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Web Site Aggregates Offers From Leading U.S. Credit Card Companies

AUSTIN, TX — (MARKET WIRE) — 07/20/2004 — CreditCards.com, the domain name, has been purchased for $2.75 million by ClickSuccess, L.P., an Austin-based firm specializing in marketing financial products online. The purchase, announced today, represents the fifth highest selling price for a domain name on record. The site allows consumers to shop, compare and apply for leading credit card offers based on selected criteria, including interest rates, cash-back offers and frequent flyer reward programs.

CreditCards.com, through agreements with leading financial institutions, enables consumers to evaluate the multitude of credit card offers available today.

CreditCards.com provides visitors with information and overviews on the U.S.’s leading credit cards. Consumers can easily compare offers side-by-side based on the lowest interest rates, balance transfer and rewards programs. In addition, the site provides helpful articles and news on issues important to credit management. CreditCards.com creates an intelligent and easy-to-use way to compare and apply for credit cards online.

“CreditCards.com seeks to be a comprehensive source for helping consumers determine which credit card best suits their needs by enabling them to shop and compare offers,” stated Dan Smith, President and CEO of CreditCards.com and ClickSuccess. “We purchased the URL in order to provide consumers with a prime resource for researching and applying for credit cards online. We believe it represents the single best location on the Internet for our services and we’re very excited about the URL’s natural popularity by individuals seeking information on credit cards.”

Credit cards are so prevalent that more than two-thirds of American households have at least one, and the average household is estimated to carry approximately $8400.00 in credit card debt, according to CardWeb.com Inc. In addition, a Gallup Poll conducted in April of 2004 finds that just over half of Americans surveyed have at least one credit card they do not pay off in full each month. The report found that the average consumer often employs credit lines as short-term loans. In response to the exceedingly high demand by consumers for more credit options, companies have developed a plethora of offers. CreditCards.com, a free service to consumers, aggregates offers and information from the U.S.’s leading credit card companies into a searchable and easy to navigate web site.

About CreditCards.com, L.P.

CreditCards.com, L.P., based in Austin, Texas, is a website where consumers can shop, compare and apply for credit cards online. Consumers can easily search for a credit card offer based on selected criteria, including interest rates, rewards programs, airline frequent flyer programs and cash-back incentives. The site brings together offers from the U.S.’s leading credit card companies and aggregates the data in one place. CreditCards.com’s goal is to provide unbiased information and overviews on hundreds of cards, enabling consumers to conveniently comparison shop for credit card offers online.

By Kieren McCarthy
Google has become a registrar - a company allowed to sell Internet domain names - but told us it has no current plans to sell any.

Last week, Internet overseeing organisation ICANN and technical arm IANA, quietly approved Google’s application and gave it ID number 895. It is now entitled to sell any .biz, .com, .info, .name, .net, .org and .pro domains (but not .aero, .coop, or .museum). Interestingly though, a Google spokeswoman told us it has no plans to sell any at the moment.

The reason it paid a $2,500 application fee and $6,500 to cover six top-level domains is that it “wants to get a better understanding of the domain name system [and so] increase the quality of our search results”. The email address it gives with relation to its new registrar status is dns-admin@google.com.

Google notes that Amazon did exactly the same thing nearly two years ago. At that time, a March 2003 article in the Wall Street Journal pointed out that the online giant had become a registrar and assumed that it was about to launch a domain name selling business. It set the industry off - but we are still waiting, 47 months later.

So the question is: why become a registrar if you’re not going to sell domains? Speculation is rife.

One idea is that it has to do with Google’s AdSense for Domains business, which aims at the domain name industry. Google’s technology “understands the meaning” of domain names, the company says, and then ties it in with search terms that people type in its search engines.

Then of course there is the possibility that it will find a way of tying in all of its other new services and connecting them to a domain name sale. So, for example, you buy “All-in-one.com” through Google and it gives you Gmail, Blogger and whatever else in a bundle. It does a Microsoft of the internet by getting you to use all its software and services and so give itself an enourmous amount of power and control.

Plus, if Google was in charge of your domain, it has access to everything that comes in and goes out and could use it to tackle spam more effectively.

And then of course, there is the ongoing rumour that Google may be developing its own web browser (it owns www.gbrowser.com). And then the pie-in-the-sky idea that it may release its own operating system.

But leaving the Google-heads behind, what is clear is that if you become an accredited registrar you gain an extra level of access to the DNS system and that means you can have a look at the inner workings, experiment with a thing or two and come up with new ideas and improved services.

And if there is one thing Google really excels at, it is getting more than everyone else out of the internet infrastructure. ®

Google Domain name Seller list

ICANN approved a plan for the new top-level domain yesterday
News Story by John Blau
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) yesterday approved a plan for pornographic Web sites to use new addresses that end with “.xxx,” something numerous groups and U.S. political leaders have been seeking to try to prevent sexually explicit content from landing on the screens of young Internet users.

ICANN, the nonprofit organization that oversees technical matters related to the Internet, said it will begin negotiations with ICM Registry Inc. to resolve commercial and technical issues associated with operating the .xxx top-level domain (TLD).

The decision in favor of establishing a virtual red-light district for providers of pornographic content and their customers represents a U-turn for ICANN, which rejected ICM’s first application for the .xxx TLD in November 2000. Reasons for the objection are published in a document available on ICANN’s Web site.

ICANN, in Marina Del Rey, Calif., wasn’t immediately available for comment.

ICM argues on its Web site that .xxx Web addresses will shield children from pornographic content more effectively by allowing families and others using filtering software to block access to sites ending with this suffix.

The International Foundation for Online Responsibility will sponsor .xxx, according to ICM Registry. The foundation is a Canadian nonprofit entity that will serve as the policy-making authority for the .xxx TLD. It is — and will remain — totally independent from ICM Registry, which is primarily funded by registration activities, the Internet registry company said.

The nonprofit foundation said on its Web site it will promote online child safety and campaign against child pornography. “This foundation will provide assistance through various online support organizations and the sponsoring of technology tools and education programs for parents,” ICM Registry said. “The online adult-entertainment industry wants to create an identifiable space with which its members can elect to associate themselves and wherein they can responsibly self-organize and create guidelines to promote credible self-regulation.”

ICM Registry, which is wholly owned by Chestermere Investments Ltd., will operate the registry. The company, according to its Web site, “is a financially stable and completely independent entity with no affiliation, current or historic, with the adult-entertainment industry.”

In 2000, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) joined several other U.S. politicians demanding ICANN to approve the .xxx TLD. In a paper available on the Web (download PDF), Lieberman wrote: “I think [the .xxx TLD] has a lot of merit, for rather than constricting the Net’s open architecture, it would capitalize on it to effectively shield children from pornography and it would do so without encroaching on the rights of adults to have access to protected speech.”
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