Monthly Archives: August 2009

Mon 31st August 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UPDATE: Sex.cm At $51K; Several Others Break The 5 Figure Mark - Over the weekend we published a post asking, now that the NameJet.com .cm auctions were underway,  how much Sex.cm would sell for. At the time we published the post, the high bid on the domain sex.cm was $12K. As of 2pm EST, Monday August 31st, with just less than 24 hours to go, the domain has a high bid of $51,100. Other .cm on my list getting some high bids are: Free.cm $12,600 Taobao.cm $12,100 Hotels.cm $10,100 Porn.cm $8,600 Pornhub.cm $5,200 Domain.cm $5,100 Insurance.cm $5,100 Music.cm $4,600 Youporn.cm ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo To Auction Off One Character .Biz Domains: What Will They Sell For? - Sedo.com just announced it will be holding a special online auction for one character .biz domains. The auction starts on September 23rd, 2009 at 12pm EST and closes on September 30, 2009 at 12pm EST. The question now becomes, what will these domains sell for? .Biz domains has not sold well in the domain aftermarket, however one letter and one number domains are pretty tempting. My prediction is the one letter domains will go for on average around $10K per, the one number domains $3K. Feel free to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Live Current Sells Call.com Domain Name for $1.1 Million - Live Current sells Call.com domain name for seven figures. Live Current Media has sold the domain name Call.com for $1.1 million through domain brokerage Sedo. The domain has a storied history. Live Current, when it was known as Communicate.com, sold the domain name as part of a package including Makeup.com, Automobile.com, and Exercise.com. Part of the sale included lifetime royalties on all earnings for these domains. Communicate.com reacquired Call.com in 2006 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Seeking a Full-Time Lobbyist - ICANN posts job listing for VP of Government Affairs. When then-ICANN CEO Paul Twomey got grilled by Congress in June, I wondered how ICANN didn’t think to do a bit of lobbying before the hearing. ICANN spends a little money on lobbying, but not much. Now that it’s clear the organization can’t just run away from government control, the company is revving up its lobbying engine. First step: hire a Vice President of Government Affairs. According to the job ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Top 5 Domain Name News Stories of Aug 2009 - A busy month for domain news. August is usually a slow news month. But not this year, at least in the domain business. Domain Name Wire once again topped 100k page views on site (and at least as much through RSS). Here are the top five stories according to page views, as well as the top clicks. 1. Yahoo Buys OMG.com Domain Name for $80,000 – Yahoo picks up domain name for its popular celebrity site. A nice domain to use in addition to a sub domain. 2. Ad.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dark Blue Sea Profit Plummets 74% - Company’s portfolio still profitable, but challenges abound. Dark Blue Sea has reported its annual results for the period ending June, and it isn’t pretty. The company reported profits plunged 74.38% to only $695,955 AUD for the year. This is well below the company’s guidance just a couple months ago. In the prior year the company earned $2.72M. Revenue fell 14.9% to $26.65M. Working capital fell from $5.18M at the beginning of the period to $4.1M at the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Never, Ever Use Anything But .Com - One more example of the .com truism. From Florida this weekend comes another example of why you should never, ever, ever* use anything but .com for an important web site, such as your main business web site. A Florida High School, Pace High School, operates the web site PaceHighSchool.net. But someone else owns PaceHighSchool.com, and it is splattered with hard core porn. So when junior logs on to check out the school’s football schedule, he might see something ... read more ...
