TRAFFIC Silent Auction Nets $480K - The Silent auction from the Traffic Show was held by Moniker.com yesterday and 268 domains were sold for a total of $480K.
Here is the complete list:
Domains Winning Bid
psychiatrists.com $88,240.00
MaidServices.com $25,000.00
StorageFacility.com ... read more ...
Monthly Archives: February 2008
Fri 29th February 2008
DataRecovery.com Sells for $1.7 Million -
Sale to data recovery firm is biggest of the year.
[Updated 9:49AM CST] ESS Data Recovery has purchased the domain name DataRecovery.com for $1.659 million, confirms company President Ben Carmitchel.
The sale marks the biggest reported sale of the year and shows the promise of a targeted, generic domain name.
The seller is competitor Associated Computers, Inc. of Minnesota. Carmitchel confirmed that the transfer took place on February 1, 2008.
In a phone interview ... read more ...
Leap Day News: DomainSponsor, Ask.com, Skenzo -
War for parked domains escalates.
Happy Leap Day! Here’s some domain name news you can use…
Adam Strong wonders “If I register domains today does that mean I don’t have a renewal date for next year ? Do I get 4 years for the price of 1.†Good question, Adam…
…Domain parking service DomainSponsor announced a promotion for March. New clients will automatically receive a 20% bonus on their March payouts for all domains transferred to DomainSponsor. ... read more ...
Thu 28th February 2008
ICA Responds to a Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008 - The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) has posted their position on the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008, proposed in congress on Monday.
The following is from the ICA:
Snowe Bill Threatens Domain Name Registrants with “Infringement” Enforcement That is More Expansive and Punitive Than the UDRP or Trademark Law
On February 25, 2008 U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe introduced S. 2661, the “Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008” (APCPA). The bill was also cosponsored ... read more ...
Skenzo Switches to Yahoo - In a e-mail sent to it customers, Skenzo said today, that they were switching their parked page PPC advertising program to Yahoo effective tommorow.
Here is a copy of the e-mail:
Dear Skenzo Customer
We are excited to inform you that we have recently negotiated a direct deal with Yahoo for facilitating PPC ads on our parked pages. Over the last 4 months we have been working behind the scenes on a deal that will allow us to continue maximizing the monetization opportunity for our Customers. We ... read more ...
TRAFFIC Silent Auction Closes Thursday - The silent auction from the TRAFFIC closes later today, beginning at 2Pm EST.
The Auction is being handled by moniker.com and you can bid online on more than 4,000 premium domains.
Almost 1/2 of the domain have a starting reserve price of $500 or less.
There are some very good domains in the silent auction and we expect that the auction will do between 1-2 million dollars.
If you are interested in bidding on any of the name visit, moniker.com.
Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
Direct Navigation: Take on a Domain Stealing Bill - We know the bill is properly known as The Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008, but to the extent that creates civil and criminal offenses for owning domains having nothing to do with Phishing scams, we are calling it the Domain Stealing Bill.
To this end Mr. Larry Fischer, a brilliant guy and good friend, blogged on the issue yesterday, pointing out cnet.com objection to the bill.
In an article cited by directnavigation.com, cnet.com objected to the bill based on the fact that other legislation ... read more ...
GoDaddy Spends $580,000 on Federal Lobbying -
Domain registrar spends big bucks to lobby on capitol hill.
Domain registrar GoDaddy.com spent $580,000 in federal lobbying last year, according to data obtained by Domain Name Wire from the Center for Responsive Politics. This is up from $460,000 spent in 2006.
GoDaddy set up a full time presence in Washington D.C. by the fall of 2006. In general, GoDaddy’s efforts in Washington appear to by pro-domainer, including testifying against VeriSign’s price increases. ... read more ...
Tucows Fights off Car Dealership -
Tucows wins UDRP decision for Batchelor.com.
Domain registrar Tucows has successfully defended against an arbitration proceeding over the domain name Batchelor.com, which the registrar acquired with its NetIdentity purchase. NetIdentity holds nearly 40,000 surnames and offers email addresses at those names, such as tom@lastname.com.
