Monthly Archives: June 2009

Tue 30th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Maybe Crime DOES Pay: ThePirateBay.Org Sells For $7.8 Million - We grew up being told by our parents that crime doesn’t pay, yet after  today’s report, sometimes it does. ThePiratebay.org, a huge file sharing site, reportedly sold today to a Internet gaming software company for $7.8 Million dollars. Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) has signed a deal to acquire The Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish Kronor ($7.8 million), including $3.9 million in cash. GGF, which operates software for a range of Internet cafes and gaming venues, said ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Jay Westerdal Launches Counterclaims Against Thought Convergence - Westerdal files counterclaims against Thought Convergence in legal battle. Name Intelligence founder Jay Westerdal has filed a counterclaim (pdf) against Thought Convergence, Inc. (TCI) in a legal battle over TCI’s acquisition of his company. In the counterclaim document filed with the California Central District Court, Westerdal claims there were “Myriad of deliberate misrepresentations made by TCI during the negotiation process and execution of the agreement.” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Talk.com Domain Name Sells for $500,000 - Talk.com latest big ticket domain name sale. Domain brokerage Sedo has sold the domain name Talk.com for $500,000. The seller, according to whois records, is Cavalier Telephone, LLC of Virginia. The domain name is currently in Sedo’s control, so the buyer is not yet known. [Update: The Buyer is National A-1, the same company that bought Contests.com from Yahoo for $380,000 two weeks ago and runner up in the $5.1M Toys.com auction.] Sedo also turned in another ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Success Bank Unsuccessful in Domain Dispute - Bank tries to get domain registered years before it gets trademark. Success Bank, an Iowa bank, should stick to the banking business. The company failed at arbitration to get the domain name SuccessBank.com from its owner, who registered the domain name in 2003. The bank changed its name to Success Bank only in 2007, at which point it filed a trademark for the term. The trademark was granted in 2008. Success Bank uses the inferior domain SuccessBank.Net. If you ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NameMedia Sells Another $600k in Domains - Company shows consistency in domain name sales. Domain seller NameMedia, which sells domain names through BuyDomains and Afternic, sure is consistent. It seems that every week they total $600,000 or so in announced domain sales. That sort of consistency can only come with a large inventory of domain names. This past week the company sold about 400 domain names, or an annualized 20,800 names. Assuming an inventory of a million domain names, that’s a 2% turnover ... read more ...
Mon 29th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
eBay.com Is Allowing & Profiting From The Sale Of Trademark Infringing Domains - eBay.com has been active in defending its trademark filing and winning at least 3 UDRP in just the past year including on the domains: ebaycatwalk.com; ebayip.com and ebayofip.com; watch-ebay.com; While spending fees and costs to go after trademark infringing domains, its allowing domains that infringe on its own trademark to be sold on its own site. eBay.Hu.com is proudly  listed for sale right on ebay.com for the bargain “buy it now” price of $628,000. (.hu is the ccTLD for Hungary) Also for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Companies File Trademarks for New Top Level Domain Names - Filings unlikely to give a leg up in application process. Companies are filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for service marks related to new TLDs. For example, Top Level Domain Holdings, Ltd (AIM: TLDH) has filed trademarks for .movie, .kids, .books, .buy, .baby, .poker, .golf, and .casino. (Top Level Domain Holdings is an investor in new TLD consulting firm Mind + Machines and dotNYC, LLC.) Other examples include .eco, a trademark filed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sandra Bullock Fights for Her Domain Name - Actress files claim with National Arbitration Forum to get SandraBullock.com. My neighbor* Sandra Bullock has filed for arbitration to get the domain name SandraBullock.com. The case commenced last Friday and should be decided in the next month or two. The domain name is owned by a company called Alberta Hot Rods. The domain’s nameservers point to SmartName, but the domain name doesn’t resolve so it was likely deactivated by the service. A March 2007 site ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
An Open Letter to Rod Beckstrom - An open letter to the new CEO of ICANN. Congratulations, Rod. You’ll be the new CEO of ICANN. You have your work cut out for you. Rightly or wrongly, ICANN is a punching bag for many grievances. As Michael Palage pointed out at the last ICANN meeting, ICANN will likely be subject to many lawsuits over the next couple years. Here are a few suggestions as you prepare to take over the reins. 1. Remember that domain owners ultimately fund your organization. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
IRT: Classic Case Study of How Not to Sell a Plan - The ICANN IRT needs a lesson in getting buy-in. Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) was set up by trademark interests to come up with a way to protect trademark owners during the launch of new top level domain names. The process by which it was set up and operated could be a case study in how not to get buy-in for a new idea. I’ve worked with a lot of teams over the past dozen years and have had to sell ideas many times. I’ve managed groups of union workers, ... read more ...
