Monthly Archives: October 2005

Mon 31st October 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why China shouldn’t have a contend in internet governance - If you’re a freqent reader of DomainNameWire you know that I think the US should retain control of the internet and its naming system. I particularly fear China having a say in how the internet is governed given its position on free speech. Here’s a case in point. China keeps managing to close down a blog by a critic of the current communist regime. Wang Yi’s Microphone has changed domain names many times in an attempt to avoid blockage but the Chinese governement ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nailing an eBay domain name scammer - Earlier this month I wrote about buying domains on eBay. Although you can find some good deals, I listed a number of drawbacks to eBay versus other domain sales sites like Sedo and Afternic. It was just a couple days later that I got an e-mail through eBay’s system from a user called “TopNotchDomains”. He contacted me because he saw that I had bid on domain names and he wanted me to look at his auctions for domains. (Using eBay’s member contact system for ... read more ...
Fri 28th October 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.com registry prices could strike $9.00 - In a post on Monday (see Verisign to retain .com registry through 2012) I discussed the proposed settlement between ICANN and Verisign stemming from a lawsuit in 2003. Details are starting to circulate the web, especially about the terms of Verisign’s contract extension through 2012. It would allow Verisign the raise the fee it charges registrars for each .com registration, renewal, or transfer from $6 now to $9 by the end of the term. Increases in the registry ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Emmitt Smith wins his domain name - Football great Emmitt Smith was awarded the domain name EmmittSmith.com in a UDRP decision. The domain expired during the proceedings, as noted in the National Arbitration Forum press release: “During the course of the proceedings, the Respondent’s registration of the domain name emmittsmith.com was either deleted or expired, prompting Smith to redeem the domain name under the new Expired Domain Deletion Policy (EDDP) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sex.com hijacker arrested - Stephen Michael Cohen, who famously tricked Network Solutions into handing over the Sex.com domain name to him, was arrested by Mexican authorities and handed over the U.S. authorities Thursday. Cohen currently owes $82M to the rightful owner of Sex.com. Read more here. ... read more ...
Thu 27th October 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Whois verifications removing out of hand - Tired of getting notices from your registrars that you need to verify your Whois data per ICANN requirements? I know I am. What I don’t understand is why registrars send out an individual e-mail notice for each and every domain you hold with them. Can’t they send out one message for all domains that have the same Whois information? One of my worries about these Whois update notices is that they’ll be used for phishing attacks in the future. These messages ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain name companies strike by Hurricane Wilma - Hurricane Wilma is having an effect on a number of domain name service providers. The Hurricane hit Florida just as the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East conference concluded and also hit a number of Florida companies. DNJournal delayed its weekly sales report as it cleaned up and dealt with delays from domain name sales companies that usually provide it with statistics by Tuesday. Moniker and its paid parking service, TrafficClub, also reported heavy damages and asked customers ... read more ...
Wed 26th October 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Consulting.com sells for $180,000 in live domain auction - This year’s T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East conference included a live domain name auction and the results were excellent. The following sales were reported in a story at DNJournal. Check out the story for complete details of this Fall’s conference. Consulting.com $180,000 Bachelor.com (including .net .org) $125,000 SoapOperas.com $55,000 LMT.com $11,000 CharterTrips.com $10,500 TopStocks.com $8,000 CreditHistoryCheck.com $6,500 CarsTrader.com $6,000 FRW.com $6,000 FantasyPlayers.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic sells StarDust.com for $25k - Afternic closed a big sale today – StarDust.com for $25,555! They sold several other domains for top dollar: FreshFlowers.biz $1,300 Sites2Go.com $2,288 Alnahar.com $2,900 LosAngelesWedding.com $2,000 ClickMovies.com $1,000 It also appears that Afternic is not posting sales on its site now until escrow is completed. I sold IPTVforum.com on the site a couple weeks ago but escrow just finished yesterday–and the sale shows up on the site’s sales list for yesterday. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
San Antonio Saints? Oklahoma Hornets? Domainers consider so. - With the likelihood that New Orleans won’t be able to support pro sports teams a year from now, more permanent plans are being made for the city’s two professional sports teams: Saints football and Hornets basketball. But if you want to snag a domain for potential new cities you’re already too late. San Antonio is seen as a likely home for the Saints, who are playing some games there this season. SanAntonioSaints.com is registered, and so are all of the other ... read more ...
Tue 25th October 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
BRANDomains.com offered off vast portfolio -

I customarily omit press releases about domains for sale, though BRANDomains is offered a series of good domains for usually $600. You can see all 163 domains for sale during BRANDomains.com.

