Monthly Archives: November 2005

Wed 30th November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XXX domain on reason “indefinitely” -

Bret Fausett is reporting that .xxx has been taken off a bulletin during a Vancouver ICANN meetings. This doesn’t warn me much. Conservatives forsaken support after they satisfied that adding .xxx wouldn’t meant all porn would be changed to a new extension.

More to follow…

Via: domainnamewire.com

 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
RapidRefund.com sells for $52,945 - It looks like the big domain name buyers ate a lot of turkey last week and spent time with their families rather than buying domain names. But DNJournal still had some good domain name sales to report. The highest reported sale over the past week was RapidRefund.com which sold for $52,945 through Moniker. Tax season is just around the corner in the U.S. FreeAgent.com sold for $10,100 at Afternic, which seems like a good deal for the buyer. A typo domain, Mypsace.com, ... read more ...
Tue 29th November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sega risks losing domain name - Sega, maker of popular video games like Sonic the Hedgehog, has let one of its game’s domains expire, as pointed out at Joystiq. Shenmue.com expired on Nov 19. The domain was registered through NetSol, so if it isn’t renewed it will drop through SnapNames. The domain has a pagerank of 5 and 1,270 incoming Yahoo links, and has been online since 1998. Someone needs to keep better records at Sega. Like many large companies, they probably manage their domain names ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The problem with domain name exchanges - I’ve bought–and sold–many domains on domain name exchanges like Sedo and Afternic. These transactions usually go well because of the exchanges’ built in escrow services. I’ve been able to complete transactions–including the domain transfer–in as few as two days. But it doesn’t always go as planned. Twice I have “bought” domains on Afternic which turn out to no longer be owned by the seller. A few months ago I bought a 3 character domain for ... read more ...
Mon 28th November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lawsuit hurdles Verisign Settlement - Domain name industry experts have been voicing their opinions about ICANN’s proposed legal settlement with Verisign, which gives Verisign control of the .com registry through 2012. With ICANN’s Vancouver meeting starting in just two days, a group of businesses have filed a lawsuit claiming the settlement violates US Antitrust laws. I’m opposed to the settlement for a number of reasons, but using US antitrust law as the wrench is an old argument. A lawyer ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN might auction off single-letter domains - ICANN is considering opening single letter domain names, such as e.com, for registration. ICANN stopped allowing registration of single letter domains in 1993. Only 6 single letter domains had been registered by then, including X.com which is now owned by PayPal through a merger. Some two letter domains also aren’t available for registration because of confusion with certain two letter country code domain extensions. Two character domains will not be affected ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Yet another internet addressing system - The press gobbled up a news release over the holiday about a Dutch company creating an alternative to ICANN’s domain name system. Been there, done that. Similar to New.net, this system takes advantage of unsuspecting consumers who pay money for domain names that only work for a fraction of internet users. But the bigger problem lies in trademarks. If someone registered a something.xxx domain from New.net, they could theoretically get a trademark for the domain. ... read more ...
Fri 25th November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cohen gives adult iTunes.co.uk fight - Ben Cohen and his CyberBritain company have given up the challenge for getting the iTunes.co.uk domain back from Apple. Apple won the domain from Cohen back in March. Cohen challenged Apple’s victory in the UK court system. Apple may have won this one, but it still needs to get its domain name strategy together. It could have avoided the legal expenses of this entire debacle by having a proactive domain name policy. How they neglected to register the iPodNano.com ... read more ...
Wed 23rd November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The bottom only fell out of a domain registration market - A few years ago we paid $70 to register a domain. Then the likes of Doster and GoDaddy came around, offering domains for under $15. 11 offers them for $5.99, which means they actually lose a penny on .com registrations. Now you can register a domain for $2.95 with no strings attached. This isn’t like the GoDaddy offer that requires you to buy another service. After the first year the price increases to $8.25. That’s not bad, but if you want you can just ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs measure biggest sales week ever - When I closed on my purchase of blogs.info for $3,000 last week, I figured it might land in the top three spots on DNJournal’s weekly sales report for new TLDs. Last week the #3 spot on the charts was the $3,000 sale of Footwear.info. The week before that a $3,000 sale would have taken the #1 spot. But not this week–not the best week ever for new TLD sales! My purchase of blogs.info landed all the way down at #8 on DNJournal’s charts! But hey, I’m not ... read more ...
Tue 22nd November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Marchex batch adult 15% week-over-week - One of the domain industry’s biggest company’s, Marchex (NASDAQ: MCHX), has seen its stock rise 15% since one week ago, from $19.13 per share to $22.08 per share. To see how fast it’s growing, consider that its trailing price-to-earnings ratio is almost 650, but its forward price-to-earnings ratio is only 42. Marchex is mentioned in the December Business 2.0 story about the domain name industry. