Monthly Archives: February 2010

Tue 23rd February 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
Catching Up With The Ongoing 2 Character .Biz Auctions: $37K Sold So Far - The .biz registry has been holding online auctions over the last couple of months for 2 character .biz domains. The auction on these domains really started on New York at the live TRAFFIC auction when NY.biz sold for $7K. Since then all the action has gone online where the .biz registry is still holding auctions daily. Since this auction model extends the auction another 24 hours every time a bid is placed within 24 hours of the scheduled close, like the .me auctions, some of these auctions go on ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eNom Launches “Instant Reseller” Domain Reseller Program - eNom joins competitors in offering easy domain reseller option. Joining the ranks of Go Daddy and Tucows, eNom is launching a domain reseller package that includes a web storefront for non-techies. (Update: Instant Reseller will replace the former PDQ program. See comments for details.) eNom’s system, called “Instant Reseller“, is essentially a reseller-in-a-box package that includes a fully hosted website and customized storefront, a shopping cart feature, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Paris Loses another Geo Domain Case, But You Won’t Believe The Dissent… - Paris loses challenge to Paris.tv. A French arbitrator disagrees. Ville de Paris — the City of Paris — has lost yet another domain name arbitration case. At issue was Paris.tv. This isn’t the first time Paris has gone after this domain name. It sent two cease and desist letters to the owner of Paris.tv back in 2006. At that point, the owner of the domain name had enough and filed suit for declaratory relief under Lanham Act for Tortuous Interference with ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How Go Daddy Can Court Domainers - Love ‘em or hate ‘em, a better partnership between domainers and the world’s biggest registrar would benefit the industry. GoDaddy is the most loved domain name registrar. Ironically, it’s probably the most hated registrar at the same time. Respondents to DNW’s annual survey have selected GoDaddy.com as the best registrar for five years running. But it’s also true that a lot of domainers avoid the registrar like the plague. It would be great if GoDaddy ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo and Parked.com Tops for Domain Name Parking - Familiar faces top results from survey. Sedo and Parked.com were selected as the best domain name parking companies in the 5th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey. Sedo took top honors with 23% of the vote, followed by Parked.com at 18%. Here are the top five vote-getters: 1. Sedo 23% 2. Parked.com 18% 3. NameDrive 13% 4. SmartName 6% 5. DomainSponsor and Google Adsense for Domains 6% SmartName is new to the list this year. The company has combined its three parking ... read more ...
Mon 22nd February 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Will ICANN On Now Approve .XXX? ICM Says Yes; ICANN Seems To Say No - As we wrote about over the weekend the independent panel that reviewed ICANN’s handling of the application of ICM Registry to run the .xxx registry, ruled that since ICANN voted to approve the application it should have allowed it to move forward without the additional review it understook. So the question now becomes whether ICANN will follow the report of the panel and approve the ICM Registry’s application for the .xxx extension in its next meeting. The ICM Registry believes it will be allowed ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
VeriSign 4th Quarter State Of The Industry Domain Report: 192 Million Domains; Up 11 Million - According to the new VeriSign released its State Of The Industry Report for the 4th Quarter today, (pdf) the Internet added 11 million domain name registrations in the 4th quarter of 2009 and wound up the year at more than 192 Million domains. New registrations in the 4th quarter of 2009 came in at around 3.7 million domain name registrations per month,  to total approximately 11 million new domain name registrations. This reflects an 8% increase in new registrations from the 3rd quarter of 2009. The ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Many Domain Companies Attending A Non-Domain Show This Week: Parallels Summitt - Many in the domain community think that companies in the space do not try to reach out to “End Users” or non-domain tech companies enough. However this week several company’s from the domain space are attending the Parallels Summit here in South Beach. Speaking at the conference include companies in the domain space including: Demand Media/Enom co-founder Shawn