Monthly Archives: June 2010

Mon 21st June 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Our Picks From The Extended Auction From TRAFFIC Vancouver Ending Tomorrow - The RickLatona.com Extended domain auction  from the TRAFFIC  Vancouver Show closes tomorrow on Tuesday June 22nd at 6pm EST. All of the unsold domains from the live auction are back. (You can see our original picks from the Live domain auction, but some of these domain have been sold). Here are our picks out of the domains that were not in the Live domain auction, those domains that had their reserve price lowered or those we missed the 1st time around Good luck to  all bidders and sellers, as ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
1st Report From ICANN: Looks Like The Next Version Of a gTLD Guide Book Will be The Last - My first ICANN meeting ended with one of the GNSO Committee members calling for an end of the cycle of Guidebooks, comment periods and revised Guidebooks for the new gTLD’s stating: “This will be an endless process if it keeps going as it has been going” said GNSO member Andrei Kolesnikov Calling the 4th Version of the Guidebook, “a beautiful document”, he urged ICANN to simply approve the latest version: “We cannot resolve all the problems of all humanity” Stating that not everyone ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Name Administration Reaches Settlement over Cheat Code Mark - Company settles trademark dispute. Frank Schilling’s company Name Administration has reached a settlement with the holder of a trademark for Cheat Code, according to documents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Late last year CheatCodes.com LLC started going after people who had “cheat code” in their domain names, thanks to somehow slipping the generic term “Cheat Code” past a USPTO examiner. It went after small webmasters, but also sent a demand ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Red Bull Wastes $100k’s on Domain Disputes - Red Bull spends big bucks disputing domains, then let’s them go. Is it possible that Red Bull’s lawyers are too caffeinated when they file domain name disputes through UDRP? More than perhaps any other company, Red Bull finds itself winning domains at UDRP that are “canceled” instead of “transferred”. This means that the current registration is deleted and the domains become available for re-registration rather than being transferred to the winner. I’ve ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Owner of MyCyty Mark Goes After MyCity.com - The dates tell the story. The owner of a trademark for “MyCyty” has failed in his attempt to get the domain name MyCity.com through UDRP. That someone would go after the correctly spelled version of their made up trademark is a bit surprising. But the circumstances in this case are particularly egregious. It should be clear to anyone who visits MyCity.com that it is being used for a bona fide purpose by its owner, 411WEB Directory. Even if it weren’t, the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
KnujOn Calls eNom “Active Facilitator of Illicit Criminal Traffic” - KnujOn calls out eNom for pharmacy sites. Internet security research group KnujOn isn’t afraid to pick a fight. And its latest report (pdf) picks a big one, going after 162 domain name registrars including eNom, the second biggest in the world. It even says that eNom is an “active facilitator of illicit criminal traffic”. But that logic is based on the idea that everything illegal on the internet usually involves a domain name, and you should blame the registrar. Before ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This Week, Another Chance to Act on .XXX and What it Means for New gTLDs - ICANN’s actions on .xxx go well beyond this one top level domain. ICANN’s Board of Directors will once again consider what to do with the .xxx top level domain name during its board meeting at the culmination of the Brussels meeting this week. More than just a decision on a mistake ICANN made long ago, this will act as a bellwether on the new top level domain process. Why? It will show us how much of a stomach ICANN has for controversy when it comes to introducing ... read more ...
Sun 20th June 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo.com’s Contract Protects Sedo, But Not Sellers Or Buyers - Almost 2 months ago I won an auction at Sedo for TrademarkLawyer.com for just under $10K.  This was one of 7 legal domains one seller put up for auction.  The total winning bids for the 7 domains totaled almost $200K.  (You can read the entire story here). Shortly after the auction ended the Seller notified Sedo that he was not going to transfer the domains.  After a cure period of 30 days Sedo declared the Seller in Default. Since the Seller lives in the Tampa Bay area, I asked my long time ... read more ...
