Breaking World News!

What would you a call a company that allows users to search for domain names and then registers those names to itself? Some would call it a “front runner” or a “cybersquatter.”

Network Solutions quietly launched a program that registers searched-for domain names to itself. For a period of four days after the initial domain search is conducted, the name can be purchased only from Network Solutions.

The idea, according to Network Solutions CEO Champ Mitchell is to cut down on scams by preventing scammers from registering the domain names for which legitimate users are searching.

But many people in the business of domain names blasted the policy as either locking in users to Network Solutions’ registration services — which are priced higher than many competing registrars — or exposing their searches to scammers, who could sweep up the domains as soon as they’re released.

Four-Day Grace Period

In a scheme called “domain tasting,” scammers take advantage of the four-day grace period mandated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) by registering large numbers of domains and then releasing the ones that don’t generate traffic.

Reporter Andrew Allemann, writing on Domain Name Wire, accused Network Solutions of abusing this grace period. “The grace period was designed to refund domains that customers didn’t mean to register (e.g. they typed it wrong),” he said. “Yes, many companies are abusing this grace period, but now Network Solutions has thrown its hat in the ring.”

Jay Westerdal of DomainTools.com, writing on his company blog, said it is “deplorable” that Network Solution would announce potential domain names to the entire world.

“Network Solutions has now exposed those domains to domain tasters that will snipe those domain up milliseconds after Network Solutions deletes them,” Westerdal wrote. “These domains are now easy fodder for scammers and it is mind-blowing that…

The company behind the popular Mac desktop virtualization software, Parallels, is now offering what it calls the first virtualization server software for Intel-based Apple hardware.

Released in a beta, Parallels Server from SWsoft allows multiple copies of Mac OS X Server 10.5 to run on Mac Pro or Xserve computers.

The software also runs on Windows- or Linux-based servers, and can be used either with the Parallels lightweight hypervisor or in “bare metal.” With the hypervisor, virtual machines operate with a primary operating system; in “bare metal,” virtual machines run independently without being dependent on a host operating system.

Support for 50 Operating Systems

The company said that Parallels Server is the only virtualization product that allows administrators to choose the hypervisor or bare-metal option during installation. Parallels Server supports more than 50 different guest operating systems, including Windows Server, Red Hat Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, Sun Solaris, and Mac OS X Server.

SWsoft said that Parallels Server is the first software to allow Mac OS X Server to run in a virtual machine, which means administrators can test patches, new software, and equipment in a “sandboxed” Mac OS X virtual machine before they are used in actual environments.

The company also said that Parallels Server is the first virtualization product to offer experimental support for Intel’s second-generation virtualization technology, known as Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O.

The support for VT-d not only will provide higher levels of performance, according to SWsoft, but also will allow administrators to assign hardware, such as a second graphics or network card, to a virtual machine.

Riding Wave of Interest

Renton, Washington-based SWsoft, soon to be known as Parallels after its well-known product that enables desktop Macs to run both Mac OS and Windows, is hoping to ride the wave of renewed interest in Apple’s Xserve among businesses.

“Mac servers and…

If you think you’ve been spending more time watching video online, you’re not alone. A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, released this week, said that the daily traffic to sites such as YouTube doubled in 2007, and that nearly half of all adult Internet users have visited such sites.

A year ago, in December 2006, about 33 percent of Internet users had been to video-sharing sites, Pew said, and it’s now up to 48 percent — a jump of 45 percent.

In fact, 15 percent of the 2,054 adults surveyed between late October and early December said they visited a video-sharing site the day before they were polled in the survey, compared to 8 percent in 2006.

Linked to Broadband

Men continue to lead women among those who said they had visited a video-sharing site, with 53 percent compared to 43 percent. Last year, the figures were 40 percent and 27 percent, and women’s increased usage is part of the reason for the jump. Average daily use among women increased 120 percent, from 5 percent to 11 percent.

The report tied the growth in the popularity of online video to increased access to broadband, and to the fact that there are more videos on YouTube and other sites than there were previously, including more amateur video.

More than three times as many people who shoot their own videos now post them online, compared to the middle of 2006.

“Everything connected to online video doubled last year,” said James McQuivey, an analyst at industry research firm Forrester. In particular, he cited the amount of time people spent with video and the number of people who watch full episodes of television shows online.

Growth Not Yet Finished

This ratcheting-up in the popularity of online video — more people watch because there’s more to…

It was hard to miss the fact that Hollywood got star billing at the geekfest that is the annual Consumer Electronics Show. TV stars were everywhere in Las Vegas, and not behind velvet ropes.

