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Genius Media Group, Inc, the company behind the annotated lyrics website, is suing Google and Lyric Find for $50 million. The complaint mentions copying lyrics from the site and using it on the results page. Here's a link to the Brooklyn based media company's complaint filed December 03, 2019, in Brooklyn Supreme Court of New York State County of Kings https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=3E0o8kQz4X3cWcbbid67wQ== 

 

Several news sites report Internet Society (ISOC)'s Public Interest Registry, a nonprofit, sold the top-level domain dot-org registry. The winning bidder is a private equity firm Ethos Capital. Allegedly, the dot-org registry is Ethos Capital only asset, but their website ethoscapital.com indicates otherwise. In July this year, ICANN, the nonprofit responsible keeping all things equal and equitable in the domain registrar world, also voted to lift the cap on registration fees. 

 

According to news reports, there will be no registration fee hikes. Still, your dot-org registration fees could go up and become cost-prohibitive. 

 

Sadly, nonprofits mostly use the dot org extension for their organizations' websites. And other online nonprofit news media websites containing a treasure trove of information also use the dot-org extension. Should those websites not be able to pay the domain registration fee - that information might disappear. If you're a dot org registrant, you might want to secure registration for the ten years to keep your domain name. At least it will buy you some time while these things shake out.

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12 minutes ago, Mel Hopkins said:

The complaint mentions copying lyrics from the site and using it on the results page.

 

Google is notorious for copying content. What makes this so bad is that they bury sites in search results for doing the same thing!

 

14 minutes ago, Mel Hopkins said:

If you're a dot org registrant, you might want to secure registration for the ten years to keep your domain name.

 

This acutally is a good idea anyway if the business or entity is not going away soon. It is less expensive and is a ranking signal the Google uses (domains with expirations far in the future get an SEO benefit.

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42 minutes ago, Troy said:

What makes this so bad is that they bury sites in search results for doing the same thing!

 

Exactly!  I hope the Genius lawyers bring that up at trial.  I google lyrics to click on the genius site out of spite lol
 

44 minutes ago, Troy said:

This acutally is a good idea anyway if the business or entity is not going away soon. It is less expensive and is a ranking signal the Google uses (domains with expirations far in the future get an SEO benefit.


Thank you! I didn't realize google also ranks registration length too. I register every year to get the marketing tax write off - the value of it as an asset isn't enough to stretch out over time.  But I'll consider registering multiple years now.

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20 hours ago, Troy said:

Given the risk of potentially having to pay much more may make it worth the investment. I only have one .org domain, https://cis3630.org i just looked it up and it expires in Feburary!

 

I just checked my dot-org sites and my renewal fee  is $20.99 ... before ICANN lifted the price cap - it was supposed to be $9.99 ...smh

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I saw something about this a few weeks ago and didn't think much of it. Now that I'm looking closer...how the hell can one company own all .org domains...and be able to arbitrarily hike prices and/or execute manipulative policies related to such domains? So far our three .org sites are all the same price as they've been for the past 8-10 years ($14.99). It's always a little more expensive than .com and .net domains. But I did add three years to each so now they don't expire until 2029.

 

@Troy domain age and expiry dates are definitely factors for Google rankings. I set up some A/B tests and our sites are all of a sudden back on the first page of results for victims of police murder simply by changing URL structures. It's mostly due to "fake news" and troll sites popping up and pushing political agendas to manipulate elections that Google doesn't respect new websites. I assume the 13+ years online, no expiry for 10 years and consistency with subject matter works in our favor too.

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7 minutes ago, Kareem said:

But I did add three years to each so now they don't expire until 2029.

 

Perfect!  At least you can sit back and watch if Ethos Capital keeps its word.  I agree - no for-profit  organization should be able to hold an extension hostage that supposed to be available to the public.  And ICANN held a public comment period and most of the people requested to keep the price cap. 

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