 
         Mountain View CA 94043
        US

    Created on…………..: 2011-11-18.
    Expires on…………..: 2013-11-18.
    Record last updated on..: 2011-11-18.

Discussion: Search Engine Land

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News

Google registers 1HourPerSecond.com

One hour per second

This week Google registered the domain name 1hourpersecond.com and the same name with the number spelled out: Onehourpersecond.com. 

At the time of this story, neither domain name resolves to a web page.

“One hour per second” may be a reference to time-lapse photography.  Wikipedia describes it as, “a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing.”

Both domain names were registered for the first time on November 12, 2011, through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.

The names sound interesting, but it’s unknown what Google intends to do with the names. 

An Android app? A photo site? 

Google registers new domains all the time, some that turn out to be web sites like Howtogomo.com and GoogleforVeterans.com, and others like GoogleParadox.com which to date, turn out to be nothing more than a defensive registration. 

Discussion: Search Engine Land

(Photo of night lapse of the 401 via flickr)