Blue Chi’s

After months of suffering, we finally got our ADSL connection at my place in Muscat and we just got our wireless router to work. Blue_Chi is going to be forever back online!

Oman3D had the honour of interviewing the young Omani artist Her Highness Sayyidah Latifa Al Said of the Omani Royal Family. Latifah held her first exhibition for her painting artwork in December last year and had appeared in various Omani publications. We interviewed her to learn more about her artwork and her experience as an Omani artist. Read the interview here.

I’ve finally gotten my hands on Timbaland‘s latest album TIMBALAND presents: Shock Value. Timbaland is a music producer that has worked with so many different artists from all different genres including Jay Z, Missy Elliot, Brandy, Aaliyah, Nelly Furtado, The Pussycat Dolls, Justin Timberlake, etc. This is the first album he produces under his own name, he previous released a couple of albums in cooperation with rapper Magoo, who appears on the track Boardmeeting here on Shockvalue.

Shock Value is the usual Timbo greatness, it is ALL about the beats. Each song in the album is so much different from the other and features a diverse set of aritsts from Dr Dre and Missy Elliot, to alternative rock bands such as The Hives and One Republic, and ending up with Elton John along with so many more.

1. Oh Timbaland – Timbaland
2. Give It to Me – Nelly Furtado, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake
3. Release – Timbaland, Justin Timberlake
4. Way I Are – Doe, Keri Hilson, Timbaland
5. Bounce – Dr. Dre, , Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake
6. Come and Get Me – 50 Cent, Timbaland, Tony Yayo
7. Kill Yourself – Attitude, , Sebastian, Timbaland
8. Boardmeeting – Magoo, Timbaland
9. Fantasy – Money, Timbaland
10. Scream – Keri Hilson, Nicole Scherzinger, Timbaland
11. Miscommunication – Keri Hilson, , Sebastian, Timbaland
12. Bombay – Amar, Jim Beanz, Timbaland
13. Throw It on Me – The Hives, Timbaland
14. Time – She Wants Revenge, Timbaland
15. One and Only – Fall Out Boy, , Timbaland
16. Apologize – OneRepublic, Timbaland
17. 2 Man Show – Elton John, Timbaland
18. Hello – Keri Hilson, Attitude

 

4/5

Yesterday was the world intellectual property day, my favourite legal topic. A really interesting article on why this is such a confusing title of the collection of laws topics it groups together could be found here. I found this via Tomasz Rychlicki’s blog, a great read for those interested in technology law.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority made an announcement in the papers earlier this week asking for some feedback regarding a proposal they got from a company to register a domain name Search.om and have all unresolved traffic from unregistered domain names under the .om domain name extension redirected to the Search.om website. I thought that I’ll chip in and voice my opinion, here is the letter I sent them today:

To: Telecommunications Regulatory Authority

Subject: Public Consultation on Search.om Proposal

After Compliments,

Regarding your request for feedback on the proposal of a company to register the domain name Search.om and to redirect all unresolved traffic under the .om domain name to Search.om, I would like to point out the following points to consider when making your decision.

A great deal on whether or not the TRA should grant this right to Search.om will depend on the landing page to which the unresolved traffic will be redirected to. Direct redirection to the homepage of Search.om without making a clear notice to the visitor that he had attempted to access a domain that has not been registered could give rise to a number of issues.

First of all, if no message was given to the visitor regarding the status of the domain name they attempted to visit, less savvy Internet users could easily assume when redirected that Search.om is in fact the website they intended to access. For example, a user wants to visit the Google search engine, instead of typing Google.com or Google.com.om, he mistakenly types Google.om, which is, at this moment, not registered by Google, under this proposal the user will be redirected to Search.om, and he might assume that this is in fact the Google search engine that he has heard of.

In addition to it possibly being misleading for casual Internet users, such a situation could also give rise to a trademark infringement action. The word Google is a registered trademark in the Sultanate of Oman and Search.com would be taking an unfair advantage of Google’s reputation by accessing all the traffic delivered through a domain name that contains the registered trademark of Google. This case could be argued by any trademark owner whose service could be confused with that of Search.om when accessed through a trademark infringing domain name.

The proposal summary does not state its effect on .gov.om and .edu.om domain extensions. Under no circumstances should such a company acquire traffic that attempts to access these domain extensions such as those for the authority they infer on web content.

The TRA should be aware of the fact that Search.com will host content that is not under the control of the TRA. Search.om will also probably monetize its content through advertising. The content of those advertisements will not be under the control of the TRA, and might not be under the control of the Search.com either if it attempts to join an advertisement network to show automated or contextual advertisements. All of this content along with the Internet search services it provides which could contribute to the discovery of pornographic, pirated, violent, and other forms of illegal materials, creates a huge amount of risk that has to be considered before attempting to get into this agreement, especially when considering the infinite number of domain names that carry the identity of the country which will forward visitors from Oman and elsewhere to this website.

