Monthly Archives: April 2006

Thu 27th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Wall Street Journal essay on Whois Privacy - Today’s Wall Street Journal discusses the fight over Whois privacy. The article on the front page of the Marketplace section starts by discussing how the American Red Cross and eBay use the Whois database to track down scammers: Last fall, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the American Red Cross used an Internet database called “Whois” that lists names and numbers of Web-site owners to shut down dozens of unauthorized Web sites that were soliciting money under ... read more ...
Wed 26th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANNWiki – Great apparatus for a domainer community - ICANNWiki has the latest info about the domain industry with a particular focus on key players. I caught up with Ray King, former CEO of SnapNames, last week at Domain Roundtable. I first met Ray at a search engine optimization conference in New York a little over a year ago. Ray is working on a new venture called AboutUs. While he gets AboutUs off the ground he has co-created ICANNWiki, a wiki specific to the domain name industry. Ray doesn’t make half-baked ... read more ...
Tue 25th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Forbes essay about GoDaddy - Forbes published an article about GoDaddy and the prospects of domain registrars. The article is a good summary and points out that registrars make very little money on domain registrations. The article focuses on another revenue source — revenue from parked domains. In this case it’s domains registered at GoDaddy that the owners aren’t doing anything with. These domains resolve to GoDaddy parking pages fed by Google ads. The article quotes Dotster chairman ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Newbie Questions - A newbie asks some good questions. I received an e-mail from a new domainer yesterday. He asked good questions so I’m going to respond through the blog. I’m new to the domain game, and must say that I enjoy your site. There’s a few things I just “don’t get,” and was wondering if you could shed some light on them. But first, I thought you might be interested to know that homeimprovement.net, a dropped name picked up by Pool, went for $8,733 in the closed ... read more ...
Mon 24th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dotster Happy Hour this Wednesday - Dotster is offering two domains for $2 this Wednesday. The next Dotster happy hour will be this Wednesday starting at 4PM Easter/3 PM Central. The offer will be buy one .com, .net., .org, .us or .biz for $2 and get a .info for free. That’s one regular domain and one .info for $2 total. Dotster is also offering domain registration for $.99 with the purchase of any non-domain item of $6.99 or more. This is similar to the offer GoDaddy’ helped popularize (domains ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Conversation with Roger Collins of Afternic - Domain exchange Afternic is steadily improving its solid domain trading platform. I had the opportunity to sit down with Roger Collins, president of domain exchange Afternic, during Domain Roundtable in Seattle last week. Afternic is one of the two major domain name brokerages and competes mainly against Sedo. Collins said Afternic is working on a couple site enhancements. One is a complete facelift and graphical design. The other is something that I’ve griped ... read more ...
Fri 21st April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain auction nets $200,000 - A silent domain name auction at the 2006 Domain Roundtable netted $200k in domain sales. The big winner was Jail.com, which Moniker successfully auctioned for $110,000. A late runup on AutomotiveLoans.com, which started at only $1,000, resulted in an $18,000 sale. Among the domains that did not sell were Beef.com, which was listed for $250k, and Wifi.com, which was listed at $225,000. The silent auction was held Thursday evening. I hope that next year the auction ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
National Arbitration Forum press recover practices - National Arbitration Forum is ceased its questionable press release practices. I’ve been critical of National Arbitration Forum, which handles domain name UDRP disputes, for its practice of issuing press releases related to its arbitration decisions. Most (if not all) of these releases have been released when NAF has found in favor of big name companies in domain name disputes (e.g. Amazon.com, high profile celebrities). My belief is that if an arbitrator sends ... read more ...
Thu 20th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Vint Cerf dazzles throng during Domain Roundtable - Vint Cerf’s keynote at Domain Roundtable in Seattle this morning kept the crowd engaged. I had the pleasure of eating breakfast with Vint Cerf, chairman of ICANN’s board and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, prior to his keynote address this morning. It was great to discuss some of the issues domainers are facing with regards to registrar practices, expiring domains, etc. directly with Cerf. Cerf’s keynote kept the crowd engaged. I’ve summarized the topics ... read more ...
Wed 19th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Monetization during Domain Roundtable - To park or not to park, that is the question. The “Domain Monetization” session at Domain Roundtable featured a common question: should I park my domains or develop them? The answer, according to almost all 9 panelists, is “it depends”. Most panelists straddled the fence and suggested developing select domains but parking most of them. Ron Sheridan of Domain Sponsor said that 95% of domains can be parked and auto-optimized by technology, but the other 5% ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN CEO: Watch DOS attacks, IDNs - Paul Twomey, CEO and President of ICANN, gave the opening keynote at the 2006 Domain Roundtable. Reporting live from Domain Roundtable in Seattle… Paul Twomey was the first speaker at Domain Roundtable in Seattle today. He spoke to a room packed with a couple hundred players in the domain name community. I’ve summarized some of his key points: 1. Security – there are a number of concerns for domain name security right now. Domain hijacking is an obvious ... read more ...