Among a domains that held my eye:

CareerPass.com
InvestWeek.com
IPOprices.com
IPOquotes.com
NebraskaSteaks.com
WeatherModels.com

Via: domainnamewire.com

Mon 24th October 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Verisign to keep .com registry by 2012 - In a late-breaking announcement today, Verisign and ICANN agreed to settle a longstanding lawsuit that originated with Verisign’s introduction of the SiteFinder service in 2003. This service basically set up a parking page on all domains that weren’t registered. Revenue from clicks on these parking pages went to Verisign. The settlement requires Verisign to get approval before introducing services like SiteFinder. When asked if Verisign would try to reintroduce ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Review: Whois Source Whois.sc - Serious domain name owners know there’s one Whois service that tops the rest: WhoIs.sc. Whois.sc offers four main services from its home page: Name Spinner- enter a keyword to get 20+ suggestions for domains containing the keyword. It shows all major extensions for the domains (.com, .net, .org., .info, .biz, .us). This service is also used by many registrars through Whois.sc’s API. Domain Explorer- enter a keyword and Domain Explorer brings up a list of registered ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
BirdFlu.com customer bought forward of a curve - I didn’t know what bird flu was when I heard about the sale of BirdFlu.com for $19,875 at Afternic back in March of this year. Now you can’t go a day of watching TV without hearing hysteria about it. The buyer of the domain bought it before bird flu became a common term, and the site is now ranked #1,360,017 on Alexa–up from a 3 month average of #2,659,138. Much of this traffic is from type-ins. $19,875 now looks like a steal. Domain name investors can snap ... read more ...
Fri 21st October 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
HurricaneWilma.com listed on eBay - It didn’t take long. You can now bid on the HurricaneWilma.com domain name on eBay. As Wilma attacks Mexico and heads toward Florida, one Ohio resident is trying to profit. As of now the domain is at $177.50 with 12 bids, but the reserve is not met. The auction ends October 22 at 2:42PM PDT. The owner of the domain is unknown since he is using a proxy registration service offered by GoDaddy. The domain was registered back in 2002 according to WhoIs. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy launches domain name estimation service - The world’s biggest registrarGoDaddy has launched a domain name appraisal service. The company offers two services: 1. Express – receive your appraisal within 2 hours. This appraisal is based on top-level domain (TLD), length, number of words, number of hyphens, numeric characters, and desirability. The cost is $9.95. My opinion is that this service is a waste of money. You really can’t tell the value of a domain from just looking at these factors. Desirability ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Losing a cybersquatting box could outcome in a large fine - Here’s an interesting case from across the pond in the United Kingdom. A story on Out-Law.com describes the struggle over the citigroup.co.uk domain name and Jim Davies, who registered the domain in 1998 the same day the merger between Travelers Group and Citicorp was announced. Citigroup showed its incompetence by not registering citigroup.co.uk (or citigroup.com for that matter) before announcing the merger. But they swiftly filed arbitration disputes to get ... read more ...
Thu 20th October 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy should dump ICANN tax - Several months ago GoDaddy started adding a $.25 ICANN “tax” to most domain name registrations. It is time for GoDaddy to drop this nonsense and add the fee to its advertised price; and ICANN should require all registrars to advertise its prices inclusive of fees. Here’s the background. In its latest budget ICANN added a variable fee for all accredited registrars. This fee is $.25 per domain name registered. The idea was to raise money by charging registrars ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TrafficClub adding new Pay-Per-Click feeds - TrafficClub has announced it is changing its pay-per-click feeds. SBX for adult traffic is being removed and another adult feed will take its place. TrafficClub is also hinting that it’s adding a couple other feeds. The more the better! For my latest review of TrafficClub’s paid parking service, click here. ... read more ...
Wed 19th October 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Gmail.com to turn GoogleMail.com in UK - Due to a trademark battle, Google is changing the domain name for its Gmail service in the UK to GoogleMail.com, according to this story on News.com. UK-based Independent International Investment Research (IIIR) uses the name G-mail to refer to a part of its financial analytics software. Current UK residents with @gmail.com email addresses will not be affected. The GoogleMail.com domain is not resolving on the internet right now and might only be used as part of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
US lawmakers titillate boss to keep US control of internet - A number of United States lawmakers are urging President Bush to help the US retain control of the internet. One quote from resolution sponsor Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, in a Reuters story: “Is it going to become a vehicle for global taxation of domain names? Are you going to allow folks who have demonstrated a pattern of suppression of content, are they going to be put in charge of running this thing?” For more on this issue, see:Plans for global ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VideosGratis.com sells for $66,204 - DNJournal has posted its latest domain name sales figures for last week. VideosGratis.com sold for $66,204 through NameDrive, a new PPC provider and domain brokerage. I have been testing about 10 names at NameDrive for the past couple weeks and will issue a review on Domain Name Wire within a few more weeks. Other big .com sales last week were ByOwnerMLS.com for $50,620, TVshow.com for $43,200, and AAH.com for $25,000. There was an interesting sale on the new ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The End of Pay-per-Click? - Are the days of pay-per-click over? Domain Sponsor is the first major PPC parking service to announce that they are no longer paying on a pure pay-per-click basis. As of this past week they pay more if people actually buy stuff when they click through your links. They will pay less if people don’t buy stuff. For this reason Domain Parking News is no longer recommending Domain Sponsor until we can fully evaluate the impact of this change. Domain Sponsor has put ... read more ...
Tue 18th October 2005
Mon 17th October 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Plans for tellurian government of a internet are a hazard to the future - I didn’t come up with the title for this post. It is the title of a recent piece in the world’s best news analysis publication, The Economist. The October 8-14 issue discusses the challenge to the United State’s management of the internet on page 16 and again on page 74. If you are a regular reader of Domain Name Wire you know that I think the US should retain control of the internet. The system is working now, and putting it in the hands of another ruling ... read more ...