Sun 30th August 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CorporateLawyer.com Sells For $20K At NameJet.com - The domain corporatelawyer.com sold today on NameJet.com for $20,766. Nice domain. Here are some other notable sales from this week: CandyCompany.com was a re-auction. The domain sold for $6,800 he first time about a month ago on NameJet Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
So What Will Sex.cm Sell For? - The .cm auctions are underway at NameJet.com, and bidding is already hot and heavy. This auction is for the .cm domain that had more than one pre-order during the landrush. Although the first .cm auction does close until Tuesday, several domains on my radar are already in the four figures. As we know the highest price ever paid for a domain is Sex.com ($12M-$14M depending on reports). We also know the domain cars.cm sold for $35K in the RickLatona .Cm auction over a month ago. Sex.net sold for $454,000 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ta Ta, WIPO. New Candidate for Worst UDRP Decision Ever - Worst UDRP decision ever? Company says Ta Ta to WIPO. An Indian company is taking a domain battle to court after a WIPO domain panelist handed its domain owner to conglomerate TaTa Sons. The domain at issue is OKTaTaByeBye.com, a travel web site based on the colloquial saying “Ta Ta”, as in bye-bye or see you later. OKTaTaByeBye.com is run by a large online travel company that operates MakeMyTrip.com. TaTa Sons stated in its complaint that “the Respondent ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bido Guarantee Program: It Makes Sense Now - The missing piece of the puzzle glues it all together. When domain auction platform Bido announced its “Bido Guarantee Program”, I was a bit confused as to why any buyers would participate. Essentially, buyers would participate in a pre-auction where they could bid for domains. The seller could choose to accept the winning bid in the pre-auction, send the auction to a “real” auction with the pre-auction bid as the starting bid, or walk away. This didn’t ... read more ...
Sat 29th August 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
It’s Not Just Your Friends Checking Out Your Social Networking Page: The IRS and Robbers Are Watching You Too - Any one with a Facebook, Myspace or Twitter account, (probably everyone who reads this blog, ) needs to read two recent posts on Mashable, about how tax authorities and burglars are both using social networking sites to find people to go after. The first Mashable post talks about how state tax authorities from several states, have been succesful in collecting back taxes from taxpayers using information acknowledged that they are using social networking sites to gather information to use to go after ... read more ...
Fri 28th August 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
$700 For A Domain Registration? EuroDNS.com Starting Accepting .MX Preorders - I just received this notice from EuroDns.com regarding the .MX (mexico) ccTLD landrush: “”EuroDNS is glad to announce the opening of the .MX Landrush pre-registration phase from August 25th until September 1st, the latter being the official opening day of the Landrush period, for a price of 485 Euros.””” Wow $485 Euro’s. At today’s exchange rate $1 USD= $1.43 Euro’s that comes to $694 per domain. According to the same press release, when .MX Go Live registrations start on November ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
US Modifies Border Search Rules Of Your Devices When You Enter The US, But Just A Little - The Homeland Security Department, announced today some time limitations on how long border agents can hold on to devices they seize at the border. As we pointed out last year in a post, when you come into the United States your laptop and cell phone, along with all your other possession are subject to search and seizure, whether you’re a visitor to the US or a citizen returning into the US. Although citizens in the US are normally entitled to the protection of the 4th amendment right against unreasonable ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Yahoo Fights for Yahoo.tel - Yahoo is first major tech company to try to get .tel domain name through domain arbitration. Yahoo has filed for arbitration with National Arbitration Forum to get the domain name Yahoo.tel. Yahoo is the first major tech company to try to get its hands on a .tel domain name through arbitration. Many other tech companies, including Google, registered their .tel domain names during the so-called “sunrise period” for about $300. Arbitration will cost the company ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NameJet .Cm Domain Name Auctions to Start Today - .Cm auctions should finally start today at NameJet. After many delays, NameJet will begin auctions today for .cm domain names. NameJet General Manager Steve Brown informed Domain Name Wire this morning that the sunrise and single pre-order .cm domains have now been added to the zone. Therefore, NameJet will proceed as planned with the auctions that will begin later today and close between Monday August 31st and Monday September 14th. General registrations for .cm ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Live Current Sells Cricket.com - Live Current Media ends a sad saga. Live Current Media (OTC: LIVC.ob) has sold its Cricket.com domain name and assigned its Indian Premier League contract for a total consideration of approximately $1.75 million. About $1M of that will be paid in cash over four quarters, and the remainder is the assumption of liabilities and payment of severance to a key Live Current employee that will be hired by the purchaser, GCV Mauritius. Last year Live Current Media claimed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Man Charged with Bilking Lumber Liquidators with Domain Purchases - Virginia man allegedly pays himself by selling domains to his employer. Justin Godfrey, founder of domain name escrow service EscrowDNS, began to think something was wrong. Joshua Everett, an e-commerce manager with Lumber Liquidators, started doing a lot of business through EscrowDNS.com in November 2008. He purchased a number of domains on behalf of Lumber Liquidators. At first he purchased them from a company called DNS Investing. Later, a company called Delorean ... read more ...
