Monthly Archives: December 2010

Fri 10th December 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
So What Exactly Did ICANN Decide About .XXX and New TLDs Today? - Issues mostly punted to next year. There’s an old truism amongst lawyers. Show them a one page contract and they’ll tell you it’s rock solid. Show them a long contract and they can start poking holes in it. That truism carries over to ICANN’s resolutions on .xxx and new top level domain names today. They’re long and therefore say less than usual. There’s a lot of wiggle room. .XXX - ICANN “intends” to enter into a contract with ICM Registry to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why Did Someone Have to Pay to Defend this UDRP? - An example of why UDRP needs reforming. This was going to be a rant about “why would a lawyer take on this UDRP case for the complainant”. But then when I realized who represented the complainant (not a lawyer), I changed it up. Here’s the deal. A St. Louis area woman is getting ready to launch “Sheryl’s SHAREABLES”, a bite-sized meat product that both dogs and humans can eat. (Note that just about any meat product a human eats can also be eaten by ... read more ...
Thu 9th December 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Last Chance: Comment Period For New gTLD Guidebook Closes 7am Friday, Get your Comments In - The period to comment to ICANN on the latest and supposedly the last draft Guidebook for the new gTLD’s closes on Friday Morning at 7AM EST so this is your last chance to comment. The ICA just filed their comments today and Phil Corwin from the ICA has informed me that all domainers can cut and paste comments from his letter and use them as part of their own comment.  I spoke to Phil in detail prior to the drafting of the letter and most of my objections and comments are included in this letter ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Results From Much Hyped Trademark Brand Auction: $45K Tops The Auction Which Fetches MUCH Less Than A Domain Name Auction - About a month ago we told you about an auction  of  150 “Timeless Trademarks and Domain Names” in New York. According to Adage.com the results of the auction were less than stellar and certainly much less than we typically see in a domain auction. The highest price paid at the auction was $45,000 for “Shearson, “the financial brand unused since 1994 when it was bought by Citigroup’s predecessor and merged with Smith Barney” Meister Brau, sold  for $32,500 Handi-Wrap sold for $30,000, Shower ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
LawFirm.com Sells On Sedo For $233,000; JF.com Sells For $101K; 06.Com For $92K & More - The auction for the domain name LawFirm.com just concluded on Sedo.com with a sales price of $233,501 . Obviously a great legal domain and if anything it went a little too cheap. Congrats to the Seller  John R Hardin III, and to the Buyer The domain name JF.com also sold today on Sedo for $101,000. There were 6 bidders at $50K and above. The domain 06.com, sold for a whopping $91,888. There were also 6 bidders on this domain at $50K and up. Personally I think the JF.com domain is far better and ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
WIPO Panel Denies Trademark Holder a Domain That Hadn’t Been Used in 6 years: WebVision.com - A one member panel decision denied the complaint of the trademark holder on the domain name webvision.com What makes the case interesting is that the domain appearently been inactive since 2004 until after this complaint was filed and that the domain name holder did not even file a response. The Complainant was Webvisions Pte Ltd. of Singapore which hold multiple trademark in several countries and operates a business as a web host and provider of internet services. The domain holder is a company ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Want to Own a Territory? Gibraltar.com Hits a Market: Asking Price $560K - According to a press release this morning the domain name Gibraltar.com is for sale. Besides being part of one of the most famous phrases of all time, “the Rock Of Gibraltar”, its a territory with a small population of just under 30,000 people but gets according to the PR 10.3 million visitors a year. Gibraltar is located on the southwestern tip of Europe and is a self-governing UK overseas territory. “Gibraltar also is a low tax jurisdiction, VAT-free and its economy is robust ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Demand Media Demands Three-Strikes Rethink - By Kevin Murphy Demand Media has asked ICANN to reconsider an anti-cybersquatting provision in the new top-level domain Applicant Guidebook that may ban the company from running a TLD. ICANN will do background checks on the companies applying for TLDs and their officers. If they are found to have lost three UDRP decisions in the last four years, their applications will be rejected. Demand Media, which owns eNom, calls this “draconian”, saying that three UDRP losses ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
My Predictions on .XXX and New TLDs for Friday’s ICANN Board Meeting - ICANN’s Board will make big decisions Friday. Here’s what I think will happen. On Friday ICANN’s board will meet and pass resolutions on a handful of contentious issues. Here are my predictions on two of them. .XXX - Full steam ahead. The stalling game will conclude even though the Free Speech Coalition says .xxx will be the end of the internet as we know it. New TLDS - The comment period of the proposed Final Draft Applicant Guidebook ends shortly before ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Complainant Loses Case for M2P.com Despite Owner Not Responding - AWOL domain name owner can keep domain name. Casual gaming site Meet2Play GmbH has failed to win the domain name M2P.com through UDRP, despite the domain name owner not responding. From reading the decision, it appears the company tried to contact the domain name owner but was unsuccessful. It then filed the UDRP in an attempt to get the domain name. But the domain name was registered in 1997, more than a decade before Meet2Play filed a mark for M2P. Because of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
$2 Million Wasted on Economic Studies for New TLDs - Economic studies about new top level domain names are futile. Depending on which transcripts I read from the ICANN meeting in Colombia this week, ICANN has spent $1 million to $2 million on economic studies about new top level domain names to date. This is money wasted. Not just because the reports — particularly the first two — were extremely weak. But because getting an answer will require too many baseless assumptions. In other words, the exercise is futile. The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
5 Reasons for Brands to Get Their Own New TLD - By Roland LaPlante [Roland LaPlante is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Afilias, a domain name registry services and DNS provider. In this guest article he gives five reasons why a brand might want to get its own top level domain name.] This week at the 39th international ICANN meeting in Cartagena, the ICANN Board is expected to make a decision on the final rules for applicants of new top-level domains (new TLDs). The opportunities that new ... read more ...