The complaint was filed by Ken Batchelor Cadillac Company, a car dealership in San Antonio, Texas. The National Arbitration Forum panel ... read more ...
Big Day for Online Domain Name Auctions -
Sedo and Moniker auctions end today.
Sedo’s February Great Domains auction and Moniker’s TRAFFIC silent auction both end today. Will the industry be cheering at the end of the day, or will the results be a dissapointment? Pressure is on both companies to perform.
Sedo’s auctions start ending at 2PM EST today. Sedo is under pressure to perform after its GeoDomains auction. The GeoDomains auction attracted noteworthy bids, but few domains hit their reserves. ... read more ...
Wed 27th February 2008
Yahoo Reduced Some Bid Prices - Yahoo announced on some changes to it bidding system for keywords.
“”We are changing the way we set the minimum bids required to participate in a Sponsored Search keyword market. In the next several weeks, we will start calculating a variable minimum bid for some of the keywords you’re bidding on. That means that sometimes the minimum bid may be lower than 10¢. Sometimes it may be higher. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at 10¢.””
They further explain
“Previously, the ... read more ...
Google Report: User’s Clicking Less - Yesterday a report was released that said fewer Google users clicked on the site’s advertising in January sent the stock reeling.
Google shares went down more than 6% to $456.16, a 52-week low. Google’s shares have lost 38% since November 2007.
ComScore reported that Google; paid clicks fell 7% in January from the previous month and were relatively flat with the same period last year.
That was in sharp contrast to December, when paid clicks grew 13% compared with a year ago.
For Google, comScore ... read more ...
Yahoo Creates Its Own Black Box for Advertising -
Yahoo! creates floating-minimum-bids system similar to Google Adwords.
Yahoo! (YHOO) has informed its advertisers that it is changing the minimum bid price for search ads on its site. The minimum bid was ten cents; now it will be a floating minimum. This is similar to Google’s (GOOG) system that affixes a minimum bid to your keywords depending on the quality of the ad text, keyword selection, and your landing page.
If there’s one thing advertisers don’t like, ... read more ...
Tue 26th February 2008
BILL PROPOSED TO TAKE AWAY YOUR DOMAINS - Yesterday Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) with support of Senator, Bill Nelson (D-Florida) and Senator, Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), introduced, a bill entitled “The Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008″
The stated purpose of the bill is to stop the practice of phishing e-mails and websites.
A Phishing is a scam whereby people receive e-mails or instant messages directing them to go to websites which are usually set up to look identical to the site that the internet user has an account ... read more ...
Network Solutions and ICANN Sued - As reported by various news sources today, a federal class action lawsuit was filed in California against Network Solutions for allegedly front running attempted domain registrations.
As most of us are aware last month, it was widely reported that Network Solutions engaged in a practice whereby they would temporarily register any domain name that someone did a whois search for, to see if the domain was available.
If the person who did the whois lookup or any other party wanted to then register the ... read more ...
Affiliate Summit Live Auction Nets $370k - Affiliate Summit auction results:
Offer.com $180,000
AromatherapyCandles.com $22,000
ReverseLoans.com $15,000
AroundTheWorldCruises.com $8,500
ChineseNoodles.com $8,000
KitchenLights.com $8,000
FurnitureDiscounts.com $7,500
PregnancyCenters.com $6,750
Bombers.com $5,750
VintageAirplane.com $5,750
Blogville.com $5,500
Creepshow.com $5,500
MufflerShops.com $5,250
BagelShops.com $5,000
ConsumerBuyingGuide.com $4,500
SkateboardsForSale.com $4,250
GrillRecipes.com $4,100
SalesCharts.com $3,300
FreeVehicles.com ... read more ...
GoDaddy Files Patent for Filtering Ads on Trademark Domains -
Technology could be crucial to registrars and parking companies.
GoDaddy has filed a patent for a technology that would filter ads from domain names containing trademarks. Patent application #20080033822 reads:
invention allow for filtering online advertisements containing third-party trademarks. In an example embodiment, a webpage host may host a webpage that resolves from a domain name. A check trademark service may parse the domain name into a keyword that an ... read more ...
The IRS Cares What Type of Domainer You Are -
Guest author Sandy K. Brooks, CPA writes about tax implications for domainers.
