Monthly Archives: March 2010

Thu 11th March 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hydra Affiliate Network Dumps 88% of Its Publishers - Large affiliate network trims its ranks. In a major shakeup in the affiliate network world, Hydra Network has dumped 88% of its affiliates, leaving it with fewer than 2,000 large publishers. Back in my days of affiliate arbitrage through pay-per-click, I frequently earned more than $5,000 a month from Hydra. I basically stopped using it a year or two ago, as I became frustrated with the terms of each of its offers changing from day-to-day. Hydra’s new, more stringent ... read more ...
Wed 10th March 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
Talk About Bad Timing; ChileEarthQuake.com Drops Just Days After The Quake - Talk about having some bad timing. The domain ChileEarthQuake.com dropped just 2 days after the 8.8 earthquake rocked Chile. Today the expired domain was auctioned off and sold on SnapNames.com While we always discourage people from registering domains that take advantage of any disasters we couldn’t help but notice the irony that this domain was not renewed by its former owner and then lost the domain just 2 days after the disaster struck. Hopefully the new owner will do the right thing and send ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
GoDaddy.com Passes 40 Million Domain Mark & Has 50% Market Share Of All New Domain Registrations - Go Daddy announced today that it has just surpassed 40 million, registered domain names. Godaddy said it typically registers a million domain names per month. Godaddy also says they have a 50% market share of all active new domains registered in the world and is more than three times the size of its closest competitor. Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons is quoted as saying: “”The Go Daddy portfolio surpassed 40 million domain names today.  The Internet is the heart of the new economy,” said ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Are “Rating” Sites That Accept Ads Destined To Be Sued, Even For RICO? Welcome to a World of Yelp.com - What happens when a site which is suppose to be giving out unbiased reviews of products is accused of changing it reviews based on ad dollars? Welcome to the world of Yelp.com, which was hit with a second class-action suit this week, alleging that they “extorted” companies by offering to hide bad reviews and promote positive ones in exchange for advertising. The suit, filed by D’Ames Day Spa, in the federal district court for the central district of California, alleges that Yelp removed 13 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Price Fairy Tales are Hard to Kill - Myths about sales prices grow like weeds. With Sex.com hitting the auction block next week, mainstream media are in a tizzy writing about the auction of the “world’s most valuable domain name”. As usual, they’re comparing it to other big ticket domain sales. The only problem is that many of the sales they refer to have misleading sales figures. Consider The Huffington Post’s “The 11 Most Expensive Domain Names Ever“. Casino.com is on HuffPos’ list ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Marchex Gets UDRP Win with Clara.com, Robot Blocking Justified - Company defends generic domain name and explains legitimate reasons for blocking robots.txt from parked domain names. Marchex subsidiary MDNH has successfully defended the domain name Clara.com from an attack by a magazine publisher in Spain. Complainant Rba Edipresse, S.L. owns a magazine called Clara, and argued that it should get the domain name because it has trademarks for the term “Clara” and that Marchex hadn’t used the domain name since it was registered. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Madness 2 Set for Las Vegas - Second domain name auction in Las Vegas scheduled for later this month. DomainConsultant premiered “Domain Madness” last year, a (mostly) online auction that was broadcast live from The Palms in Las Vegas. They’re back at it again this year, organizing an auction that will conclude on March 23. This year’s auction will be limited to only a dozen or so premium domain names, and the auction will take place online at OneofaKind.comsite to be named soon. The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Typo? CanadaDrugs.com vs. CanadaRugs.com - Online pharmacy argues “Rugs” is merely a typo of “Drugs”. Take two of these andfire your lawyer in the morning. Here’s an interesting UDRP case from National Arbitration Forum. The company that runs CanadaDrugs.com, a popular online pharmacy, filed a complaint against the owner of CanadaRugs.com, which is a parked page featuring links for rugs. CanadaDrugs.com tried to argue that the owner of CanadaRugs.com was typosquatting: Complainant submits that ... read more ...