Sun 28th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
TaiwanMobile.com Sells For $26K At NameJet.com Or Did It? - TaiwanMobile.com topped the NameJet auctions for the past days at $25,599. However, how the domain was even at auction is quite confusing, as TaiwanMobile.com appears to be the site of that phone company and continues to resolve to them. Normally an expired domain ceases to work upon expiration. Moreover,  the domain does not even appear expired, as the whois is showing and expiration date of  May 18, 2011 and the record was last update all the way back in March, so its not the case of the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Off Topic: Take a Moment to Help Someone in Need - Count your blessings and help someone less fortunate. If only we were all so lucky It’s hot in Texas. Last week it hit 105 degrees, about 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year. I’ve complained aloud over the past week about the heat. My wife and I have even discussed packing up our bags and heading to a cooler climate such as Seattle. I’ve complained when my home’s air conditioning struggled to keep the temperature down. I’ve complained ... read more ...
Sat 27th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Our First & Maybe Last NameJet.com Picks - A lot of readers have been asking for us to release some picks for NameJet.com, like we do on a regular basis for SnapNames.com. I don’t know how often I will do this, or if I will ever do it again, but here are some great domains available for back order on NameJet.com. As we told you on the other day, under the new Namejet policy all auctions are restricted to only those who entered the backorder auction, even if the winning bidder defaults. (no more public auctions). So if you have any interest ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NamePros Releases Live Auction Schedule. - NamePros.com announced a whole bunch of  Live Auctions. This is a dedicated effort at providing domainers with a consistent live platform to increase domain sales. The published schedule is as follows: NamePros Live Auction Schedule No Reserve Live Auction Bidding Starts at Reserve Price Mon, Jun 29, 2009, 3pm EST Regular Live Auction – Short domains 5 letters or less Thu, Jul 2, 2009, 6pm EST Europe Special Regular Live Auction Special timing for our European members Mon, Jul 6, 2009, 5pm GMT Regular ... read more ...
Fri 26th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Beckstrom is ICANN New CEO - ICANN made is official today  named former U.S. National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC) director Rod Beckstrom as its new CEO, replace the retiring Paul Twomey. In March Beckstrom resigned as US cybersecurity chief in what appears to be a turf war with the National Security Agency (NSA). ICANN’s Board Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush, said in a statement: “Rod Beckstrom has exactly the sort of strong personal and technical background that ICANN needs, as we enter a period of unprecedented growth and ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Should Yahoo’s Flickr.com Buy Flicker.com? - Flickr.com is of course the huge photo sharing site owned by Yahoo. However, Yahoo does not own the .com for the proper spelling of the word, which is Flicker.com Flicker.com, in a pretty rare move, recently posted it traffic stats on its home page along with click through rates and the stats are pretty impressive. According to Flicker.com “by the numbers”, they receive: Unique Visits: 3.6M /per yr Source: Direct Navigation (95.74%) Outbound Clicks: 400K /per yr CPC Keyword Values: (Photography ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Insurance Company Loses Generic Domain Name Land Grab - Combined Insurance Group Ltd loses two domain name arbitration cases. Combined Insurance Group Ltd has lost two domain name battles for seemingly generic domains, CheapAutoInsurance.com and CheapAutosInsurance.com. The company claims trademark rights to “Cheap Auto Insurance”, even though many of these trademarks and their dates of use are questionable based on evidence brought forth by the respondents. The insurance company owns the domain name Cheap-Auto-Insurance.com. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Amazon.com Officially Dumps North Carolina Affiliates - Company cancels affiliate accounts due to sales tax law. Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) has officially dumped its North Caroline affiliates (aka “Associates”), as it threatened to do a couple weeks ago. North Carolina’s legislature has created a lose-lose-lose situation by preparing to pass a law requiring online companies to collect sales tax if they have affiliate marketers in the state. Since major ecommerce companies such as Amazon will drop affiliates in ... read more ...
