Monthly Archives: March 2008

Mon 10th March 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Interview with Ted Stevens Regarding Phishing Bill - A conversation with Ted Stevens (R-AK), a co-sponsor of “Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008”. [Editors note: I recently had a chance to catch up with Senator Ted Stevens on an all-expense paid hunting trip courtesy of ExxonMobile. He was kind enough to answer a few questions about the so-called anti-phishing bill.] Domain Name Wire (DNW): Senator Stevens, it’s such a pleasure to be on this trip with you. Ted Stevens: Yeah, well my aides told ... read more ...
Sun 9th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NameJet Auction Update: Sales still Going Strong - Here are some of the domains that sold at NameJet.com in the last few days. The drop market still seems very strong. Tomorrow the auction for surveyors.com closes and it’s already at $10,600 goodguy.com    $15,000 greenstyle.com    $10,000 holdit.com    $8,200 (re-auction) sherie.com    $7,110 toywagon.com    $6,600 nextstar.com    $5,655 notebookaccessories.com    $5,150 thefly.com    $4,744 motorsportsnews.com    $4,701 hotwords.com    $3,500 onlinepool.com    ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
It’s Time To Write to Your Senator About The Snowe Bill - It is of vitial importance that anyone who owns even one domain, write to their Senator expressing your opposition to the Snowe Bill. The ICA prepared a form letter to help guide you draft your letter, but as they point out, make the letter your own, including your own circumstances and how the Bill would effect your assets. The ICA published the following on their website this weekend: “”” It is very important that every U.S.-resident ICA member as well as other domainers write to their U.S. ... read more ...
Sat 8th March 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Parking Company ParkingDots Closes the Doors - Leonard Holmes of ParkQuick reports on a domain company shutting down. A major domain parking company just announced that it is closing its doors. ParkingDots will be no more effective March 9th. In the last issue of Name Monetizer I reported that ParkingDots had lost its Yahoo feed. They were unable to obtain another “tier 1″ feed, and today announced that they are shutting their doors for good. If you have domains parked there, you should move then right ... read more ...
Fri 7th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Republican’s Do Some Cybersquatting of Their Own - In light of the Snowe bill, it is interesting to note a story that appeared in the New York Times Political Blog, that the Republican Nation Committee has registered at least 25 domains names related to Hillary Clinton that link back to the Republican National Committee, including Cannotrustclinton.com, clintonisbad.com   The names were either registered by the R.N.C. last year or showed up on servers the committee uses.   The R.N.C also registered domains for running mates, Mrs. Clinton’s ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Southwest’s Fine reduction than 2 Domains underneath Snowe Bill - Yesterday the Federal Aviation Administration proposed a record penalty of $10.2 million against Southwest Airlines based on the claim that SOuthwest had continued to fly 46 Boeing 737s that it said it had grounded because they had not been properly inspected for fuselage cracks. Four of the planes had four-inch-long cracks, requiring repairs and six of the planes had the start of small cracking. The airline said it had definitely flown airplanes that had skipped required inspections Thousands of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
5 Ways Real Estate is Better Than Domain Names - A look at the flip side of investing in domain names. Earlier this week I wrote about why domain names may be a better investment than traditional real estate. Of course there are two sides to the story, and here are reasons that traditional real estate may be a better bet. 1. Easy financing. Sub-prime worries aside, there are thousands of companies that provide financing to buy real estate. In fact, I can see three places outside my office window that will gladly ... read more ...
Thu 6th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Affiliate Summit Silent Auction Nets $18,500 - Here are the results from the silent auction for the Affiliate Summit show held by Moniker.com today: OrganicShopping.com                                                   $ 4,500 Hairwax.com                                                                  $ 2,500 HIRI.COM                                                                     $ 2,463 BASEBALLMITT.COM ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Skenzo.com: The initial 4 days underneath Yahoo: Our formula are in - So we now have our stats for the first 4 days since Skenzo switched to the Yahoo feed from the Ask.com/Google feed. So here is what we found. Overall our revenue dropped 10%. Many domains did much worse and many others did much better. Comparing the revenue for the Monday, before the change, with the revenue for the Monday after the change, we found that domains accounting for 60% of the revenue before the change, did worse. 40% of the domains that accounted for the revenue before the change did ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Yahoo/ Microsoft Update - It is over a month since Microsoft announced its initial bid to buy Yahoo for $31 a share We thought we catch up on some developments. Yahoo pushed back the March 14 deadline to nominate Yahoo’s board members until 10 days after it sets a date for its annual stockholder meeting. Yahoo has not set a date for its next annual stockholder meeting.  Under Delaware law, It could push the date as far back as July 12 which would be exactly 13 months from of its last shareholder meeting . According to ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google: Another insider Sell Shares - Last week we let you know that the Vice President of Google sold 19,472 shares, today it was annouced that a director of Google, John L. Doerr, sold 32,650 shares of common stock under a prearranged trading plan, for between $455 and $469.25 a share. The stock sale was conducted under a prearranged 10b5-1 trading plan, which allows a company insider to set up a program in advance for such transactions and proceed with them even if he or she comes into possession of material non-public information. Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Affiliate Summit Silent Auction Closes Today - Moniker.com will hold the silent auction of the Affiliate Summit Show, today, Thursday March 6. Auctions start closing at 2pm Here are the domains and the price reserve ranges: 401kira.net $1 – $5,000 absolutelyhuge.com $1 – $5,000 acneprescriptions.com $1 – $5,000 adultbedding.com $1 – $5,000 adultinclusiveresort.com $1 – $5,000 adultmentalhealth.com $1 – $5,000 advancedcellresearch.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Name Appraisal Scam Resurfaces - Yep, I got one too tonight… Email1 —————————————— Head-office@bonbon.net to me Hello, We have seen your domain listed for sale. What are your expectations in Euros or US dollars? We are in real estate but invest in web project too. We have a solid investing budget and our company is very interested in Internet names and web sites. If you have other domains for sale feel free to send your list. Looking forward to do business with you. Regards, Gilbert Reuter CEO BON ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
More Domain Name Parking Changes Coming - Ad providers continue to change rules. If you thought the death of Yahoo arbitrage and the Ask.com feed was the end of the upheaval in domain parking, think again. It appears ad providers are now changing rules for landing page formats and content. Sedo has been testing adding non-paid, organic search results on parked pages as apparently mandated by Google. So far it looks like this only applies when someone clicks on a “related search” link on parked pages, ... read more ...