Tue 9th March 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN To Consider .XXX On Friday - According to the BBC News , ICANN is going to reconsider the .XXX extension on Friday March 12 at its meeting in Nairobi. The BBC article quotes a representative of ICANN saying: There is “no indication what action the ICANN board will take”. “However, it is unlikely to overturn the decision immediately without consulting other members of Icann and the internet community.” Stay Tuned Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
WIPO: Another Horrible Inconsistent Decision: “Constructive Notice Does Not = Bad Faith” - In yet another shoot from the hip WIPO decision this one involving the domain SkyWaterSystems.com, the sole panelist found that even though the Complaint and the Domain Holder were in the same type of business,  there is not necessarily any confusion. “””As far as the record here reveals, however, the water-related systems offered by the parties here are not strictly, as Complainant asserts, in direct competition with one another. As the Panel understands it, Complainant produces water from ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Want A Jump On A .CO Domain? The .Co Registry Is Giving Away Domains Under The “Founders Program” - The .Co registry announced today what it is calling the .CO Founders Program Starting today, the registry is starting to accept applications, for “the .CO Founders Program, an initiative designed to help qualified “first movers” to proactively develop and maintain domains with the .CO extension prior to the public launch in July. The .CO Founders Program is open to all interested applicants from individuals to businesses and big brands.”” “The .CO Founders Program provides an excellent ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
How Much For The Domain Of a .Com Bubble High Flier That Raised $23M? - Once in a while you will see them on a drop list, the domain of a company that was once an internet high flier. So is the case of NextMonet.com a site that was founded in 1998 and was a Forbes.com “Best Of The Web”,  and reportedly raised at least $23M in capital raised, with investors like CMGI and Knight Ridder. NextMonet.com was described as: “A leading publisher and direct marketer of limited edition fine art and source of original art. Founded with the goal of making fine art more accessible, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Set to Hit 40 Million Domains Milestone on Wednesday - Go Daddy set to hit another milestone. [Update: Go Daddy hit the milestone earlier today.] About six months after crossing the 30 million domain name mark, The Go Daddy Group is set to surpass 40 million domains under management, most likely on Wednesday. So if you register a domain name tomorrow, you might get some extra notoriety if you time it just right. Ten years ago there were only about 17 million domain names registered, and now there is a single registrar ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Org Eyes Leadership Role in IDN Top Level Domain Names - .Org registry PIR wants to bring best practices to IDN top level domain names. One of the big questions facing registries of existing top level domain names is how they should pursue Internationalized Domain Name “equivalents” of their domain names when they become available. These so-called IDN.IDN domain names will be available once new gTLDs — such as .nyc and .music — come out. Last month we learned more about VeriSign’s plans for .com and .net; today ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Guagua.com Sells for $100k, Pepe.com Sells Again - Guagua.com hits six figures, Domaining.com owner scores nice sale. Sedo has sold the domain name Guagua.com for $100,000. Guagua has a number of different meanings, including being the name of a language and a municipality in the Phillipines. The company also helped broker the sale of Pepe.com for 45,000 EUR. It looks like Francois Carrillo of Domaining.com scored a nice flip on this domain name. He bought it at Bido.com a couple months ago for only $15,000, and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Scenes from ICANN Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya - ICANN meeting in Nairobi running well, report attendees. With all of the hype around security and possible disruptions, those in attendance at ICANN’s meeting in Nairobi say all is going well. Attorney John Berryhill writes “The summit and the ICANN meeting are both running smoothly here. The “security issue” is waaaay overblown by those who simply didn’t want the meeting held in Kenya. The conference center is huge and in a secure block with Kenyan ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Happy 5th Birthday, Domain Name Wire - Domain Name Wire started publishing five years ago today. On March 9, 2005, I wrote the first post on Domain Name Wire, reporting on the sale of Local.com for $700,000. 3,141 posts later, Domain Name Wire is running as strong as ever. If you’re reading this, I’d like to thank you for making Domain Name Wire a premier news source for the domain industry. It’s because of your readership that I commit my time reporting on and analyzing this exciting industry. Of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sex.com Domain Name In Default for Over a Year - Debtors behind on bills for the past year. With Sex.com heading to the auction block, there’s a been a lot of talk about what went wrong with the current owner, Escom LLC. According to a Reuters article, Escom has been in default on its loan for over a year to lender DOM Partners. “The loan was in default and DOM partners is foreclosing pursuant to its right under the security agreement,” DOM’s attorney Scott Matthews told Reuters. The auction is still ... read more ...