Colo. Sedo.com, Mark Klein, Director of Business Development OpenSRS (Tucows),  Director of Domain Services,  Adam Eisner Godaddy.com’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICM Registry Hopes to Offer .XXX Domains This Year - Registry wants to offer name.xxx later this year. After winning an independent review against ICANN for denying ICM Registry’s application for a .xxx top level domain name, the registry says it hopes to begin offering .xxx domain names later this year. It has already opened up a process on its web site to pre-reserve names. Whether or not this time line is feasible depends in part on how ICANN’s board acts upon the independent review. In a strange version of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain Industry Gets Its First Floating Domain Conference - DNCruise sets sail this October. The domain name industry is getting its first floating domain name conference — a cruise this October. Patrick Ruddell of ChefPatrick.com is organizing DNCruise, taking off from Miami October 11. The cruise will make stops in Key West, Florida and Cozumel, Mexico, before returning October 15. It is timed nicely for people attending the TRAFFIC in South Beach October 17-20. Although the conference will have some structured events ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
NameDrive Moves to Austin, Charts Growth - Domain company plants flag in Texas. Last month I hinted that a domain name company was on its way to Austin. Now it’s official: domain parking and sales company NameDrive has set up shop in the capital of Texas. The company has leased space north of Austin, which it is currently readying for move-in. Four employees are already in Austin, with three more on the way. That may grow to 20 by the end of the summer. NameDrive is the first major domain name company ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Republicans to ask WhoCaresAboutGlobalWarming.com? - Domain names registered for attack on global warming. Looks like the Republicans — perhaps the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) — are getting ready to ask the question “Who Cares About Global Warming?” WhoCaresAboutGlobalWarming.com, .net, and .org were all registered last Friday to Smartech Corp, which happens to be the favored web hosting company for NRCC. Last month the NRCC used Smartech Corp to register the names of many of its Democratic ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How Tiered Pricing Could Lower a Cost of Domain Name Registration - …for some domains, anyway. A lot of the talk around new top level domain names is the lack of pricing controls on providers. A company that launches a new TLD can set prices however they wish, and owners of existing TLDs worry that this idea would then be applied to their domains. Have a successful domain? You could get hit with a $1,000 renewal bill. But let’s look at the other side for a moment. My guess is VeriSign would like to offer variable pricing — ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Support for New TLDs Still Limited Amongst Domain Industry - Survey finds little support among domain community. Support for ICANNs “current plan” of introducing new top level domain names is still limited — although the ice may be thawing. In the 5th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey, 26% of respondents said they were in favor of ICANN’s current plan to introduce new top level domain names. This is up from 20% last year. An additional 22% are in favor of the plan, but only with regards to IDN top level domains. Although ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Approval Rating Hits 5-year Low - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) gets low marks. The percentage of people rating ICANN’s performance as “Good” has hit its lowest point since Domain Name Wire started its annual survey five years ago. In the fifth survey, including responses from over 500 people in the domain name industry, only 12% rated their satisfaction with ICANN as “good”. That’s down from 33% in 2006. 40% of respondents rated ICANN “poor”, up ... read more ...
Sun 21st February 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
3 Shows In 3 Weeks, 3 Completely Different Experiences - About a month ago I wrote a post about my plans to attend 3 trade shows in 3 weeks. When I first planned on hitting all three shows, TRAFFIC Vegas, DomainFest and Domainer Mardi Gras, I thought to myself there was going to be a lot of repetition, lots of the same people, lots more of the same. But in fact the three shows couldn’t have been more different. Three shows, three completely different vibes, atmospheres, and surprisingly attendees. I was expecting to see a lot of the same people at each ... read more ...
