LOS ANGELES, CA - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the nonprofit organization that oversees the domain industry – has launched a new centralized online service to assist researchers, law enforcement, and others to request personal data from all public domain registration records. This new service comes after ICANN had instructed all registrars in May 2018 to redact personal data – such as a customer’s name, address, phone number … [Read more...]
Privacy Scandal: Has Your Data Been Stolen by These 10 “Known Tracking Domains?”
WEST PALM BEACH, FL - A new study has revealed that consumer email addresses are being collected by online login, registration, and newsletter subscriptions even before the user has manually submitted the form or even given their consent to have their personal information collected, igniting controversy over privacy rights – or lack thereof – on the internet. The goal of the study was to spot sites that pulled email and password information before users could … [Read more...]
Google Moves for More Control of World’s News with Major Google Play Update
WEST PALM BEACH, FL – Something remarkably interesting has been happening behind the scenes which very few have noticed, however, one firm who has not missed the quickly changing landscape, is information hoarder and narrative controller, Google. Over the last year or so, quietly brewing behind the scenes, has been Google’s loss of control of a growing percentage of the world’s news. Yes, you read that right. It's been a pretty-amazing transition. Here is how it works (or … [Read more...]
U.S. GDPR: The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Goes Into Effect January 2020
PALM BEACH, FL - The US's answer to European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), enacted in 2018, will create new consumer rights relating to the access to, deletion of, and sharing of personal information that is collected by businesses. It also requires California's Attorney General to solicit broad public participation and adopt regulations to further the CCPA's purposes. The proposed regulations will establish … [Read more...]
Robo Callers, Phone Spoofing, Auto Dialers; It’s No Longer Annoying, It’s Disruptive
NEW YORK, NY – Everyone gets them - and it’s starting to go from nuisance, to disruptive. Robocalls, Spammers and other automated dialers; it’s beginning to actually go from annoying to interfering with my day to day operations. They come in on both my telephones and mobile device. Constantly, all day and it is becoming far more than a nuisance to the point where the FCC is going to have to start getting more aggressive on this practice. Isn’t that what they do? I mean, … [Read more...]
Will Google’s Instant Answers Threaten, Even Destroy, Search Giant’s Future
LONG ISLAND, NY – This is a theoretical opinion and is far from fact, but I thought about it today and I’m going to share it with my readers, as I ordinarily do here on this site, a place where my thoughts about the Internet, meet the Internet itself - and my ramblings are meant, not just to entertain, or act as some therapeutic outlet, but to help form options, influence discussion, create dialog and educate. Today, we will touch on something that is a growing problem for … [Read more...]
Battle to Take-down Backpage.com Ends in Seizure, Criminal Indictments of Ownership
NEW YORK – A long-time battle to remove Backpage.com from the Internet has ended with the indictments of ownership and government seizure of its domain Backpage.com, which hosted a popular online classifieds site similar to Craigslist which allegedly was used heavily by escorts and massage providers far-bending the envelope between casual encounters, prostitution and human trafficking, according to investigators. Since 2010, Backpage.com has come under fire for its alleged … [Read more...]
15 Minute Hot Seat with Mark Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica Data Privacy Breach
NEW YORK – Yesterday, March 21, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, sat with CNN Money’s Laurie Segall in a candid, and what appeared to be a difficult interview to answer tough questions on Facebook’s position in regard not only to the recent leaks related to the user privacy breach caused by Cambridge Analytica, but also its position on whether or not it’s platform has been used to influence past elections and what the company is doing to avoid this type of … [Read more...]
Orbitz, AmexTravel; Victims of Latest Data Breach Effecting 880,000 Customers
NEW YORK - If you travel and like to use third party travel sites to find discounts you may be one of the latest co-victims of a data breach by hackers which compromised near a million customers who use online booking services. According to Norton Internet Security, Orbitz, which has been owned by Expedia since 2015, released information regarding two separate data breaches tied to an older web site platform that effected partner bookings including AmexTravel.com; the … [Read more...]
Websites and Domain Names to Become Insignificant within 20 Years or Less
LONG ISLAND, NY – Ten or twenty years ago, if you wanted to find information a search engine such as Yahoo would allow you to simply type-in what you were looking for, and countless websites would appear with information related to your search. Sometimes, ugly websites would appear that had keyword-stuffed their pages with the search string, but often you would be able to find what you were looking for within a few clicks around; and your answer was always on a website or web … [Read more...]
Basically: How to Make a Good Website from a Domain Name; Layman’s Terms
NEW YORK, NY - Sometimes a simple explanation of how to do something can go a very long way. That is what we are doing this evening, we're going over how the heck to build a website from a simple domain name address. The basics; in layman's terms. First. The first thing you want to do with your project is to pick a good domain name. You want to pick a domain name with keywords related to whatever it is that you are building. For instance, if you were building a … [Read more...]
Nice to Hear: Dot Info Domain Extension Used in Radio Commercial by University
I heard one of my first radio commercials today to use a “.info” domain name for its website address. The commercial was about “Brain Imaging” research and was running on behalf of Stony Brook University Hospital and Yale University for their Department of Psychiatry using the domain name Imagers.info to promote Opportunities to Participate in Research. I’ve always liked .info domain names very much when it comes to either “getting information” about something or … [Read more...]
Domain Suspension – Registrant Information Verification Failure; It Could Happen to You
REMINDER: If you change either the first name, last name or email address on one of your domain registrations, you’ll need to verify the new information via email within 15 calendar days or you will be met with a page similar to this one in the below screenshot. This new policy took effect back in January of 2014 but this is how long it took for me to actually see one of these pages in action; it happened today. Not paying attention to those email verification … [Read more...]