Monthly Archives: November 2010

Thu 18th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Senate Panel Pass Law Allowing Seizure of Domain Names - The bill entitled: “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act” sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) passed a US Senate panel this morning by a 19-0 vote. Such organizations such as Electronic Frontier Foundation eBay, Amazon.com, Bloomberg, Google and Wikipedia were against the bill and warned that the bill would give federal law enforcement too much power to police infringing activity. The measure, approved by the Senate panel in a 19-0 vote, The bill was promoted to protect movies, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Federal Court Awards Domain Holder Common Law Trademark Right & Orders Registrar To Return Domains - In what could be one of the most important legal decisions of the year for domain holders, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that a domainer hold acquired common-law trademark rights by simple ownership and usage in domain names he owned, even though they corresponded to well-known trademarked  brand names. The ruling for domain holders is a result of  a default judgment. Here’s the deal. According to the complaint: Warren Weitzman, is a domainer who owns and parks ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Facebook and American Farm Bureau Still Haven’t Settled over FB - FB trademark still an open issue between parties. Facebook bought the domain name FB.com from American Farm Bureau. But unlike what Mark Zuckerberg told the audience Monday when launching the social network’s new messaging system, the two parties haven’t settled an ongoing trademark dispute. During Monday’s launch Zuckerberg said: “The farm bureau has agreed to give us FB.com and we in return have agreed to not sell Farm subsidies.” Not according to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Did Nokia Just Sell Dashboard.com? - Interesting changes to Dashboard.com domain name. It looks like Nokia may have just sold the domain name Dashboard.com, but some of the changes to the domain name don’t quite add up. Nokia got the domain name when it acquired Intellisync Corporation in 2005. It then forwarded the domain name to a landing page saying that Intellisync was now part of Nokia. On November 17 the whois record for Dashboard.com changed to DNStination Inc. DNStination is part of Mark ... read more ...
Wed 17th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sex.com Sale For $13M Completes; Previous Purchase Price Was $11.5 Million - Sedo.com just put out a press release announcing the completion of the sale the domain name  Sex.com for $13 Million Dollars cash. We pretty much knew that, but the press release did contain some real news. The previous purchase of Sex.com in 2006, which was always rumored to be in the price range of $10 Million to $14 Million, but never had a definitive price, was confirmed by the press release to have actually been  $11.5 million dollars. So on paper it looks like the previous purchase was profitable. Clearly ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Launches Its Shopping Site: Boutiques.com - Google launced today a shopping site today called Boutiques.com which seems to be the first project from Google’s acquisition of Like.com Here is how Google describes the service on their blog: “The way we shop for fashion is different from how we buy cameras—especially online. With fashion, reviews and specs are less important; fashion shopping is about discovering something that fits your taste and feels right. The web works well for buying cameras and other hard goods but for soft goods, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
BMW Rolls Out BMW.tv & Starts Running Television Commercials For It - BMW just gave the .TV extension another big boost by rolling out BMW.tv. in a last few months It looks like the car manufacturer has owned the domain for a while but its was directed to BMW.com. However now the site which is chocked full of videos of its cars and is being featured in as the go to URL in television commercials plus viral videos submitted by enthusiasts. Take a look at bmw.tv and then take a look bmw.com and the US site bmwusa.com and let me know what you think the best and most effective ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sex.com Officially in a Record Books during $13 Million - Sex.com officially becomes the largest all cash publicly announced domain sale of all time. The check has cleared. A few weeks after signing documents for a $13 million all cash deal, Escom LLC has officially sold Sex.com with the help of Sedo. Congratulations to Sedo broker Jeff Gabriel who handled the deal. Also congrats to Sedo for its persistence trying to get the name to broker. It filed an affidavit with the court arguing it should be allowed to broker the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Looks Like Google Will Connect Kids to Santa This Holiday Season - Company registers domain names related to calling Santa. Google has done some fun stuff with Santa over the years. With NORAD you could track Santa on Google Earth, for example. But the company may have something else in its sleigh this year. The company just registered a number of domain names related to Santa, including GoogleSanta.com (and the .net and .org versions). What could the company be up to? A few other domain names the company just registered may give ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New Smartphone App Hopes to Replace Phone Numbers with Domain Names - Product takes advantage of how domain names are easier to remember than phone numbers. I got a pitch for an interesting product today called Siter.com. The idea is that instead of needing to know a phone number to call someone or business you just need to know their domain name. For example, let’s say you need to call your bank to ask a question. Normally on your smartphone you’d need to go to the banks web page and search for their phone number. With Siter.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
A Report Every Domain Name Administrator Should Read - A great guide to not screwing up your domain name management. Earlier this month ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee released a report “A Registrant’s Guide to Protecting Domain Name Registration Accounts”. Every domain administrator at small and large businesses, as well as domain portfolio owners, should read (pdf) it. The report basically outlines steps you should consider to avoid losing access to your domain name or having your DNS hijacked ... read more ...
