Monthly Archives: November 2009

Tue 24th November 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
LuxuryNames Domain Name Auction Ends Today - First LuxuryNames auction ends today. The first ever LuxuryNames auction has attracted a number of bids in advance of its closing this afternoon. Lots will begin closing at 12:15 PST on SnapNames. As of 7 am PST today, 19 domain names have received bids. The highest so far is $2,600 for CheapHouseInsurance.com. Many of the domains have prices starting at only $99. I have three domains in the auction, one of which has received several bids already: WeeklyPlanner.com. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Kauffman Foundation Wants Help Renaming StudentBusinesses.com - Help Kauffman Foundation rename a web site. Here’s an opportunity for domainers to do good by helping out the Kauffman Foundation, an organization that helps spur entrepreneurship. Kauffman Foundation recently acquired StudentBusinesses.com, a site where people can post and review business plans with the idea of getting matched to advisors, financing etc. It also has a backend system for colleges to manage business plan competitions. To date, the site has been ... read more ...
Mon 23rd November 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
Will Search Engines Start Paying For Exclusive Rights To Link to Content? - According to The Financial Times, Microsoft is in discussions with major online publishers including News Corp, to pay them to “de-index” their news websites from Google, and allow Bing.com to index them on an exclusive basis. News Corp of course owns some premium content including the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, the New York Post and The Sun located in the UK, just to name a few. This would be a landmark deal since it would be the first time search engines would pay for the right ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Our Picks For The LuxuryNames.com Auction - LuxuryNames.com is holding its first auction at Snapnames.com which closes tomorrow,  Tuesday November 24, at 3:15pm EST, in accordance with the normal closing rules of Snap. We have gone through the list and picked out what we believe are the best buys in the auction. Now that Snapnames.com changed its affiliate program to reduce payouts by 75%, we are no longer providing links or going to pester you into clicking on them. So you will have to go back to the old copy and paste days, to join or watch ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN CEO Beckstrom’s Monthly Newsletter For Nov is Out - Rob Beckstrom has published his monthly newsletter entitled “The Beckstrom Starfish Report“ for November. I actually was not aware that the CEO of ICANN had his own monthly newsletter, but I received a copy of it via e-mail this morning. Beckstrom talks about his first 100 days as president of ICANN, the international oversight of ICANN away from sole US control and the New Top Level domains. Beckstrom has been since taking over the position, been much more accessible to all involved in the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
A New Way To Sue Competitors For Advertising Under Your Keyword - Any reader of this blog, knows about the various suits that have been filed against Google for trademark infringement for selling ads under trademarked terms and also against advertisers who bought ads under either trademarked terms or under keywords of its competitors. Leave it to a lawyer suing another lawyer to change things up. Instead of suing its competitor for trademark infringement, a law firm in Wisconsin filed suit last week against another law firm for violating privacy laws. The lawsuit ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DomainTools Launches MyWhois - New MyWhois feature is a big usability improvement. A month or two ago DomainTools changed the way it displays whois data. Whereas whois records and associated domain data used to be displayed on one page, it switched to a tabbed view to make it easier to read. But some people are stuck in their old ways and (understandably) didn’t like clicking between multiple tabs to get the data they needed. DomainTools has figured out a solution that provides the best of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
$66,001 e.Biz Sale Closes - .biz takes the top spot for the week…sort of. “The top sale at Sedo this past week was a .biz domain name.” I never thought I’d have the chance to write that. And I’m not being entirely truthful by writing it. The $66,001 sale of e.Biz claims the highest “number” for the week, but when you convert the 49,000 EUR sale of i.de to U.S. dollars, .de claims the top spot. But let’s not ruin the moment. We still don’t know who the buyer of e.biz is ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NMC.com Domain Name Spared during Arbitration Despite No Response - Prolific panelist makes the right finding (this time). National Arbitration Forum panelist Carolyn Marks Johnson is no friend of domain name owners. An early study of arbitrators found that she was one of the most prolific and biased, finding for complainants 97.2% of the time (compared to the typical 82.9% at the time). She was also recently sued for alleged judicial misconduct. But she managed to find for the respondent on NMC.com, despite the respondent not filing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Second Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Oversee.net and SnapNames - Lawsuit claims violation of California law and fraud. Another lawsuit seeking class action status has been filed against Oversee.net over the SnapNames insider bidding scandal. Law firm KamberEdelson LLC filed the case on behalf of its lead plaintiff, Stewart Resmer, in U.S. District Court Central District of California on November 18. Resmer, like Oversee.net, is located in Los Angeles. Among other evidence, the lawsuit cites a now famous January 6, 2008 DNForum ... read more ...