[Editors note: Don’t look at the calendar…tax day in the U.S. is less than two months away. If you’re puzzled about how to treat domains on your tax return, this article by Sandy Brooks, CPA, will help you. Brooks is the author of Domain Tax Guide, which has been updated for 2008.]
When discussing the tax implications of domaining, the first question that is often asked is, “Are ... read more ...
America (In Parked Domains) -
There are lots of parked domains out there. So I’m going to use them in this article to disguise a commentary that really has nothing to do with domain names.
It’s election year in the United States. That means countless commercials promising a “better America” and lots of political pandering to the masses.
The state of America isn’t so grand right now. There’s talk of recession and the stock market has plunged over the past 2 months. There’s a ... read more ...
Mon 25th February 2008
Late Moniker.com Affiliate Auction Changes!!!!!!!!! - Just got word from Moniker.com that some of the domains scheduled to be auctioned today, at the Affiliate Show auction have been scratched, and some new names have been added.
Here are the domains that will NOT be auctioned are:
Lot 10 FlatPanelLCDMonitors.com
Lot 800 OffshoreMerchantAccount.com
Lot 820 LM.com
Lot 1250 Autostop.com
Lot 1530 Frogblog.com
Lot 1670 InternetBlogging.com
Lot 1680 KarateBlog.com
These are the new added names
clientdiscount.com
FastMortgageOnline.net
parkingtickets.info
Pay.com
instantmortgageapprovals.com
clientservicesonline.com
ukfares.com
Th ... read more ...
Online Advertising Revenues Hit 21 Billion in 2007 -
According to a published report released today, online advertising revenues exceeded $21 billion for the first time in 2007,
The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates that ad revenues grew 25 percent last year from nearly $17 billion in 2006. The estimated gain was $4.2 billion, less than the 35 percent and $4.3 billion growth seen in 2006 over 2005.
Analysts have said the growth rate was bound to slow as the Internet commands a larger share of the advertising pie, taking dollars away from ... read more ...
Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Network Solutions, ICANN -
Lawsuit stems from “customer protection measure”.
My prediction has come true: Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP has filed a class action lawsuit against Network Solutions for its practice of preemptively registering domains names searched for on its site. This issue was uncovered on the DomainState blog in January and set off a media firestorm. On the day the news broke, I wrote:
“If Network Solutions doesn’t stop this practice immediately, they are guaranteed ... read more ...
Mailbag: What’s Up With GoDaddy’s .Biz Pricing? -
A reader inquires about GoDaddy’s .biz price jump.
Dear Domain Name Wire:
Godaddy recently raised its prices on .biz to a published $14.99. Even going through an account manager the price is still over $10. GD has definitely been getting less price competitive, but this one seems completely out in left field. Did prices change at the registry level? Or something else? - Michael Z.
Good question, Michael. .Biz registry NeuStar charges $6.42 for domains, the same ... read more ...
Sat 23rd February 2008
Affiliate Summit Live Auction - Moniker.com is holding the Affiliate Summit auction Monday Feb 25, 2008 at 3:00pm PST
Bidding is done via SnapNames using the live auction software available at: https://www.snapnames.com/liveAuctions.do
Here is the list of domains to be auctioned, with reserve price ranges:
FlatPanelLCDMonitors.com
No Reserve
PortableInkJetPrinters.com
No Reserve
NoAnnualFee.net
$5,001 – $10,000
DatingInformation.com
$5,001 – $10,000
LowInterestRateCreditCards.net
$1 – $5,000
AnnuityPolicy.com
$1 – $5,000
HomeLoanServices.com
$1 ... read more ...
Fri 22nd February 2008
Microsoft Lays Out it Plans for Yahoo - According to a report published by thestreet.com, Microsoft sent out an e-mail to its employees Friday, which they also made public, in which Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft’s platform and services business, laid out some of his thoughts on what Yahoo would look like after the merger.
Once the deal is completed, Microsoft would keep Yahoo in Silicon Valley, but the current companies headquaters may not remain its base of operations.
Johnson said “I know there is a desire for more competition ... read more ...