Monthly Archives: May 2009

Thu 21st May 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Weblo Files Patent for Virtual Domain Names - Company files patent on “virtual domain names”. Weblo, a company that sells virtual property such as states, celebrities, and even domain names in a parallel universe, has filed a patent covering its so-called “virtual domain names”. The patent (pdf) was filed in 2007 and published today. Of course, Weblo’s domain names don’t really work on the web. They are merely a page on the Weblo.com’s web site. Weblo describes its domain names as: Weblo has ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What Makes a Top Level Domain Successful? - Consider what the benchmark for a successful domain name is. In light of yesterday’s news that .me has hit 250,000 registrations and .tel has already reached 200,000, a number of people are asking if that makes these TLDs successful. Michael Berkens asked a similar question today. My answer is that it’s way too early to say they are or are not successful. I’m sure that GoDaddy/Afilias/DotMe had goals for the launch of their domains, and I have no idea if ... read more ...
Wed 20th May 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
Google Releases “Bid Simulator” Tool In Beta - Google has just introduced a new beta Bid Simulator feature on selected Adwords accounts. Using data from the past seven days, the bid simulator calculates where AdWords would have placed an ad at a different maximum CPC, how many clicks an ad would have received at those simulated positions and how much those clicks would have cost. Bid Simulator can help answer questions such as “How many clicks could I get if I used a different maximum CPC bid?” or “What would my ad position be with a different ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
FCC Gets Restraining Order Agaist Yahoo & Others For Selling Ads Containing .Gov Address - The Federal Trade Commission (FCC) went to federal court yesterday and got a restraining order against Yahoo, MSN, AllTheWeb, and Altavista to prevent the search engines from allowing advertisers from using a government URL in sponsored search results. Apparently certain advertisers were buying sponsored links on the search results pages appearing to lead to the US government’s official site for its new homeownership program which is at makinghomeaffordable.gov. However if you clicked on the sponsored ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Financial Firm Loses Bid for OVB.com - Arbitrator rules against large financial firm trying to get three character domain name. A World Intellectual Property Organization arbitrator has ruled against OVB Vermögensberatung AG of Köln, a financial firm based in Germany, in a dispute over the domain name OVB.com. The arbitrator decided that it was not clear the domain was registered and used in bad faith. Working against the respondent, Michele Dinoia, was that he has been on the losing end of a number ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Tel Hits 200,000 Registrations - Telnic reports 200,000 registrations for .tel domain name. Telnic, the operator of the .tel domain name, today announced that it has over 200,000 domain names registered. The company reported 100,000 .tel domains were registered a day after general registration became available in March. (Domains were available at higher prices prior to the general launch). Some of the growth is likely coming from Telnic’s distribution agreements with directory providers in Europe ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Me during 250,000: What’s Next? - 250,000 .me domain names have been registered. Here’s what it means. 250,000 .me domain names have been registered since its relaunch earlier this year. I draw two conclusions from this. First, it shows the power a registrar has in pushing a domain. .Me is run by a partnership between Afilias and GoDaddy. GoDaddy has aggressively pushed the domain and dissed others at the same time. (Bob Parsons stopped using BobParsons.tv and switched to BobParsons.me). ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Battle Erupts Between Domain Registries and Registrars - Existing registries fight registrars over registry-registrar separation. Registries: In this corner we have three registry providers, Public Interest Registry, Afilias, and NeuStar. They provide the backend and management of domain names such as .org, .biz, and .info, that are sold to customers by registrars. Registrars: In this corner we have domain name registrars hoping to profit from the release of new top level domain names. Issue: Until now, there have been ... read more ...
Tue 19th May 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Why Would Anyone Pay $69 To Own Real–Estate.net? - Going through the Namejet’s  backorder list for today I found this gem;   Real–Estate.net. A domain with not just one, but two hyphens in and a .net to top it off. I checked Alexa and compete to see if the domain had any traffic but it seems to have none. Some other domains not to be missed are: kinhdoanh.net, iacciamman.com, and gkapllani.com just to name a few. Everyday I see over 150-175 domains backordered on NameJet.com at $69 each and out of those, only 10 or so mean anything, another ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MyHomePage.com Sells for $50,000 - BuyDomains sells domain name for $50,000. BuyDomains has sold the domain name MyHomepage.com for $50,000. The buyer appears to be in Germany and the page currently resolves to WhyPark’s name servers. This will be one to watch, as the buyer clearly has plans for it. Other notable .com sales at BuyDomains this week include: a6.com $34,000 loterij.com $11,645 honestkitchen.com $5,000 i-me.com $4,988 justscooters.com $4,788 renascimento.com $4,770 ecosociety.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic’s Instant Transfer Enables Registrar Integration - New Premium promotion option utilizes instant transfer technology. Over the weekend Afternic rolled out a number of changes, including a new “Premium” promotion level. I caught up with NameMedia Senior Vice President and General Manager Peter Lamson, as well as members of the product and customer service teams, to learn more about this new level of promotion. (NameMedia owns Afternic.) Premium promotion improves on the existing “Enhanced” promotion level. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Sells Seereise.de for $80,000 - German country code domain name for “Cruise” sells at Sedo. Domain name broker Sedo has completed the sale of seereise.de, which is German for cruise, for 59,500 EUR (about $80,000 USD at today’s exchange rates). The buyer appears to be a travel company called “alltours Reisecenter”. Sedo didn’t crack the six figure barrier again this week, but still turned in some respectable sales. It sold the four character domain name sgbl.com for $18,750, and sold ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bank of America Gets Split Decision in Domain Name Dispute - Company awarded 2 of 4 domain names related to Merrill Lynch acquisition. It’s not often that I read a domain name arbitration decision and think a cybersquatter won. But that’s the case with a recent decision handed down through National Arbitration Forum. A New York company registered four domain names last year related to Bank of America’s (NYSE: BAC) acquisition: bofaml.com, mlbofa.com, bofamerrill.com, and merrillbofa.com. When you look at these four ... read more ...