Sat 19th June 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
Job.Com Says 50% Of Its Visitors Come From Direct Navigation (Type In Traffic) - The owner and CEO of Job.com, Brian Alden, was interviewed by Fredericksburg.com, and a couple of very interesting items came to light. For one the owner says that 50% of the 8 million monthly visitors come to the site simply by them typing the domain into the browser. Good old direct navigation which the search engines want us to believe is all but dead. “About half of the site’s roughly 8 million unique visitors a month come on their own, without being directed from a referring site such ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
MAGNAGLOBAL: Online Advertising To Grow 11% A Year Through 2015 - According to MAGNAGLOBAL, a media forecasting company, global online advertising will rise by 12.4% during 2010, to $61.0 billion dollars. In 2010, Paid Search will account for $29.8 billion of that $61 Billion, up by 16.5% over 2009. MAGNAGLOBAL says over the next five years, online advertising is expected to by an average rate of 11.0% through 2015. So by 2015 online advertising will account for  $103 billion dollars a year in sales. Latin America is expected to be the fastest growing region, ... read more ...
Fri 18th June 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Demand Media Wants to Patent Keyword Profitability Ranking - Company files patent application for ranking algorithm. Demand Media has content revenue prediction down to a science. The company has an army of freelancers who produce content based on the company’s prediction of how much ad revenue each piece of content will bring in. Now the company wants to patent its methodology for figuring out which keywords are the most profitable. U.S. patent application 12/337550 is for a “Method and System for Ranking of Keywords ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ZeniMax Buys Rage.com for Upcoming Rage Video Game - Video game creator shoots bullseye with domain name purchase. A long awaited video game has a new home on the web – Rage.com. ZeniMax Media Inc. purchased the domain name from a man in Great Britain for $49,999, and is now forwarding the domain name to rage.bethsoft.com (Bethsoft is the publisher). The deal was handled through Sedo. The seller moved his web site to RageLive.com. That a company would spend so much for a domain name for a video game should come ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
3 Deadbeat Domain Registrars Bite a Dust - Three inactive registrars terminated for failure to pay accreditation fees. ICANN has sent notices of termination to three domain name registrars for failure to pay past due accreditation fees. Each of the three domain name registrars — Abansys Hostytec, S.L, NameHouse, Inc., and Gee Whiz Domains, In.c — owe between $7,000 and $13,500 each. According to the termination notices sent to each registrar, ICANN sent numerous notices to the registrars notifying ... read more ...
Thu 17th June 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
NeuStar’s Alternative DNS Service Is Blocking Parked Domains - Quite a few people are using alternative DNS services, like Google DNS (I use Google DNS) to navigate the internet. However as pointed out by one reader to TheDomains.com, one of the alternative DNS services is now blocking parked pages. Most troubling the service, dnsadvantage.com is owned by Neustar,  which provides registry services for .biz, .us, kids.us, .cn, .tw, .travel, .tel extensions and is actively seeking new gTLD’s to add under its control and management. The domain to test with ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
My.CO Powers .co Domain Name Registrations - Company offers way for non-.co-accredited registrars to sell .co registrations. One of the unique aspects of the launch of the .co domain name is that there are only ten domain name registrars accredited to sell the domains. This includes some big names such as Go Daddy, eNom, and Tucows. But that means that smaller registrars are shut out from selling .co domain names unless they strike a deal with one of the ten accredited registrars. That creates an interesting ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
iPad is No Domain Name Killer, Nor a Kindle Killer - My thoughts after a couple days with the iPad. My wife bought an iPad for me for Father’s Day. She can’t keep a secret so she gave it to me as soon as it arrived in the mail. I’ve had a couple days to play with it, which has given me time to reflect on what apps might do to domain names. So far I’m going to agree with Jason Fry. Basically, the apps that correspond to web sites are subpar at best, and the actual web sites suffice. Score one for navigating ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Time to Cleanse and Renew (Your Domain Portfolio) - Prices increase next month, so now’s a good time to take a hard look at your portfolio. The cost of registering or renewing a domain name will increase at most domain name registrars on July 1. This is thanks to an increase in the wholesale cost of registration courtesy of VeriSign. The company is increasing the price of .net domains 10% and .com domains 7%. That makes the next couple weeks an ideal time for domain investors to take a good look at their portfolios. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Web.com Buys Register.com for $135 Million - Large registrar agrees to be acquired by small business hosting and design company. Web hosting and design company Web.com has agreed to purchase privately held domain name registrar Register.com for $135 million. The company views domain name registration as a lead generation tool for other services such as setting up web sites and hosting, and also sees cost savings of $10 million by merging the two entities. Register.com is one of the original higher cost domain ... read more ...