Sun 22nd November 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Comment Period On New gTLD Guidebook V3 Closes Today - The deadline to comment to ICANN on Version 3 of the gTLD guidebook (adobe file) is today at midnight. To see all of the comments submitted so far you can click here. To submit your own comment click here. As always once you submit your comment you will receive a confirmation e-mail from ICANN, in which you will have to click on a link in the e-mail, otherwise your comment will not be submitted. As far as topics to comment about you can always object to the Guidebook still leaving the door opened ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Did Somebody Really Pay $150K For RockRose.com? - In an article appearing the the NewYorkTimes.com today, actually an interview of K. Thomas Elghanayan a real estate developer, he was asked about the domain name his company used, Rockrose.com to which he was asked: “””Q. Speaking of names, how did you and Fred decide on one? A. It’s hard to find a name because most are taken, and with the Internet there’s a whole industry of people who just claim names. In fact, when we had Rockrose, we had to buy the domain name from someone. We paid ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Taking a $62,500 Risk on SearchEngineOptimization.net - Man buys .net domain name for $62,500 with big plans. Some people like to talk big. Patrick Gavin is putting his money where his mouth is. The founder of Text-Link-Ads.com just plunked down $62,500 for SearchEngineOptimization.net at BuyDomains. It’s a steep price for a domain who’s .org version sold for just $750 back in 2006. But Gavin has a plan, and he’s going to let the world watch him succeed or fail. Gavin plans to turn the web site into a learning ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UK Bill Would Regulate Domain Name Registries - Bill probably meant to regulate .uk but could ensnare .tel. A bill introduced in the United Kingdom Parliament would have potentially adverse effects on domain name registries operating out of the United Kingdom. The Digital Economy Bill includes clauses that would allow the government to essentially nationalize a domain name registry that met certain qualifications of “failing”. Although the bill was probably meant to target .uk registry Nominet, it was written ... read more ...
Sat 21st November 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Government Goes To Registrars To Asking Them To “Teminate” Domain Registrations - The Federal Drug Administration  (FDA) send out a “warning letter” this week to 22 companies that operate 136 sit”that appeared to be illegally selling drugs to American consumers.” However even through its was labeled as “warning letter”, the FDA also went to the service providers of the sites  and registrars of the domain names subject to the warning letter and told them “that the site illegal activities may give them grounds to terminate service to their customers.” And according ... read more ...