Another point to raise – which is probably of less significance than the earlier ones – is the lack of any online means for checking the availability of domain names under the .om extension for registeration. Casual Internet users that wish to check whether a domain name has been registered or not simply do so by typing the domain name in the URL field of their Internet browser. When they get redirected to an existing website other than that of their ISP they instantly assume that the domain name has been registered and will not seek to register it if they originally intended to do so. This could, in theory at least, contribute negatively on the number of registered domains under the .om extension.

For those reasons I believe that granting access to unresolved traffic for .om domain names would be disadvantageous to the public, it could lead to confusion, and might constitute a trademark infringement in some cases. If the TRA is lured to enter into this deal with Search.com, I recommend that it imposes a set of conditions to force Search.om to include some obligatory content in the landing page to which the visitors will be redirected. Such content shall include:

1. A clear unambiguous statement in both Arabic and English notifying the user that he attempted to access a domain name that has not been registered.
2. A message in both Arabic and English stating that the domain name the user attempted to access could be registered by contacting the authority responsible for the .om domain name extension.

The TRA should ensure that Search.om search services include by default features for excluding offensive, illegal, and violent material from search results. The TRA should also hold Search.om fully responsible for all content displayed on its website, including content served through advertisements by third parties through automated and contextual advertising networks.

Yours faithfully,

Riyadh Al Balushi
Legal Researcher
The Ministry of Legal Affairs

Tel: 24489091
Fax : 24482851

DISCLAIMER: THIS LETTER IS NOT AN OFFICIAL OPINION BY THE MINISTRY OF LEGAL AFFAIRS AND SHALL NOT BE TREATED AS SUCH. ALL EXPRESSIONS, OPINIONS AND COMMENTS WRITTEN HERE WERE MADE BY RIYADH AL BALUSHI IN HIS PERSONAL CAPACITY.

My first experience with the new Emax store opened at City Centre Muscat was extremely disappointing. Somehow I was so stupid to purchase a cheap phone cover which I honestly thought was genuine, I left the store, tried putting it on and found out that it was defective – it did not fit the phone.

I instantly went back to the store and asked the customer service desk for help, the Omani girl called up the phone department assistant on the PA system, I stood waiting for a minute, two, three, four, and nobody came. She then asked me to go and look for the guy myself, another stupid move I did, I walked to the phone department and talked to the first Indian, he told me to the talk the other one on the other side, I went up the second Indian who told me that I should be speaking to the first one that I have just been to. I instantly realised that I should not be doing this to myself, I went back to the stupid customer service girl and told her that the stupid phone dept people did not help. She called up again on the PA system, nobody came, after staying there for more than ten minutes she decided to go look for them themselves, in a minute she came back saying that the people that I need to talk to have gone to lunch and that I should come back in hour. I was in the store just looking for someone to talk to regarding the phone cover issue and I couldn’t find anybody. She did not offer me any other help. I left.

I got up seriously pissed about it the next morning, I went back to Emax and the same thing happened again: I stood there for 10 minutes, she called and called over the PA system and nobody came. Another women came up complaining about a faulty MP3 player she bought for her kid, the customer service girl told her that everybody is complaining about this MP3 player and that the women can exchange it for store credit which she could use to purchase stuff at the same price in the store, the woman said that she wants to get a refund because she doesn’t want to buy anything else from the store, the customer service girl said that they do not have a refund policy and that the woman would have to see the manager if she is not happy with store credit, the woman said okay fine where is this manager, the girl called him over the PA system, and you know what happened.

We stood there waiting. I’m waiting for ANYBODY to come talk to me, and the other woman waiting for the manager, we stood waiting and waiting, AND NO FREAKING BODY CAME, it was really annoying, I made up my mind to make an official complaint, I checked the receipt and it had a phone number on it, so I thought that I’ll save myself the useless wait and just leave. I told the woman waiting that I’ve been waiting for two days and nobody came up, I then asked the stupid customer service girl for her name (to mention that she did not offer any help when I make my complaint), she freaked out a bit when I asked her about her name, I repeated my question and she said told me that her name is Asmaa’ Abdul Karim.

Next day I called up the customer service number, told my story to the operator, he did not offer any solution and just told me to call the store manager, I called up the manager, he apologised and told me to come to the showroom to talk about it.

I went today to the showroom, I went up the customer service girl (she’s the only person you can talk to), I told her that I need to see the manager, she called him over the PA system, and I stood there waiting, five minutes pass before he actually comes, we didn’t talk much, I said that I want my refund and he said that I’ll get it, he asked me if I wanted to buy anything else from the store, I said no, we went up the cashier and got my money back, but the whole set of their staff was extremely rude, in the showroom itself NOT A SINGLE PERSON APOLOGISED, not even the manager himself. I am still so mad about it, I do not think that I will EVER buy anything from that place. You have been warning now, buy stuff from Emax at your own risk. Can’t believe they’ve been making press releases titled “Customer Service is Emax’s USP”.

If you are struggling with the customer service of Emax do not waste your time waiting at the counter, the person to shout at is the manager Ismail, his phone number is 95755889.