Wed 16th June 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Well I’m Off To My First ICANN Meeting - Well some 13 years after I registered my first domain, I’m heading off to my first ICANN meeting. I’m really not sure what to expect, but we are off to Brussels. If you have attended a show in the past, please feel free to give me some tips or pointers. This show looks like an very important one with the new gTLD’s and all the ancillary issues in play. The Guidebook V4 just came out for the new gTLD’s and its full of controversy. Of course at this meeting ICANN is expected to make a decision ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New Economic Study: Limit New TLD Rounds To Measure Effects - New ICANN-sanctioned report suggests limiting new TLD application rounds in order to collect more data. ICANN has published its latest hired economic report on the costs and benefits of introducing new top level domain names. Unlike the last report from a different author, this one lays out clear logic rather than just playing to the hands of ICANN. It is a well reasoned report that lays out the truth about the costs and benefits of new TLDs, and comes to a conclusion ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Court Denies Emergency Injunction for Zuccarini Domains Sold during NameJet - Just filed for VeriSign, let’s see what they say… A. The Illegal Transfer of John Zuccarini’s Domain Names and VeriSign’s Culpability. There are two central issues before The Court related to VeriSign Inc. (“VeriSign”) the registrar for all .com and .net domain names, and it’s working relationship with all .com and .net registrars. That is, does a domain name registry have the power to correct an illegal action by a domain name registrar, as in this case the illegal transfer ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Sells TVs.co.uk for $75,000 - Big electronics UK domain name sells. Sedo has brokered the sale of TVs.co.uk for 51,000 GBP, or about $75,000 USD at today’s exchange rate, according to the recent sales section on the domain name broker’s web site. If you visit TVs.co.uk today you’ll see an online store for TVs. A note at the bottom of the page links to PCs.co.uk, as the web sites were both owned by the same UK entity. The seller purchased the domain name for 1,000 GPB in December 2007. The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UDRP Panelist Opens Door for Cases to be Refiled - Two words open door for companies to refile UDRP cases. In the legal world when a case is dismissed “without prejudice” it means the door has been left open for the plaintiff to file the case again at a future date. This is typically used when a case is dismissed, not when a case is found against the plaintiff. The generally accepted rule for a UDRP filing is that a complainant can’t file a case for the same domain name twice unless something notable comes ... read more ...
Tue 15th June 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Here’s Some Good Advice: Let Go, Your Lego Domains - One thing I’ve noticed watching the daily WIPO decisions as they come down, every week seems to bring another case involving  “Lego”. So I did some research and found it wasn’t my imagination. So far in 2010 there have been 69 cases filed according to UDRPSearch.com, by the toymaker. and this is just the middle of June. From 2009 to date there have been over 100 cases filed by the toymaker. Of course some of the case involve mulitple domains. To date, every decided case has resulted in the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Pig.com Domain Name Sells for $125,000 - NameMedia scores six figure domain name sale. DNForum owner Adam Dicker has sold the domain name Pig.com for $125,000 with the help of NameMedia. Dicker purchased the domain name for $50,000 in 2006. In 2007 he was hit with a UDRP case brought by New Pig Corporation, but of course he prevailed in the case. The company also sold one of its own domain names, Tortillas.net, for $9,300. If that looks familiar, it’s because the domain name sold through its listing ... read more ...