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.TEL Privacy and Security

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Do you have to give up your privacy to be found on the Internet? Not if you use a .TEL name.                          

Being found and protecting your maintaining your privacy used to be mutually exclusive. Now with the .TEL domain name it is possible to have your contact information in the public domain while maintaining full control of it.

Once you’ve registered your .TEL name, you’ll be able to configure and manage the information through the TelHosting interface.  It is possible to publish your contact details in a secure way and decide the level of privacy that you need.

Start by adding some contact information. For example:

• Work Website
• Work Telephone
• Cell Phone
• Work E-mail Address
• Home Telephone
• Gmail Address
• MSN Instant Message ID

You can then create security groups to which users may be added. For example:

• Coworkers
• Business Associates
• Friends
• Family

From there, it’s simply a question of mapping contact information to security groups to determine who can see what information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this case, the only thing that a member of the general public could see is your work website address.

How “Friending” words

To have access to some or all of your contact details, someone would have to send a “Friending” request. This is a request that includes their name, email address and a short message. You can manage your friending requests through the TelHosting interface and assign each requestor to the appropriate group. If you don’t know the friending requestor, simply decline the request.

Encryption

All private contact records (held as NAPTR records in the DNS) are encrypted with 1024 bit encryption, so unless you explicitly allow someone to see a record through the security groups you create and the friending requests you allow, there’s no way for them to see your information.

Public/Private Key Encryption

The friending process is built on a popular and well used security model based on public and private “key” pairs. When you allow someone you’ve ‘friended’ to see secured information, the system encrypts the data using their public key. No one other than the recipient can unlock the data, but when the recipient receives the information, they can unlock it using their private key.

This is all managed transparently by the TelHosting software so it’s not something you need to be knowledgeable about in order to use it.

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Use Yahoo, Facebook or Gmail to choose your Personal .TEL Name

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
If you’ve been following the news about .TEL but haven’t pre-booked your name yet, there are probably a few critical concerns on your mind.

You likely know that .TEL names are awarded on a first come first serve basis, so as the interest heats up, the chances of someone else pre-booking the name you want increases. Remember, .TEL is global, so it could be anyone, anywhere in the world.

Obviously, the sooner you pre-book, the higher your chances are of getting the name you want. But even if you book right now, it’s possible your name has already gone.

If that’s the case, you may want a second, less popular variation of your name. But what if that’s gone too? How many should you pre-book to make sure you get at least one good name?

The most popular names and simplest names are likely to go first. Your chances of getting a single name like john.tel or jessica.tel or smith.tel are low. Of course you can take a gamble. If you get it, you have the choice of keeping it and being the envy of every Jessica on the planet, or selling it in the aftermarket and making handsome profit.

It’s more likely that a first name, last name combination has a better chance of success. If your name is John Smith, you may want a long list of back up names, but chances are your name is a bit less popular than John Smith.

The main question then, is how popular is your name, and how likely are you to get it before someone else does?

To get an idea of how popular your name is on a global level, you need to find a global address book. This is where Yahoo, Gmail and Facebook come in.

Facebook claims to have more than 100 million active users and an article in USA Today gives the following numbers for web mail providers:

Microsoft — 256.2 million users
Yahoo — 254.6 million users
Google — 91.6 million users

The bad news is that the people that have these accounts are the target market for .TEL, so the competition is potentially very steep.

The good news is that each of the sign up processes for the mail providers offers a feature to check the availability of your account name. If you have a Facebook account, you can use the search feature to search for names and determine their popularity.

For the web mail providers, head over to each of the sites and use the Check Availability feature to see if anyone else is currently using your preferred .TEL name already. Just enter your preferred name and click “Check Availability”.

If it’s available, there’s a pretty good chance your .TEL name will be too.

In a surprising number of cases though, the name is not available. If this is the case, you may want to submit one or two alternatives.

Try using a combination of first and last names, initials and diminutive or shortened versions of your name. Were he alive, James Dean might discover that jamesdean was not available. He might try jimmydean, jdean, jimd jamesbdean (middle name Byron) or other variations and submit one or two of these as backups to jamesdean.tel

Many registrars charge a non-refundable pre-booking fee, but with Webnames.ca, you only pay for the names you get. If you pre-book five variations but don’t get them, you pay nothing. On the other hand, if you get them all, you have to pay for them all.

Finally, if you really want a popular name, Landrush Registration allows you to apply seven weeks earlier than everyone else. It’s considerably more expensive but greatly increases your chances of getting the name you want. Again, you only pay if you’re successful and you still have the chance to sell a premium name in the aftermarket.

Your .TEL is going to be something you use for life and getting the name you want requires a bit of strategic thinking and knowledge of the likely demand.

• Pre-book early to improve your chances
• Understand the competition for a given name by checking existing availability on popular sites & services
• If you want a popular name, consider less popular alternatives as a fall back
• Use a registrar like Webnames.ca that only charges for successful registrations
• Balance the risk of not getting the name you want with the potential costs
• The aftermarket that can help offset the risk of multiple successful registrations

Links
Facebook  — www.facebook.com
Yahoo Sign Up — http://www.yahoo.com/r/m7
Microsoft Live Sign Up — https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx
Gmail — http://www.gmail.com

Pre-booking and Registration
Pre-booking for General Registration and Landrush is available now — http://www.webnames.ca/tel
General Registration opens March 24, 2009.
Landrush Registration opens seven weeks earlier on February 3, 2009.