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Business 2.0 Article about domain name industry - Just days after a story about the domain name market appeared in The Wall Street Journal online, Business 2.0 has 6 page spread about the domain name business. (See December 2005 issue, page 138). Using the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference held in Florida last month as a backdrop, it discusses how PPC advertising is helping the market take off, how the domain dropping craze made millions for smart domainers, and profiles a number of the industry’s biggest players. It ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Op-Ed in Wall Street Journal about US control of internet - There’s a great Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal about the importance of the US retaining control of the internet. It is written by Pete DuPont, previous governor of Delaware. Among DuPont’s excellent points: “Paul Volcker’s recent report on the United Nations Oil for Food scandal taught us a great deal about how the U.N. works… …All of which explains why allowing the United Nations to be in charge of running the Internet is a very ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is domain parking a legitimate use of domain names? - A claimant in a UDRP domain name dispute must prove that the defendant does not hold any rights or legitimate interests in the domain. Arbitration panels have not been consistent in their interpretation of this requirement. Sedo’s latest newsletter discusses a case in which the owner of ambience.biz won a UDRP even though the domain pointed to a Sedo parking page: “While Complainants are normally quick to point out that a domain in question is being parked ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo sells record series of domains in October - Domain brokerage Sedo reported that it sold 1,208 domains in October, a new record for the leading company. The company did not report the total dollar value yet. Sedo has some new listings worthy of noting: Career.net Equipment.com Centerfolds.com Marketing.de Show.biz Cattle.com Tractors.com Germany’s .de domain extension is the most popular country code domain and marketing.de could make a big splash. Show.biz makes a great play on the .biz extension. And ... read more ...
Mon 21st November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Cyber Monday might move increasing domain parking traffic - The Monday following Thanksgiving is quickly becoming a major online shopping day according to a Shop.org study, which dubs it “Cyber Monday“. This could mean increased PPC revenue from domain parking on November 28 as consumer flock to the web looking to buy. Although this week should be good for consumer-oriented web sites, it might be a dissapointment for other domains. Look for traffic to decrease on Thursday as the US celebrates Thanksgiving and people ... read more ...
Sun 20th November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Will new Google calm bids impact domain parking revenue? - JenSense (a great blog for contextual advertising information) just pointed out that Google is now offering separate bids for search and content ads in its Adwords program. This is similar to Yahoo/Overture, which lets you set different bid amounts for an ad that results from a search and a contextual ad on a web site. Most people find Adwords contextual advertising to have a much lower ROI than search advertising–even with Google’s “smart pricing“. What ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Hacks - A focus on so-called “domain hacks” grew when social bookmarking site del.icio.us starting gaining international attention. The actual domain for the site is http://icio.us, but del is a subdomain. It’s a neat way to make a word out of an otherwise indeterminable domain. Creating domain hacks can be fun but may create security issues. Will it ever amount to a brandable domain? Doubtful. Every time I try to go to the Delicious site I end up typing some ... read more ...
Thu 17th November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bogota.com sells for $159,500 - An auction for Bogota.com ended at SnapNames yesterday for $159,500. Yep, SnapNames. That means that this is an expired domain. Someone lost over $150,000 by not renewing their domain name. One person who was bidding in the auction said it was at approximately $55,000 with 5 minutes to go. SnapNames auto extends auctions when bids occur in the last five minutes. With the strength of domain name sales lately this won’t be the biggest sale of the week…especially ... read more ...
Wed 16th November 2005
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bills.com sells for $964,500 (sort of) - Coming off the heels of the Fish.com sale at $1,020,000, the domain community has learned of a letter of intent for the domain Bills.com and associated trademarks. According to a press release, Payment Data Systems, Inc. (OTC BB: PYDS), an integrated electronic payments solutions provider, has signed a Letter of Intent to sell the domain and trademark of Bills.com to Alivio Holdings, LLC (Alivio). The price tag is $964,500, but it also appears that Payment Data ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Registering Google’s Domains - Here’s an interesting article about people registering Google trademark domains. Google just registered GoogleMagazines.com, GooglePapers.org, GoogleMicrofilm.com and GoogleLibrary.org. The article tracked down Wilf Percival, founder of Multimedia International, a Sheffield-based content provider to the mobile phone industry. He registered the domain GooglePhone.com in 2002 and is offering it for sale. Percival wouldn’t have a chance surviving an UDRP on this ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
US Retains Control of Internet - Great news coming out of the United Nations summit in Tunisia! The nations have reached an agreement whereby the US will retain control of the internet and DNS management. However, an “Internet Governance Forum” will be formed and will meet in 2006. This group will likely have little enforcement power but will be able to influence internet policy. CNET’s story about the deal quotes Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe as saying: The U.S. and allies such as the ... read more ...
Tue 15th November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Expired domain sells for $135,250 - The Fish.com sale was the big announcement this week. DNJournal is reporting that the actual sale amount for the domain was $1,020,000. Not bad! But even without Fish.com this would have been a heck of a week for domain sales. The one that shocks me is an expired domain that was auctioned for $135,250: MyPremierCard.com. I wonder who let that one drop? Mathematics.com changed hands for $135,000. A nice 3 letter domain, JMM.com sold for $55,000 at Sedo. Another ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Fish.com sells for $1M - Fish.com just became the highest announced all cash domain sale of 2005! The domain sold for $1,000,000. Afternic.com managed the sale to the current owner of Dog.com, Horse.com, and Bird.com. Obviously these domains have proven successful enough to make the Fish.com purchase worthwhile. According to an Afternic press release:With the acquisition of Fish.com, Tabibi believes he has created a unique commodity on the Internet, where several key domain names in one ... read more ...