 
Written by The MediaWizard's Blog in EN
The Great American Snowe Job - A new bill currently seeking passage in the US senate is trying to surreptitiously change the face of the domain industry and extend American ‘ownership’ on the web. You and me stand to lose any domain we own, developed, undeveloped, tm-ed, non-tm-ed, geo and generic… I kid you not. Be prepared to protect or lose your domain names, generics or any others, specially if they’re .com or .net as those are controlled by Verisign. The bill goes way beyond its brief… if it becomes law, ... read more ...
Wed 5th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Letters we will be receiving if we a Snowe Bill Passes - Here is a e-mail we received a week ago: “””I am the owner of a large web development company about to embark on a project for …………. and noticed you are inappropriately squatting on and selling their rightful domain name.  I am writing this on his behalf and at the moment offering you a settlement now of $50 to transfer ownership of ……………………………  to my client.  The other option is our pursuit of legal action down a long winded trial process which you will lose ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Sign a Petition to Stop a Snowe Bill - This came to us from the conceptualist.com and the DomainNews.com: Go sign the petition, we did. Get your family and friends to sign it to. Have you joined the ICA yet? “US Senator Olympia Snowe introduced S. 2661, the “Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008” (APCPA). The bill was also cosponsored by Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Ted Stevens (R-AK). The bill threatens to derail domain names as we know them. The bill seems to be hidden under the “Anti-Phishing” title but contains ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Ask.com to turn a Women Q & A Site - Ask.com has thrown in the towel in chasing internet search leader Google and instead will focus on a narrower market consisting of married women looking for help managing their lives. Ask.com will lay off about 40 employees, or 8 percent of its work force. According to it’s press release, Ask.com will return to its roots by concentrating on finding answers to basic questions of especial concern to women, recipes, hobbies, children’s homework, entertainment and health. The decision to cater to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ask.com Advertising Feed In Limbo - Even “reduced” Ask.com feed may disappear. A number of domain parking companies were delivered a blow as of the first of this month when Ask.com discontinued syndicating its Google advertising feed. These parking companies were left with two options: take Ask.com’s own advertising feed (which has low click prices) or switch to another ad provider. Not coincidentally, Skenzo jumped to Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) this month. But a number of parking companies still use ... read more ...
Tue 4th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Enom takes divided “Cuba” domain names: What it Means to You in light of a Snowe Bill - In an article published today in the New York Times, it was reviled that Enom.com shut down around 80 domains owned by a non-US citizen and resident, Steve Marshall. It is important to note that, Mr. Marshall is a British national, lives in Spain where he operates a travel agency selling trips to Europeans who want to travel to Cuba and his servers are located in the Bahamas. The only tie he had to the U.S. is that his domains were registered at a U.S. based registrar, Enom.com According to the Times, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google get 66% of all U.S. Internet Searches - In a report released today by Hitwise, Google received 66% of all U.S. Internet searches during the four weeks ended Feb. 23. In the year-ago period, Google received 64% of all U.S. Internet searches. Yahoo received 21% of U.S. Internet searches, Microsoft’s MSN Search received 7% and Ask.com received 4% of searches during the period. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Demand Media Plucks Pluck - Company buys social networking and blog syndication provider. Domain name company Demand Media, which owns registrar eNom, has purchased Pluck for an undisclosed price. A source to Reuters put the price tag at $50 million to $60 million. Pluck, based in Austin, Texas, was founded as basically an RSS reader and has evolved since then. It now bills itself as a social media company that delivers “1 billion social media interactions” every month. The company offers ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Shoppers.com in Dispute? Also GoogleAdwords.com and Ace.us - Expired domain that sold for $166,000 slapped with arbitration filing. Shoppers.com expired last month and was picked up by Pool. Auction winner Xedoc Holding SA forked over $166,000 for the domain, but is that now at risk? An arbitration request under UDRP was filed with National Arbitration Forum on February 14 for the domain. I’m not sure who filed the complaint, but a little snooping gives some ideas. One idea is the previous owner of the domain may be ... read more ...
Mon 3rd March 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Register.com Goes After Register.cc - Company files arbitration case with National Arbitration Forum. Domain registrar Register.com has filed a UDRP against another ICANN-accredited domain registrar, DomainIt, for its use of Register.cc. DomainIt, which manages 22,354 domains according to RegistrarStats, currently forwards register.cc to its main web site. This is an interesting case on a couple grounds. First, it’s rare to see two ICANN-accredited registrars on opposing sides of a UDRP arbitration. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
5 Ways Domain Names Are Better Than Real Estate - Domain names are often compared to real estate…but are they that similar? The comparisons between domain names and real estate are countless. But here are five ways that domain names make for a better investment than traditional real estate. 1. Unique assets. No two domains are alike. Compare that to many new residential neighborhoods, where there may be three identical houses on similar lots all for sale at the same time. This gives the buyer bargaining power. ... read more ...