Vanna White warmed up the crowd at an invitation-only Sony event. Alex Trebek waxed poetic about Jeopardy’s online games, and Jerry Seinfeld, fronting for Sony’s new online efforts, had ‘em rolling in their folding chairs with gags about everything from his 80-year-old mother to Viagra (”Ever wonder why there’s always a guy climbing a mountain in those ads? And call a doctor if the condition persists for four hours? Not before I know what he’s gonna do to me!”). Kevin Costner was roaming the convention floor, and NBC’s news elite, including both Brian Williams and Al Roker, were broadcasting from the show.

Even Brian Roberts, the chief executive of cable giant Comcast, who was delivering the first-ever keynote speech by a cable guy at the show, played straight man for American Idol host Ryan Seacrest. He fed Seacrest lines during a presentation at which Comcast unveiled several video initiatives, including Fancast, a new service that lets subscribers program their DVRs online or click through to watch TV shows on the Web. Roberts, looking a little lost, watched as Seacrest ad-libbed even while clips from Fancast filled the giant screen behind him. “He didn’t say that stuff during rehearsals,” Roberts told me afterwards.

Yes, the time has come: Media companies are grabbing the starring role in the world of bits and bytes. The two big winners at this year’s show, at least from where I was sitting, were Sony and Comcast. O.K., Sony is hardly a newcomer to the CES doings. But for the first time, the company cleared some space to show off its new online sites from…

A company that sells Internet domain names is facing criticisms for holding some in reserve as a consumer-protection measure, a move that also prevents interested parties from shopping around for better prices.

After weeks of testing, Network Solutions LLC began this week to grab names that people search for on its Web site but don’t immediately register.

The name is locked up for about four days, during which the person who made the search can buy it directly from the company for $35 a year — a few times more than what many of its rivals charge. After that, the name returns to the pool and can be registered by anyone through any registration company.

Spokeswoman Susan Wade said Network Solutions was trying to combat domain name front running — the use of insider information to snatch desired domain names before an individual or business can register them.

But what it’s doing shares similarities with the practice the company says it is trying to prevent, which the Internet’s oversight agency for domain names already is investigating.

One blogger termed Network Solutions’ action “deplorable.”

“They actually think they are doing customers favors with this little dirty trick,” wrote Jay Westerdal, president of Name Intelligence Inc., which analyzes domain name patterns. “These guys are clueless!”

Wade said the company was making adjustments in response to feedback but considered its measure a benefit for customers — by preventing domain name speculators and others with questionable intentions from grabbing the name first.

“We are not front running,” she said. “We are not monetizing the page. We have no intent in keeping it. We have no intent in selling it in secondary markets at inflated prices — that is front running.”

In October, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers launched a probe into domain name…

Microsoft Corp. said Thursday that Jeff Raikes, the top executive in its business software division, will retire in September.

Stephen Elop, chief operating officer at networking equipment maker Juniper Networks Inc., will replace Raikes, the software maker said.

Raikes, 49, was recruited to Microsoft from Apple Inc. by Chief Executive Steve Ballmer in 1981.

Raikes was named president of Microsoft Business Division in 2005. Since then, he has been responsible for a wide swath of some of Microsoft’s most profitable applications, including the Office suite, Microsoft’s server software and applications that help businesses track customers and business processes.

In the first fiscal quarter of 2008, the division brought in $4.1 billion in sales, or about a third of Microsoft’s total revenue.

Elop, 44, will report to the company’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters at the end of this month. He will take over most of Raikes’ responsibilities during the nine-month transition period. However, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the server and tools group and part of Raikes’ organization, will move to report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

“With Bill Gates’ pending retirement, he was pretty much the No. 2 guy at Microsoft, certainly within product development,” said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the independent research group Directions on Microsoft.

But Raikes, who also owns a stake in the Seattle Mariners, may not have wanted more.

“I don’t think Steve Ballmer is planning to step aside any time soon, but even if he did, I’m not sure Jeff Raikes wants the CEO job,” Rosoff said.

In an e-mail to employees, Ballmer wrote that Raikes “was one of the earliest and most vocal proponents of the importance of diversity at the company.”

“He embodies everything that makes this company a great place to work,” Ballmer added.

Before Juniper, Elop headed global sales for Adobe Systems Inc. and was CEO of Macromedia Inc., the…