Mon 8th March 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.MX Registry Hits 400,000 Domains Registered - NIC Mexico the company responsible of the administration of the .MX ccTLD, announced today that has reached 400,000 domain name registrations under .MX (including in this number all the current classifications .com.mx, .net.mx, .org.mx, .edu.mx, .gob.mx and .mx). “Today, NIC Mexico has reached more than 400,000 domain names registrations” commented Oscar Robles, NIC Mexico ‘s CEO. It is interesting to note that out of the 400K+ .Mx domains registered almost 75% of them are .com.mx which has ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
How Much Traffic Do “WWW” Domains Get: A New Study Says At Least 1% - A study released by Corporate Service Company (CSC), a brand protection company, looked at domains that start with “www” to see how much traffic those domains got in relation to the actual domain. “””To understand how much traffic these domain variations could potentially drive, CSC analyzed the “wwwcscglobal.com” variation of the “cscglobal.com” domain name. The variation “wwwcscglobal.com” currently drives 1% of traffic to the main site.”” “”When the same logic is ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICA Requests Action on Czech Arbitration Court Policy Changes - Internet Commerce Association wants ICANN to act quickly on move by UDRP provider. Internet Commerce Association counsel Philip Corwin has sent a letter (pdf) to ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom and Chairman of the Board Peter Dengate-Thrush asking it to act on Czech Arbitration Court’s new UDRP policy. Czech Arbitration Court (CAC), one of the newest UDRP providers, proposed a new scheme in which it would charge only 500 EUR to file a domain name complaint and arbitrators ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Amazon.com Fires Colorado Affiliates Thanks to Affiliate Tax - Amazon says “see you later” to Colorado’s affiliate merchants. Thank inept state representatives. Colorado is the latest state to exacerbate unemployment problems by effectively canning its affiliate marketers. Colorado has joined a list of states that either proposed or enacted rules that make web companies collect sale tax if they have affiliates operating in the state. In the case of Colorado, HB 10-1193 didn’t necessarily require Amazon.com to collect ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Companies Head to Austin for SXSW - Domain companies en route to Austin later this week. Several domain name companies are heading to Austin later this week for the start of the annual South by Southwest Music, Film and Interactive Festival. The Interactive portion of the event attracted over 10,000 attendees last year. Many stay in town for the music festival, which kicks off in the middle of next week. Although the interactive festival is big, music is a big draw: over 2,000 musical acts will play ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WWW Prefix Typo Popular Among Trademark Infringers - Study says WWW typo is most common prefix in trademark infringing domain names. A new study from Corporation Service Company (CSC) — which provides trademark protection services — shows that www is the most common prefix to brand names used to “trademark infringers” in domain names. (The very common typo where someone forgets the dot between www and the domain name.) Perhaps more interesting is that most companies that do own the www typo of their web site ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Chair: May be “Ready to Move” on Uniform Rapid Suspension - ICANN session on trademark protection suggests URS is close to being finalized. Of all of the trademark protections being discussed for the launch of new top level domain names, it looks like Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) may be the closest to being approved. Uniform Rapid Suspension is a sort of “light UDRP” for domain names deemed to be clear cut cases of cybersquatting. During the first day of sessions at ICANN’s Nairobi meeting, ICANN Chairman of the Board ... read more ...