Customer Reviews

The Domain Name Handbook; High Stakes and Strategies in Cyberspace

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The Domain Name Handbook; High Stakes and Strategies in Cyberspace by Ellen Rony, Peter R. Rony

This was the first book I purchased in my search tomake sense of the domain name business. It provides great information on the details of the domain name naming system and the history of the organizations involved. It also provides excellent information on trademark considerations and issues. If you are an attorney, or anyone seriously getting into the domain name business, you should have this in your library.

Rony is highly knowledgeable about the minutiae of the domain name registration rules, and offers a great history with some examples of cases of trademark cases and squatting that are highly useful for understanding the way things work. She's now consulting as an expert in this area, a clear sign that her expertise is credible with corporations and courts.

The book does not cover such considerations as the creative and business consideration process of coming up with a unique domain name. There's another book that goes into this topic in more detail--How to choose and Protect a great Name for Your website.

Neither book covers factors which contribute to the value of a dmain name, finding better prices for name registration, websites and strategies for doing research on names you are considering.

Rob Kall, author, domainnamereport

Remember the old saying, "What's in a name?" A name should represent a well known company, person, quality workmanship, products, and services. Nothing could be more true when we consider what is involved in registering and using domain names today. Ellen Rony and Peter Rony have written The Domain Name Handbook to provide readers with a considerable amount of detailed information about this often overlooked but essential element of establishing an online presence.

When a company or person takes action to establish themselves online it is necessary for them to come up with a unique domain name that clearly represents the nature of their products, services, or other stated purposes of the Website. Sounds easy enough but this is not necessarily the case. One of the most hotly contested aspects of setting up a Website today is the selection and ownership of a domain name. There are a number of factors to take into consideration in this crucial decision making process. Ellen Rony and Peter Rony do a masterful job of exposing the many pitfalls that could spell disaster for anyone wishing to set up shop online today.

This 650-page book is packed with extensive information about many of the legal challenges that have been waged over the registration and use of domain names, including alleged copyright violations, trademark infringement, and actual court cases. This is the most comprehensive resource for domain name dispute case studies to date. It is heavily footnoted. Thumb through it to read up on what real people have experienced themselves. Many of the accounts will expose the darker side of the business world we compete in!

According to the documentation provided in this book some big name companies have gone after smaller companies and persons (and vice versa), who have registered domain names already trademark protected by existing laws. Some of the laws currently pertaining to Internet domain name use have not been etched in stone as of yet but information provided in this book will help chart the course. The accompanying CD and a Website offer supplemental reading material. Although these resources offer plenty in terms of legal proceedings, the authors recommend that readers consult their attorneys for solid legal advice!

Perhaps through no fault of your own you may one day find yourself the focus of an infringement case. Be prepared to face these challenges today. This book is must reading for Website designers, Web business consulting firms, attorneys, and companies doing business online!

The Domain Name Handbook is an enlightning introduction to the subject of the Domain Naming System's liberation from a single organisation to a world of domain name competition and a biting indictment of the current flip-flop on the important question of expanding the domain name space.

Reading it one gets the impression that the authors weave humour and storytelling with the diligence and enthusiasm of inquisitive writers to discuss an otherwise highly technical subject.

The work touches on all the issues that reverberate in the firmaments of political debates within ICANN and the domain name space community. The authors are definitely very well grounded in the history of the domain naming system and their familiarity with the sources are strengthened by insightful analysis of the psychology of the human beings who were selected by destiny to lead web surfers in their battle against typing bland numerical IP addresses into web browsers and instead enjoying easy to remember URLs.

Regardless of how one may think about their views on alternate domain name registries or root zones and their struggles against Network Solutions, one cannot deny that the brother sister duo of Peter and Ellen Rony are definite contributors to the evergrowing literature on the web's historiography.

Their book will remain here along with the companion website as a living testimony that they care very much about what happens to everyday netizens and did something about it by writing a powerful book.

I have to agree with one of my fellow reviewers - this book is way too technical and dry. With heavy, heavy chapters devoted to the development of the domain name system, trademark challenges, dispute case studies etc., The Domain Name Handbook reads more like a govenment manual than an istructive and entertaining piece of writing. Ten out of ten for so much research but not many out of ten for entertainment value, (and, yes, even an instruction manual can be enetertaining).... Theirwell-linked pages will take you some interesting routes to wherever the real knowledge lies.

If you're a sucker for tables, lists, facts, data and specifics, this book with inform. If, like me, you prefer that learning should be fun, you'll find yourself in the wrong hands here. In any case, the book was published in mid 1998 and, with so much having happened on the Web, is in dire need of a revised update.

As a lawyer who practices trademark law on the Internet, including domain name issues, I was very happy to see this book explore complicated areas like Internet governance, domain numbers and names, and trademark issues, all in an informative and easy-to-read style that does not talk down to the reader.

As a lawyer who practices trademark law on the Internet, including domain name issues, I was very happy to see this book explore complicated areas like Internet governance, domain numbers and names, and trademark issues, all in an informative and easy-to-read style that does not talk down to the reader. I also like and appreciate the authors' web site which provides an update of events and cases since publication of the hard copy. The book, combined with the web site, provide a first-rate current information service on the topics presented.

The Domain Name Handbook provides comprehensive information about Internet domain names. It gives in-depth accounts of many domain name disputes, including analyses of the harms caused by the trademark domain name policies of Network Solutions, Inc.

This book is way too technical and dry. Domain Names for Dummies treats the subject matter in a much more enjoyable and business-oriented fashion.

The user is left with little useful information and usable next steps.

Ellen does an excellent job recording history. What is unfortunate is that history is ephemeral on the net. Ellen's book is no longer in print - I ponied up for a used copy simply for the record of what transpired and I am glad to have it.

A pretty good book overall. I know many of the people quoted in the book and it seems to portray things fairly for the most part. Some of the people interviewed for the book obviously have an agenda. Surprisingly, there are more characters portrayed in this book than in your average Oliver Stone movie.

The book was rather long (sometimes less is more) but it is not bad considering it is the only book on Domain Names other than DNS & Bind - it is a good start. The authors will need to write a second book in another five years to tell us how the story ends.