Thu 27th August 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
Auction.com Rings Up $32 Million In Sales - REDC the company that bought the domain auction.com for just $1.7 million earlier this year, announced that they just completed an online nationwide foreclosed property sale,  using the domain auction.com. The sale generated $31.7 Million in sales. The online auction using auction.com, offered 770 assets in 45 states and saw traffic from thousands of online bidders from August 3 through August 23. The properties auctioned ranged from million-dollar mansions to smaller single-family houses. “This ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Is Google Going Into The Loan Service Business? LendingTree.com Files Suit - Is Google going to start competing against its own advertisers? According to a suit filed Tuesday  by LendingTree.com, they might be planning to. LendingTree filed suit against Mortech Inc. in federal court, claiming that Mortech is violating an exclusive agreement with LendingTree, by setting up a competing loan-referral service will reveal LendingTree trade secrets to Google, by working with Google on technology that automates pricing of lender offers. LendingTree seeks an injunction against Mortech. LendingTree ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New American Bar Association Trademark Chairman Is Focused On Domain & Online Issues: Get Ready - Today an lawyer, Anthony Biller, Esq., a  Member of the law firm of, Coats and Bennett, has been appointed to chair the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Committee on Trademark Litigation. According to the press release Mr. Biller in his roll as chairman of ABA committee is concerned with several issues including: “The potential expansion of domain name infringement, or “cybersquatting”, that may occur with the introduction of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs).” Moreover Mr. Biller ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
XP.com Tops Great Domains Auction during $99,000 - XP.com nearly cracks six figures at GreatDomains auction. Bidding for this month’s GreatDomains auction at Sedo concluded today. Although none of the domains have changed hands yet, it looks like XP.com will be the top sale at $99,000. The domain was originally registered back in 1995. BestPrices.com came in second at $81,000. BestPrices.com is an active web site with significant traffic. Sued.com came back this month with a lower reserve price that resulted ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Certipost Pays to Settle Domain Dispute - Company pays to end lawsuit brought by VirtualPoint, Inc. Document exchange company Certipost has paid an undisclosed amount to settle a lawsuit brought by VirtualPoint, Inc. over the domain name Certipost.com. VirtualPoint’s owner David Lahoti registered the domain name back in 2000. A couple years later Certipost started. In 2008 Certipost filed a UDRP to get the domain name through WIPO and won in a strange decision. The WIPO panelist decided that, since Lahoti ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Epik Primes Pump for Web Development - Epik off to quick start. It’s been a couple months since Rob Monster launched Epik, a semantic web domain monetization service. How’s it going? Quite well, reports Monster. He says the company will turn the corner on profitability next month, so the company will be able to choose whether or not to raise outside money. Epik 2.1 was just released and includes many improvements. A key improvement is a new parser that makes it easier to map domains to available ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Which Domain Conferences You Should Go To in 2010 - A handy guide to choosing a domain conference. Well, I guess the domain name conference wars are on again. We already knew about two conferences in the first two months of the year — DOMAINfest and Domainer MardiGras. But then, despite having only two conferences in the U.S. this year, T.R.A.F.F.I.C. found it necessary to hold a conference in Las Vegas just before DOMAINfest. And so it begins. Since most people don’t want to attend every conference, I’ve ... read more ...