Thu 25th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
AdSense For Mobile Apps Launches Today - According to reports Google unveil a beta version of AdSense for Mobile Applications yesterday which allows companies that develop mobile applications that run on devices like Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android system. AdSense for Mobile Applications allows developers to integrate AdSense network ads into their mobile applications and to allow advertisers to bid for placement in their apps. Previously, Google AdSense ads showed up only on Web pages rendered by mobile phone browsers “We are ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
It’s Official: ICANN Wants The Proposed Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) Rules To Apply To .Com’s - Back on June 1 we told you about a new proposal by the IRT a group of trademark holders who have committee status with ICANN and their proposal for a Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) for all new gTLD’s.  In that post we told you that this was going to be a problem for all domains holders, including existing extensions like .com, .net and .org. Today, in a very negative article on domaining,  entitled “Domain Name Wars:Rise of the Cybersqatters,  VP of ICANN Paul Levins made it clear that trademark ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Warning: A Brazen Phising Attack Underway Aimed during GoDaddy.com Account Holders - Just to warn everyone, there is a phishing attacked underway, aimed at Godaddy.com account holders. I received over 100 e-mail overnight purporting to be from Godaddy.com seeking you to log in to your account, however the link in the e-mail goes the domain cyber-edge.com which is unrelated to Godaddy.com.  I consider this a a brazen attack, because the domain used in the phishing e-mail is actually registered with Godaddy.com, which may trick some into thinking it is a legit e-mail, which is certainly ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NameJet.com Announces New DeadBeat Bidder & Re-Auction Policy: Is It Enough? - Back In March we posted a blog, about the problem that NameJet.com was having with  non-paying bidders. Today NameJet.com announced, a tougher new policy towards deadbeat bidders (my term, not NameJet’s; Namejet calls them non-paying or defaulting bidders) NameJet.com amended its TOS, regarding payment, as follows: “””2.   Payment For Domains. 2.1. Creating an account with us and bidding on domain names at NameJet is free. If you are the winning bidder at auction, NameJet may, at its sole ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Potential ICANN CEO Uses Bogus Whois Information - Man slated for CEO position at ICANN uses fake information for his web site’s whois record. Rumor has it Rod Beckstrom, former cybersecurity director for the US Department of Homeland Security, will be the next ICANN CEO. Before he takes over the reigns, he really needs to clean up the whois information — especially since ICANN is working to clean up whois inaccuracies. As pointed out by a commentor at TheDomains, Beckstrom’s personal web site, Beckstrom.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tiger Woods Can’t Sink Putt for Child’s Domain Name - Woods loses domain name arbitration case. Golfer Tiger Woods has lost an arbitration case to get the domain name that matches one of his kids’ names. The case involved Woods’ second son, Charlie Axel Woods, and the domain name CharlieAxelWoods.com. To make his case, Tiger Woods claimed the domain name was confusingly similar to his trademark for “Tiger Woods”. But the arbitrator declined to find similarity, and rightfully so. Although it’s clear that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Martha Stewart Chokes on EverydayFood.com - Media company loses attempt to get domain names through arbitration. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has lost a domain name dispute over the names EverydayFood.com and Everyday-Food.com. The company operates a magazine and TV show called “Everyday Food”. Martha Stewart Living didn’t just lose, it choked. A three person arbitration panel found that the company didn’t prove any of the three elements required to win at arbitration. The company claimed that ... read more ...