Cedar allergies hit Central Texas. My attempts to find remedies using direct navigation are largely fruitless.

Anyone who lives in Austin or San Antonio knows about “Cedar Fever”. Cedar Fever affects many people in this region, as pollen from cedar trees (a.k.a. juniper trees) explodes this time of year. Some people swear by natural remedies, such as spicy tortilla soup, but that doesn’t do it for true sufferers. My longtime remedy has been Allegra D combined with a nasal steroid. But apparently that wasn’t enough this year, and my doctor had to shoot me up with steroids (ala Roger Clemens) to get on top of it . I’m not the only one who suffers; there’s even a group in Austin that would like to see these trees cut down.

Today will be beautiful here with highs in the 70s. But the windows are shut as a write; I have to keep the pollen out. But I’m on a quest to use direct navigation to learn more about cedar allergies.

My first stop, naturally, is CedarFever.com. The domain was registered by another Austin resident in 1999. Unfortunately, he hasn’t done anything with it.

Next, I head on over to CedarAllergies.com. This domain is a parked page hosted by Parked.com and registered to a man in Garland, Texas. It has links to Allegra, allergy medication, pollen, and a few other related topics. This will be helpful.

OK, not much help so far. So how about Allergies.com? Surely some pharmaceutical company uses that domain.

Indeed, it appears that drug company GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) owns the domain. Too bad it doesn’t resolve to anything right now!

So much for direct navigation to find remedies for allergies. The only winner of these three is CedarAllergies.com, which provides ad links to allergy medications.

I’ll leave you on this New Years’ Eve with a fun factoid about cedar trees: there are male cedars and female cedars. Male cedars have cones, female cedars have berries. Seriously, I’m not making this up. It’s the male cedars that spread the allergenic pollen.

Domain name Iran.com at auction for $735,000; one suitor so far.

The domain Iran.com is up for grabs at Sedo after receiving a $735,000 offer. The auction runs through January 4 and the reserve has been met. If the sale closes this will be a heck of a way to kick off the 2008 year in the domain industry. According to DNJournal, Iran.com sold for $400,000 in June of 2007.

Iran is an important country, but it’s not the only geography domain to sell for big money lately. Earlier this month, Zimbabwe.com sold for $130,000 at Sedo. Sedo also sold Chinese.com — not a country but a geo-related domain — for €810,001 in July.

Other top geo domain sales of 2007 include:

Melbourne.com $700,000
Gibraltar.com $360,000
Buckhead.com $250,000
Perth.com $200,000
Chinese.net $180,000
BoiseIdaho.com $175,000

[Update: the auction has been removed at Sedo, likely due to fraudulent activity.]

Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino goes after owner of CosmopolitanResort.com.

Las Vegas has always been a high stakes town. A recent lawsuit suggests it’s also high stakes for domain names.

In an obvious case of “reverse cybersquatting”, a new resort and casino in Las Vegas is going after the owner of CosmopolitanResort.com. Ryan Gile, a Las Vegas trademark attorney, writes about the saga on his blog.

Here are the facts:

1. Tim Griffin, a domain investor, registered the domain CosmopolitanResort.com on August 15, 2003.

2. 3700 Associates, which is developing the Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino, announced the name of its project in November 2004.

2. 3700 Associates sued Griffin for cybersquatting based on use of CosmopolitanResort.com, despite Griffin registering it more than a year before it named its project.

3700 Associates brought the case in Nevada. Griffin argued that it’s the wrong jurisdiction because he is in Florida, and the judge agreed. Griffin’s motion to dismiss also points out how 3700 Associates’ case is reverse cybersquatting.

Trademark attorney Gile summarizes the position 3700 Associates finds itself in now:

I don’t know for how much Griffin is willing to sell the cosmopolitanresort.com domain name, but I would think at this stage, it would be cheaper for 3700 Associates to buy it from Griffin rather than to continue to litigate over it.