Tue 16th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic.com Racks Up Another $430K In Sales Highlighted by Dnb.net for $18K and MDS.Net For 11k - Afternic reported sales for the week ending November 14th. The list includes all .com reportable sales over $2K and all reportable non.com sales over $1K. Off hand I like totaleducation.com for $2K, and its interesting to note that there were 3 .net sales that were higher priced than the highest priced .com that sold for the week. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Gets Patent On Instant Search - According to Fortune, the United States Patent Office awarded Google a Patent today for the technology behind Google Instant Search. The granting of the patent means that other search engines won’t be able to provide the exact same type of search functionality as Google without licensing the technology from Google. Fortune points out that the “the inclusion of  prior queries submitted by a community of users, and may take into account a user profile.” could certainly be applied to social search ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Huge .co.uk Sale For $7.5M-$14M: Mortgages.co.uk, Investments.co.uk, CreditCards.co.uk, LifeInsurance.co.uk, HealthInsurance.co.uk, Savings.co.uk - We usually don’t hear about too many huge deals involving .co.uk domains but this one is certainly a blockbuster. A public company in the United Kingdom purchased some of the best possible insurance and financial .co.uk domain names for a total of £4.6m, rising to up to £9m depending on performance. Based on exchange rates, this equated to a sale of around $7, 355,500 with possibly as much as over $14 Million again depending on Performance The domain names are simply some of the best possible ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Diapers.Eu and Soap.TW Sell For Over $5k Each In a Wake Of Amazon’s $540M .Com Purchase - Domainers seem to be chasing diapers and soap domains, in the wake of Amazon purchasing the company that owns the developed sites, diapers.com and soap.com for $540 Million. In the last few days the domain name Diapers.eu sold for 4,200 euros (approx $6K) and today the domain Soap.tw sold for 5,000 euros (approx $7K). Soap.tw for $7k? That’s seems like an a lot of money for an extension that most of you, including myself, doesn’t know what country it represents (Ok its Taiwan) Yet this seems ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Quick Poll: How Much Will i.Co Sell For? - With today’s announcement that i.CO is hitting that auction block, I started a poll as to how much you think the domain will fetch at auction. You can see some history on single letter .co domains on my previous post from today. Some of the possible buyers of i.Co off hand would include; Apple, king of all things “i” (iPad, iPod, iPhone, iTouch) ibm and any company in the internet business. You can vote on the right and place your comments below. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is ICANN’s 3 Strikes Loophole on Purpose? - ICANN’s three strikes rule is so full of holes that you have to wonder if the holes are on purpose. One of the major changes to the so-called “Proposed Final” applicant guidebook is a definition of what a pattern of “bad faith in regard to domain name registrations” is. Applicants that have shown this bad faith pattern are barred from applying. The new rule slipped into the latest version: if you have three or more UDRP, ACPA, or other equivalent legislation ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Arbitration Panel Finds in Favor of eRestaurant.com Owner - Domain theft and now a UDRP. Defending a good domain name isn’t easy. A domain name owner who has already gone through the hassle of having his domain name stolen has now succeeded in winning a UDRP to keep the domain name. Altametrics, Inc filed the case against Ryan Sveinsvoll, who owns the eRestaurant.com domain name. The history of the domain name is interesting. Sveinsvoll appears to have purchased the domain name in 2003 and it was then hijacked in 2008. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