Tue 18th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Off to Seattle… - I’m heading to Seattle this afternoon for Domain Roundtable. My hope is to blog in real time at the event, but this depends on the availability of an internet connection in the conference area. If there’s no wifi in the conference area I’ll at least post updates each evening. This conference couldn’t have come at a better time for me…I can escape the Texas heat! It hit 100 in Austin yesterday, the hottest day ever in April in the capital city. We experienced ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Open Source Parking - Open Source Parking aims to cut Microsoft’s perceived server share. I came across an interesting site called OpenSourceParking.com today. OpenSourceParking urges domain name owners to park their domains on open source servers as opposed to Microsoft Server. According to the site, GoDaddy’s recent move from open source servers to Microsoft-based servers created a 5% swing in Microsoft’s perceived share of the server market (at Apache’s loss). As the site ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Roundtable wordless auction names released - Domains available at the Domain Roundtable silent auction have been released for viewing. The list includes domains from Afternic and Moniker. Starting bids range from $500 to $250,000 with various bid increments. At the high end of the scale are Beef.com and CD.com with opening bids of $250,000. The starting bid for Wifi.com is $225,000. (Let me know if anyone wants to buy Wifi.us from me.) Domains starting at $500 include the likes of FreeImageSpace.com and ... read more ...
Mon 17th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Music-Videos.com sells for $25k - Afternic has sold Music-Videos.com for $25k, a high price for a hyphenated domain name. Hyphenated domains can be great for search engine optimization. Search engines have difficulty parsing keywords and it’s possible to get higher rankings with a domain like Music-Videos.com than MusicVideos.com. This only applies to the specific term (“music videos” in this case). Afternic sold a couple other hyphenated domains includingChristian-Music.com for $3,750 and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Supreme Court won’t hear domain name case - The United States Supreme Court has refused to hear a domain name case involving evangelist Jerry Falwell. The decision by the Surpreme Court means that the owner of the Fallwell.com domain can keep the domain.It is a common typo of Falwell’s Falwell.com domain. The owner of Fallwell.com created a site critical of Jerry Falwell’s political views. According to an Associated Press article: But last year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals…said that Lamparello ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic shutting soon - After a long holiday weekend, domain exchange Afternic has a dozen domains closing this week. All of these domains have met their reserve price and will be sold to the highest bidder. Resales.com is the highest value domain on the closing list at $1,575. “Resales” is a common term used in the timeshare industry. The domain with extension scores 33 at Overture. PDFprinter.com is the only other domain on the closing soon list to hit $1,000. Other domains on ... read more ...
Fri 14th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Tel domain is a final thing we need - A proposal for a .tel domain name for contact information is the last thing the web needs. The newswires are running an AP story today about a proposal for a .tel new TLD: To help people manage all their contact information online, the Internet’s key oversight agency is considering a “.tel” domain name. If approved, the domain could be available this year. As proposed, individuals could use a “.tel” Web site to provide the latest contact information and ... read more ...
Thu 13th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Communicate.com announces record revenues - Domain name and e-commerce company Communicate.com (OTCBB: CMNN.ob) announced record revenues for fiscal year 2005. Communicate.com, owner of premium domain names including Perfume.com, Body.com, Brazil.com, and Boxing.com, announced record revenues for its 2005 fiscal year. The company’s revenue grew to almost $5.8M from $3.5M in the prior year. Revenue from advertising and parked domains increased about and approached $1M. eCommerce sales, such as those on ... read more ...
Wed 12th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy skeleton IPO - As I speculated last December, domain registrar GoDaddy appears to be gearing up for an initial public offering. News reports today, including this one at MarketWatch, suggest that GoDaddy could be valued at a quarter billion dollars when it hits the markets. Analysts estimate that GoDaddy’s revenue jumped from under $1M in 2000 to over $75M in 2004 — that’s quite a growth rate! It will be interesting to see how the company changes during this process. GoDaddy ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft releases apparatus to squish typosquatters - Microsoft has launched a tool to block ads on typosquatted domains. Typosquatting, the act of registering typos of popular domains, is a big business. Witness some recent typo domains that have sold for big bucks: Mortage.com for $242,400, CicuitCity.com for $20,250, MySpac.com for $31,600, and Porker.com for $155,000. Microsoft researched the issue and released its findings a couple months ago. One of the biggest issues is typosquatting brand names and parking ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bob Parsons on a .eu landrush fiasco - I don’t always agree with GoDaddy President Bob Parsons, but this time he has hit the nail on the head about the .eu landrush. With over 1.4M domains registered, some would look at the launch of the .eu domain name as a success. But GoDaddy President Bob Parsons has uncovered some scary facts about the landrush and how individuals/corporations set up sham registrars to snag new domain names. This is not the first time this has happened. I know of at least one ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain Name Wire cracks tip 50,000 web sites - Domain Name Wire’s ranking has cracked the 50,000 barrier. Thanks to Domain Name Wire’s loyal readers, the site recently cracked into the top 50,000 sites on the web according to Alexa. Many readers get the latest domain name news by viewing our feed on aggregators like MyYahoo or by checking in for our daily (sometimes hourly) news updates. In March the site received almost 35,000 unique visitors and over 110,000 page views. The results of the 2006 Domain ... read more ...
Tue 11th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is GoDaddy violating ICANN’s send policy? - GoDaddy’s strict transfer-out policies appear to violate ICANN’s official policy. I recently sold a domain name through Network Solutions’ Certified Offer Service. As part of the transaction I was required to transfer the domain from GoDaddy to Network Solutions. Imagine my surprise when GoDaddy denied the registrar transfer to Network Solutions! I’ve owned the domain since January, so it’s well past the 60 day registrar hold for transferring domains. ... read more ...
Sun 9th April 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
1.3M .eu domains purebred (and counting) - As of Sunday evening almost 1.3M .eu domain names have been registered. The pace of registrations is slowing dramatically with fewer than 300,000 registered over the past 48 hours. Many of the initial 1,000,000 registrations were “pre-orders” from drop catching services like Pool. It’s safe to say that most of the good domains are now locked up. It will be interesting to watch for the first action on the domain aftermarkets for .eu domains. I wouldn’t be ... read more ...