Gile is correct. However, the cost of purchasing this domain has certainly increased now that 3700 Associates has taken to the bullying approach to get the domain.

Gmail flaw leads to theft of domain name; GoDaddy steps in to return domain.

A “cracker”* used a deficiency in Gmail to steal a domain name this month. The theft was of DavidAirey.com, a popular graphic designer’s personal site that attracts a couple thousand unique visitors a day.

So how did it happen, and what can you do to protect yourself? Furthermore, how could a popular domainer site lead to even more lost domains?

First, here’s how it happened in a nutshell:

1. DavidAirey.com was registered through a webhost, ICDSoft.

2. The cracker contacted the webhost through a support ticket asking to unlock the domain and send the EPP transfer code.

3. The cracker compromised David Airey’s Gmail account to forward any domain transfer requests to his own email account.

4. The cracker transfered the domain to a GoDaddy account without Airey’s knowledge.

5. He then forwarded the domain to Bebu.net, a parked page at Sedo

Fortunately, Airey was able to work with GoDaddy to get the domain back. He’s lucky the domain was transferred to GoDaddy. Despite some of its flaws, at least GoDaddy isn’t a fly-by-night registrar.

The cracker was able to add a forwarding rule to Airey’s Gmail account, as Airey recounts on his blog. Airey also explains how to check that your account hasn’t been compromised.

Here’s what you can do to protect yourself:

1. Never use a free or hosted email account as your whois address. Instead, use a pop email address from a domain you own. Lock the heck out of that domain.

2. Never register a domain through a webhosting company. Webhosts are good (sometimes) at hosting web sites, but they are typically just domain resellers with lax domain security controls. A good domain registrar would never let someone simply e-mail them to unlock a domain and send the transfer code.

Now here’s the really scary part. A popular domain web site, DomainTools, could compromise your entire portfolio of domains. DomainTools offers a product called “Registrant Search” that allows anyone to purchase a list of domains registered by a particular person or with a particular email address. If Airey had a portfolio of domains, the cracker could have easily stolen all of his domains.

*I use the term “cracker” here to refer to a hacker with malicious intent. Using merely the term “hacker” would be like calling all domainers “cybersquatters”.

Domain name news from the past few days.

Merry Christmas! Domain Name Wire has been missing in action for a couple days thanks to the Christmas holiday. Here are some news stories that slipped through the cracks.

Domain heavyweights join forces to start Bido.com. What is it? When will it launch? How will it help domainers? No one other than the founders knows. But the founding team includes DNJournal’s Ron Jackson and Recall Media co-founders Sahir Sarid, Jeff Bhavnanie, and Darren Cleveland. Register for updates from Bido here.

Microsoft sues domain registrar. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has sued domain registrar Red Register for typosquatting and cybersquatting. Microsoft alleges that Red Register has squatted on about 125 domains confusingly similar to the company’s trademarks. There are a number of registrars set up solely for domain tasting that frequently snap up trademarked names.

DomainTools auction deadline extended. DomainTools has extended the deadline for submissions for its January 3 online domain auction to December 27. Selected domains will be posted December 28. That gives DomainTools exactly 7 days to market the domains to potential buyers. If I were selling domains in this auction, I’d be worried about low bidding. I’ve complained about short lead times in auctions before, but this auction takes the cake. Plus, many people will be traveling or on vacation on January 3. Personally, I’ll be on a plane between Cancun and Austin. DomainTools should consider postponing the auction a couple weeks to give more time to market the selected domains.

Beware of inflated domain prices. Elliot Silver has a good blog post about domains being bought and sold between investors, thus inflating prices. I’ve been planning to write about that for some time. However, I don’t necessarily agree that there’s a bubble in three character domains, as Elliot suggests.

Registrar locked out of registry. Domain Name News reports that customers of Belgium Domains are in a pickle thanks to a lawsuit by Dell and Yahoo.