Sat 20th February 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Report Finds Against ICANN In Denying The .XXX Extension & Charges Them The $475K Cost - Yesterday an independent panel, the International Centre For Dispute Resolution (pdf) found in a 80 page decision, in favor of the ICM Registry against ICANN for its decision to eventually reject the .xxx extension and ruled that ICANN had to pick up all the costs of the independent panel to the tune of $475K and reimburse ICM the fees it paid for the application to the tune of another $241K. (ICM is stuck for its own attorney fees). However the ruling by its nature is advisory only and has no biding ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WebQuest Sues Hayward Industries Over Hayward.com Domain Name - Domain owner sues pool equipment company to block transfer after unfavorable WIPO ruling. Earlier this month we wrote about a WIPO panel awarding the domain name Hayward.com to a pool company called Hayward Industries, even though Hayward.com is the name of a city in California and the domain didn’t show any links related to pool equipment. Now the owner of the domain, WebQuest, has filed a complaint (pdf) in federal court against Hayward Industries in order to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
The Problem with Putting Ads Over Content (During a Plane Crash) - Integrating your ads over content can have negative consequences. On Thursday, a deranged man flew his plane into an office building housing IRS employees. In my search for updates and details on the crash, which was in a cluster of buildings housing a number of high tech companies where my friends work, I realized how dangerous it is to place your ads over content. You never know how it will look. Here’s the first example, from Statesman.com: Like many publications, ... read more ...
Fri 19th February 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Why Sex.com May Not Sell In The Foreclosure Auction - As Elliot’s Blog discovered yesterday, the domain Sex.com is heading to a foreclosure auction on March 18th. However,  just because the domain name is heading to auction, it doesn’t mean the domain is going to sell. For one this is not an absolute auction where the highest bidder gets the domain. Rather,  the auction notice, clearly states that the secured party, reportedly Domain Capital, has the right to place a bid equal to what it is owed on the debt including principal and interest, plus ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Minds + Machines: New gTLD’s Will Cause Only 316 New Cases Of CyberSquatting - A report released tonight by Minds+Machines, (pdf) predicts that the proposed gTLD’s will only cause 316 new cases of CyberSquatting and that the cost to trademark holders worldwide will be “less than $.10″. How does the authors of the report come to that conclusion? They look at the percentage of UDRP cases coming from .com’s, .net and .org against those in the “new” extensions, .info, .biz, .mobi, .asia and .tel. The report does not account for the number of UDRP’s involving ccTLD’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign Joins List of Companies Not Going to Nairobi - .Com registry to participate remotely. The world’s biggest registrar, Go Daddy, has already announced it is not sending anyone to the ICANN meeting in Nairobi due to security concerns. Now you can add the biggest registry, VeriSign, to the list. The company confirmed to me today via e-mail that it will not be sending anyone to participate in-person at the event: VeriSign has decided to participate virtually in the upcoming ICANN meetings in Nairobi. We made this ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
End User Perspective: Buying a Premium Domain on GoDaddy - Simplicity helps end user buy domain name. In October I wrote about GoDaddy’s service that lets you place your domains for sale within the registration path, called Premium Domain Names. Using a “Premium Listing”, your domain shows up in the GoDaddy domain marketplace. But the real value is that they also show up prominently when someone is searching for that exact domain name: To test the system, I transferred about 75 domain names to GoDaddy and listed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows and Marchex See Shares Bounce on Earnings - Market happy with results at two domain name companies. Two publicly traded domain name companies have seen a nice bounce in their stock prices after reporting earnings. Tucows reported net income of 3 cents per share for the fourth quarter of 2009 on February 16 after the market closed. It also reported $2.88 million of cashflow from operations. Shares of Tucows bounced 15% the following day to $.77, and then another 21% the following day to close at $.93. That’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Mike Mann Speaks His Mind about Sex.com - Sex.com investor tells his side of the story. Mike Mann, who founded BuyDomains, is always one to speak his mind. So when news broke yesterday that Sex.com, in which he was a part investor, was going into foreclosure, he didn’t hesitate to speak up. “I am merely an investor who got completely railroaded by other investors with big guns, bad practices, and bad attitudes,” Mann wrote via e-mail. “I am always up for a good fight since any money I would make ... read more ...