Reference Links

USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-04-15-google-gmail-webmail_N.htm

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Will dot TEL Change the Landscape of Marketing?

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

The new dot TEL domain has been occupying a lot of my thoughts recently.

On my commute this morning, I was stopped at the lights behind a small truck with advertising signage on its back doors. The sign gave the name of the company, their tag line and a local number to call. This got me to thinking whether such signage would survive the new dot TEL world after it officially launches next March.

I counted another 96 easily noticeable signs and advertisements in the remaining fifteen minutes of my drive. Most of these were vehicle signs for small and large companies, but others were at bus stops, on bus sidings or on billboards. For the most part they contain a logo, message and a telephone number, web site address or both.

I believe that .TEL will create a change in advertising and marketing, but I think it will be more pervasive than dramatic. After all, trade vehicle signage has been popular since before the automobile and the image of the horse drawn wagon with the medicine show sidings is a familiar one.

The change will be more in keeping with the addition of a telephone number or web site address as the underlying technologies became popular.

In a post dot TEL world, I believe the dot TEL address will replace the telephone number and the web address. This change won’t be limited to mobile or roadside billboards, but will be extend to any form of advertising that contains contact information.

The driving force behind the change won’t be the technology itself. It will come from you and me, and will stem mainly from our laziness.

As consumers, we like ease. If it’s one less step in a process, one more barrier removed or one more advantage, we’re happier consumers. We’re also one step closer to a purchasing decision.

Dot TEL offers this small advantage. It’s going to make things just a little bit easier. As a result my actions might be just a bit different. And from a marketing perspective, that might just be enough to warrant change.

A telephone number has discrete utility. There’s only one thing I can really do with it. The same is largely true of a web address. With a telephone number or web address I have one thing to store or one thing to remember and when I use it, I get one result.

With a dot TEL however, I still have one thing to store or remember, but I can do a multitude of things I can do with it.

A dot TEL gives me the telephone number and the web address but can additionally give me a list of direct phone numbers to connect me to the department of my choice, e-mail addresses, fax numbers, physical and mailing addresses and even the geo location to view it on a map or get directions.

Given the choice, I’d rather have a single piece of information to store but multiple things it can do for me. And because of this I think the advertising landscape will change.

Anywhere that contact information is currently displayed we’ll see the growing use of the dot TEL address, whether it be in print, television, radio, computer screen or the side of a delivery truck.

In the short term, this may not mean a lot to marketers, but dot TEL is a flexible technology and that gives scope to innovation. Early software applications are already experimenting with combining the built in GPS functionality of the telephone with the geo-location capabilities of dot TEL. It’s a little spooky, but the application uses individual .TEL’s to tell you how far away your friends are.

My friend Lisa Wills was speculating that a similar application could offer a subscription service that allows a shop or coffee shop to ‘call out’ with specials when you’re passing.

A simpler opportunity might be to use the .TEL’s privacy option to display special offers or discounts, but only to members that have signed up using the “friending” system.

When a new technology emerges that has application to nearly every consumer on the planet, it’s going to attract the attention of marketing professionals. If it’s also one that is explicitly about communication and inherently flexible, it has the potential to change an industry.

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Posted in Articles, tel | 11 Comments »

Resistance is Futile – .TEL to Connect for Life

Friday, September 26th, 2008

We are the new generation. We walk, drive, have dinner, watch TV, and the list goes on all the while texting, reading and holding our mobile device of choice. You don’t have to like it, you can try to avoid becoming one of us but resistance is futile. You will one day find yourself holding and using your very own mobile device and when you do you may find yourself searching the web in new ways.

One of these new and innovative ways is via a .TEL domain. I know, I know you are thinking didn’t we just learn about .MOBI, wasn’t that supposed to usher us into the new world of mobile web surfing? Well as we all found as great as getting to our favorite websites via a .MOBI domain name is it left us wanting more… something beyond a paired down version or the regular websites we visit on our lap and desktop PCs.

We may not have known what that new technology may have been but we knew we wanted it. Something simple, a new way to connect and find each other on this big blue ball we call earth. What if I need to look someone’s contact information up while I am on the run? I mean sure it is great not having to carry around all those quarters for the pay phone but with the gradual disappearance of those little booths also, was the fate of those bound and hanging from the often dirty little shelf below the pay phone… that bulky un-environmentally friendly beast we called the phonebook.

So what is one to do when on the run and in need of a restaurant, some new Jimmy Choos or my best friend who changes their contact information with every new mobile device that hits the market? Well let me .TEL you what you can do, you can search for them by their .TEL domain name that will have all of their up to date contact details and maybe even a few extras. Imagine a world where your friends, your stylist, or your favorite eatery can be found by typing in their NAME.tel and that’s it, no flipping through the white or yellow pages, no more endless googling, just enter their NAME.TEL and there they are.

Ok, ok I know you are saying to yourself, “yeah, but first they have to buy their NAME.TEL in order for me to find them via the .TEL domain name”, well yeah of course you do, but why wouldn’t you? You certainly don’t want to be the last in your circle of friends to get your .TEL, remember resistance is futile.

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