Mon 18th May 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NameJet.com Responds - Yesterday we posted about Toxic.com, and several other domains, that had come back into auction at NameJet.com, due to non-paying bidders and the problem that this situation creates. Today Steve Brown, General Manager of NameJet.com, responded to that post as follows: “””We’ve been taking a harder stance against non-paying customers excluding those with non-payment issues from participating in new auctions and from winning auctions where they were already participants.  We are in the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Our SnapNames Picks: May 18 Edition - Here are our picks for domains currently available for backorder at Snapnames.com.  To backorder just click on the link. 222.com 689.com 2007.com udj.com xej.com xkj.com yfi.com checkmycredit.com fullsize.com toontube.com floorplans.net rescue.net hidden.org 20000.com quickcure.com trainings.com socialexperts.com videogamearcade.com closeoutdeals.com easyfunds.com savehomes.com hydrogenhybrid.com tmm.org signal.org creditcardreport.com fishinglife.com loansecure.com privateid.com seou.com partyclubs.com tolove.com havemovies.com financingstore.com helicopterbroker.com loob.com Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Google Hit With SECOND Class Action Suit - Last week we reported that a Texas company, Firepond, filed a federal lawsuit against Google, seeking class action status over allowing the sale of the sale of keywords under trademarked terms, for all trademark holders in the state of Texas. On Thursday, Van Nuys, Calif.-based real estate investment guru John Beck, filed suit, in the federal court for the eastern district of Texas, this time seeking class action status for trademark owners nationwide. The Beck complaint is similar to Firepond’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SAP Loses Another Domain Name Case - Software giant goes after SAP consulting company and loses. Enterprise software company SAP (NYSE: SAP) has lost another domain name dispute. The company went after the domain name Unisap.com, which has been used by a provider of SAP consulting services for almost a decade. The arbitrator decided that SAP had not proven the domain name was registered and used in bad faith: The Panel has also considered the purpose of the UDRP, namely to prevent the abusive registration ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
6 Signs Your Domain Registrar is Going Defunct - After RegisterFly, ESTdomains, and Parava, here are some tips to avoid bad domain name registrars. Even when a relatively small domain name registrar, such as Parava, loses its ICANN accreditation, it can have devastating consequences for web site owners. But there are usually tell-tale signs that a company isn’t doing well. Below are six warning signs that your domain name registrar might not be in it for the long run. 1. It isn’t accessible in a public forum, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Perfect Parked Domain Name - Domain name brings value to advertisers — and money in my pocket. A couple months ago I bought a generic expired domain name related to summer camps. It doesn’t get much traffic. But on May 5th my preliminary traffic report at my parking company showed the domain got 21 clicks from one visitor. I assumed it was a bot, but when the stats were finalized it turns out the visitor was legit and generated $12.11 in revenue for me. I went to look at the domain name ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Create Your Own SnapNames Store - Feature lets you create a “store”. SnapNames rolled out a bunch of new features last week consisting mostly of search improvements. One of those improvements allows sellers who list domain names for sale on the site to directly link to their personal “store”. Basically you add your domains to SnapNames and then include your so-called names source in a URL. You can then promote this link in your signature on message boards, in e-mails to friends, etc. For ... read more ...
Sun 17th May 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Toxic.com Makes a Return Visit To NameJet.com & Its Not The Only One - Toxic.com which was auctioned off by NameJet.com on May 4th with a high bid of $56,566, is back at auction at NameJet.com after the bidder failed to pay for the domain. The domain now is in a public auction, so even if you couldn’t participate in the first auction because you did not backorder it, now you can. The current high bid is $34,677. Namejet.com continues to see a bunch of unpaid domains coming back into auction, not just the large transaction domains but domains that sold for $79 even ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
“The Privatization of a English Language” & Why That is Very Bad News For You - Over at ZenHabits, a insanely popular blog with an Alex Ranking of 15K , Leo Babauta, the author talked about what appears to be the privatization of the English language through trademark and copyrights. This is an important article for all domainers to read. Ordinary words, terms and phrases long used in the English language are now the subject of trademarks, copyrights and other claims of ownership causing problems for domainers, authors and bloggers. The blog post discusses that the author received ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic Gets a Major Overhaul - Online domain marketplace gets major enhancements. A new look and new promotion levels have arrived on domain name aftermarket Afternic. Over the weekend Afternic changed the site design and added many features. One of the biggest changes is a new promotion level called “Premium”. It includes all of the features of “Expanded Promotion”, plus Premium level domains are included in the search results of major domain resellers. Premium level promotion also ... read more ...
Sat 16th May 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
Online Drugstore Massive Criminal Trial Ends In Florida With All Charges Dropped - The government originally charged 13 defendants in a 2007,  in an indictment in connection with the dispensing of prescription medications and diet drugs on the Internet through a series of websites under the company name of E.V.A Global, Inc. Among the defendants in US v. Hernandez, et al., were physicians, pharmacists, a prescription drug wholesaler and software programmers, all whom were charged with conspiracy and trafficking in controlled substances. The trial began in February of 2009. Nine ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Another Huge Brand Goes On The Auction Block - The Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved procedures for the sale of the intellectual property of home furnishings and jewelry retailer Fortunoff, including the domain,  Fortunoff.com. The auction is scheduled for June 18 in New York at the offices of law firm Sidley Austin LLP. A bid deadline of June 16 has been set and a sale approval hearing set for June 22. Other intellectual property up for auction include a database of more than 750,000 customer names, many ... read more ...