25 Tips for Choosing a Best Domain Name - 25 (mostly) good tips for end users choosing a domain name. It’s always interesting to see a non-domainer’s take on choosing the right domain name. I came across a good article today from a web designer featuring 25 tips for choosing the best domain name. You’ve heard all of these tips before, but rarely have I seen them in one place. Some of the key tips that I see people regret not following are: 3. Can You Say The Domain Without Explanation 4. Never Let ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What in a World Will ICANN Do with $100 Million Cash Next Year? - Can ICANN handle 9 figures of cash? $185,000 per application. Let’s say 550 applications for new to level domain names. That’s $101.75 million in cash coming in ICANN’s door next year. That’s a lot of money. What will it do with the cash that it doesn’t immediately spend on application processing? How much of this will now be considered “cost recovery”? How much will be reserved for resulting lawsuits? Don’t get me wrong, I think it should cost ... read more ...
Mon 15th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
i.Co Hits The Auction Block Powered By Moniker/SnapNames.com - According to Mashable, the single letter domain name i.Co has hit the auction block. All the information about the auction is at i.Co The auction was announced today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Every bidder will have to be pre-qualified to bid in the auction and the pre-qualification period ends on January 21, 2011. My understanding is that every bidder will have to be pre-qualified to at least $100K. The auction will be held by Moniker/SnapNames.com i.Co, is arguably the best possible ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
VentureBeat.com DemandMedia IS Worth $1.4-$1.7 Billion - In a blog post today on VentureBeat.com, Stephen Walker The CEO of Perfectmarket.com chats about  DemandMedia’s IPO and concluded: “I can now envision a scenario wherein Demand Media, whose properties include eHow, LiveStrong.com, and Cracked.com, is worth $1.4 – $1.7 billion. Not bad when you consider that the equity of the New York Times Company is currently valued at $1.2 billion. ” This is quite different than what Wired.com had to say about Demand’s anticipated IPO. To come up ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Email Coming To Facebook Today? Yourname@Facebook.com: Get Ready For The Big Grab - According to several reports Facebook.com will announce its own email system to compete with gmail and hotmail today at its a media event scheduled at its headquarters. The email project has been named in house as Project Titan. It is believed the service will let users set up an email account with the domain name @facebook.com, which will not function just as another email address but will l co-ordinate with Facebook’s chat and group features. The announcement is expected to come today at an ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UpRise.com Sells For $10,500 On NameJet.com - The domain name Uprise.com sold for $10,500 on NameJet.com yesterday. Here are some other notable sales from NameJet.com this week. Corrales.com  $6K alien.org  $5,800 SexToyShop.com $5,100 SaltwaterAquarium.com $5,100 CompanyIncorporation.com $5,009 Clora.net   $4,950 SweepstakesOnline.com  $3,700 OpenPark.com   $2,900 Sullivan.org   $2,000 CallaLawyer.com    $1,855 BookingDesk.com  $1,554 Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SnapNames Health and Pharma Auction Has Solid Bids - Auction has a couple high bids well in advance of closing. The SnapNames November Showcase Auction has some very strong bids prior to the closing on Tuesday at 12:15 PST. Ufit.com is leading the pack at $23,530 with two bidders and ColdRemedies.com is $12,810 with 2 bidders as well. Both domain names have hit their reserves. Other domains that have met their reserves are ieq.net, 47.org, coldflu.com, 5kr.com, 0vr.com, drsites.com, and Quack.org. Some other domain ... read more ...