Fri 20th November 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
From A Hand Registered Domain To A Financial Portal; InvestingFunds.com Launches - A domain that was simply hand registered a few years ago has now been developed into a financial portal. InvestingFunds.com, maybe the first financial site to not only cover the usual investments you would expect to see on a financial site, like stocks, bonds, real estate, currency and commodities, but also domain names. The site will be incorporating other domains into the site over time to create a financial network of sites covering all investments including domain names. Take a look at the site ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainHack.er in PL and tagged
Domeny internetowe: kup komplet - Wybierając adres internetowy dla firmy, czy przedsięwzięcia na ogół rejestrujemy domenę prezentującą jego nazwę, czy skrót z końcówką .pl, lub .com.pl . Do dyspozycji mamy więcej TLD - możemy skorzystać z funkcjonalnych końcówek, określających typ działalności, jak .com, .org, .biz, czy .net, lub regionalnych - wskazujących zakres terytorialny działania, na przykład - warszawa.pl . Polscy inwestorzy domenowi najchętniej gromadzą w swoich portfelach domeny z końcówką ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Project.me Domain Dispute Sets Dangerous Precedent - by Karen Bernstein Have UDRP panels gone too far by setting a new standard for determining the identical or confusingly similar element in domain disputes? In his November 13 article, Andrew Allemann reported a WIPO decision denying transfer of Project.Me (project.me GmbH v. Lin, Case No. DME2009-0008 (WIPO Nov. 11, 2009)). This article picks up where he left off. In Lin, an Iphone app developer who owns a German trademark registration for PROJECT ME brought a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Friday Afternoon Domain News Bytes - A quick look at domain name news. Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, which means some interesting things for web traffic. Shopping sites will see high traffic, news sites will see less as people stay home from work. Domain Name Wire will continue publishing next week, but I wanted to get a few thoughts and news items out there before my turkey-induced slumber. Joe Biden did it again. On The Daily Show this week, he referred to Recovery.gov as Recovery.com. I do the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
PITCHfest and LAUNCHfest Come to DOMAINfest - Two business competitions coming to DOMAINfest conference. Oversee.net wants to know, “what would you do to develop Planners.com?” That’s just one of ten domain names contestants in DOMAINfest Global’s LAUNCHfest can submit a development plan for. Contestants submit a plan for developing one of the domain names, and pitch it to a panel of expert judges during the January contest. The winner will get to go through with their plans by leasing or buying the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Indictment Shows Ease of Hijacking Domain Name - Three hackers indicted for hijacking domain name. An indictment against three hackers involved in hijacking the Comcast.net domain name last year shows how easy it is to pull it off: just get access to the administrative contact’s email address. The U.S. government has charged three hackers with doing just that, and using the email address to change the nameservers on Comcast.net at domain name registrar Network Solutions. Blame the hackers, but also Comcast for ... read more ...
Thu 19th November 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Breaking News: SnapNames/Oversee Revises & Restates Release To Limit It Just To Halvarez - After much discussion and criticism last week Oversee/SnapNames.com announced today that it has revised and restated the release they are requiring those wanting to accept the settlement for the bidding activities of the bidder Halvarez to sign. As we have discussed here we thought the release was overly broad and the literally reading would release Oversee and Snapnames from all and any liability for any activity on SnapNames related or not related to the bidder Halvarez which was the bidder ID ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company That Bought Insure.com Files to Go Public - Quinstreet files to go public. Lead generation company Quinstreet, which bought the Insure.com web site for $16 million in October, has filed for it initial public offering. In its S-1 Securities and Exchange Commission filing for the IPO, the company reported fiscal year 2009 revenue of $261 million with a net income of $17 million. Quinstreet notes little about the Insure.com acquisition in its S-1: In October 2009, the Company acquired the website business of Insure.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A Big Thumbs Up for BargainDomains.com - New web site from Domaining.com is very promising. Domaining.com founder Francois Carrillo works relentlessly to introduce new products. I like some more than others. Today I think he’s hit a grand slam with BargainDomains.com. The premise is simple: you can list your domains for sale on BargainDomains.com for a maximum of 30% of the appraisal price on sister site Valuate.com. When you take a look at the list of domains on BargainDomains.com, you’ll see that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
More Problems for .CM Domain as Registry Loses Files - .Cm domain name registry NETCOM loses financial files. The “relaunch” of Cameroon’s .cm domain name stuttered out of the gate after many technical difficulties. Apparently those problems continue, and it highlights one of the risks of buying certain country code domain names. .Cm registry NETCOM has emailed its registrars informing them of data loss in its accounting systems, and admitting it didn’t have a data backup plan in place: Dear Registrars, our ... read more ...