March 27, 2000

ICICISUCKS.COM
No we are not resorting to abuse. The headline is merely one of the 100 domain names registered by ICICI, which is fast gaining notoriety as a big cybersquatter. The Tatas and the Times of India have made it a mission to evict cybersquatters through legal action. ICICI is also facing eviction action by IL&FS and probably LIC too. Within days after IL&FS launched its subsidiary Investsmartindia Limited with a domain of the same name, ICICI went ahead and registered Investmartindia, minus the ‘s’. It also registered jeevanbeema.com and made LIC see red. It argues that jeevanbeema is a generic name to which LIC has no specific rights. One could fault LIC for not being agile enough to protect the name, but as a monopoly and a regular user of the name, it probably felt no need. ICICI’s arguments may form a technically correct defense in court, but it still leaves a bad stink. Maybe that is why it blocked ICICISUCKS — but it still leaves a world of possible domains which are up for grab. (Source: Network Solutions).

Gameplan future
The largest domains blocked by ICICI are in the housing industry — further proof of its determination to topple the market leader. They include — indiahomeguide, chardiwar, 4deewar, 4diwar, chardeewar, hamaraghar,indiahomesearch, propertiesforu and so on. Another important business is obviously going to be its effort to direct donations from those who have the money to those who seek aid. ICICI has registered several permutations of netcharityindia. Other domains that it has blocked are mainly connected with its specific businesses such as sites for loan seekers, demat opportunities, bonds, fixed deposits, banking, an online mall and specific e-commerce sites for car and consumer loans. An interesting idea that ICICI seems to be chasing is a site called ‘oye’ for Indian cities. Since most of these domain names are already snapped up, ICICI has registered oyeindiacities.com and over 50 sites-specific cities with the pre-fix oye often in old names and the changed ones. So you have oyepoona, oyepune, oyedilli, oyedelhi etc.

Exit price
While on IL&FS, the fate of its infrastructure projects in Maharashtra is interesting. Several years ago the company signed two MoUs. One for the Worli-Searock link and another for the Panvel Bypass. Over time the projects made no headway beyond feasibility studies. Then along came the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation and suddenly the infrastructure projects were buzzing to life, but without IL&FS. MSRDC took over both projects but actually paid for the privilege. We learn that MSRDC had to pay Rs 3 crore to get the project away from IL&FS. But the corporation is not complaining. For one, they negotiated the price down from Rs 6 crore to Rs 2 crore (for spadework and a feasibility study which was never used). MSRDC officials are now in a position to point out that they have built a bigger (six lanes instead of four) and more complex project that too at a price which is 30 per cent lower than IL&FS’s proposed price. In fact, it did the same with the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, which is almost complete at Rs 1,500 crore. MSRDC’s spanking track record in project planning, implementation schedule and use of technology may, in fact, have effectively blocked out all private companies from taking over major infrastructure project in the State.

Bulls and bears
The ICE party is fizzling out. Tech stocks have failed to revive even after Bill Clinton’s lavish praise. Though mutual funds seem to have made the transition from ICE to old economy without too much damage to their portfolios, several punters have lost heavily and seen their paper profits vanish. Probably for the first time, they have nobody to blame but greed. Yes, a bear group has certainly taken advantage of the weakening prices and hammered them down, but that is the market. The only question that remains unanswered is why was one particular investment banker identified as the big bear operator. Maybe somebody’s idea of a clever revenge.

 

Updated weekly.

The author's e-mail address is: suchetadalal@yahoo.com

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