Wed 8th December 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The UK & Other Governments Give The ICANN Board A Good Working Over On The New gTLD’s - The 2nd day of the ICANN meeting in Colombia was highlighted by The Government Advisory Committee (the GAC)  open meeting yesterday with the ICANN board. The room was packed. Not a seat was avaliable and many people stood and leaned against the walls to hear what representatives of governments from around the world had to say about the new gTLD program and the current “final” Guidebook. What the crowd witnessed was the GAC giving the ICANN board a good old fashion spanking over the gTLD process. For ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Playboy.TV Launches - In another big boost for the .Tv extension Playboy yesterday launched Playboy.TV. According to AVN.com, Playboy.tv, is “the new home for full-length HD videos from top Playboy programs, exclusive Playboy TV reality shows and movies, Playboy radio, and the company’s very own playmates.” Playboy has had a real TV channel available on places like Directv for years. The site has an affiliate program which is also live Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Ringtones.com Sells For $750K On Sedo - The domain name Ringtones.com has sold for $750K on Sedo or maybe it was just $575K cash with other considerations. Read on. The seller was Mobile Streams. According to an announcement from the seller, CEO Simon Buckingham said: “Ringtones.com was the domain name that started the Mobile Streams content business.” “However, as we reinvent the company for the coming wave of open mobile services and apps, we are looking ahead to the exciting opportunities that our new Appitalism.com service ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CreditCheck.Org Sells For $31K At SnapNames.com - The domain name CreditCheck.org sold today for $31K at SnapNames.com today. The domain was a pure drop domain and seemed to be owned by a company, CreditResearchInc. I guess that company needed to do some more research to figure out why they let a gem like that one drop rather than pony up the $20 renewal fee. In any event I can revel that I was on the losing end of the auction when I stopped bidding at $30K. Congrats to the bidder “piety” who won the auction as I had sessions to attend at ICANN. In ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Registrars Defend Domain Name Whois Privacy - by Kevin Murphy Domain registrars are fighting off critics of Whois privacy on multiple fronts at the ICANN meeting in Cartagena, Colombia this week. In the latest example, registrars led by Tucows CEO Elliot Noss today savaged an ICANN draft advisory that would hold affiliated privacy services accountable for cybersquatting customers. In May, ICANN said that as far as it is concerned proxy/privacy services are liable for how customers use their domains, under the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Blasts KnujOn for “Not Verifying a Facts” - ICANN says article by KnujOn is factually inaccurate. KnujOn has been a controversial group when it comes to trying to clean up domain name abuse. Its latest attack was on ICANN in an article on CircleID titled “Two Years Later Dozens of Registrars Still in the Shadows“. The crux of the article is that 23 domain name registrars do not disclose their addresses on their web sites as required in section 3.16 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). There’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Facebook Bought FB.biz Domain Name, Too - Facebook snaps up FB.com; currently owns FB.com and .biz. Remember when .biz registry Neustar auctioned off two letter domain names at twodotbiz.biz? Facebook participated and picked up the domain name FB.com. The company registered the domain name under DNStination Inc., which is associated with domain registrar MarkMonitor. Facebook used the same group to acquire FB.com from American Farm Bureau, which still owns the .org domain. The domain name just recently ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Like Fantasy Football? Try Fantasy Domaining. - Fantasy domaining contest runs through January 15. Oversee.net’s DOMAINfest conference has an innovative contest going on right now: fantasy domaining. It works similar to fantasy football. But instead of drafting players and watching their Sunday afternoon performance, you draft domain names and watch their pay-per-click performance. Here’s how it works: 1. Select 35 domain names out of 1,000 owned by Oversee.net 2. Pick 25 of these to be your “in game” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Registry Group Asks ICANN To Remove All Pricing Rules on New TLDs - Registries want to remove all pricing controls on new top level domain names. ICANN’s Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) has submitted comments regarding the Proposed Final Applicant Guidebook for new top level domain names. One proposed change sticks out: requesting no notice requirements for price changes on top level domain names. As it stands in the guidebook right now, a registry for new TLDs must give 30 days notice prior to changing the cost of a new domain ... read more ...
Tue 7th December 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic.com Sells $450K In Domains - The weekly Afternic.com report is out for the week ending December 5, 2010. In all over $450,000 domains were sold in reportable .com sales $2K and over and non-com’s $1K and over. Here is the full list: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN Day 1: The Natives Are Getting Restless & Other Observations - The ICANN meeting got under way in Colombia yesterday and the new gTLD’s were back front and center. There were two sessions on the new gTLD program today and my general take away from listening to the many people who got up and spoke during the sessions is that the applicants and service providers are getting tired of the process and want ICANN to move ahead NOW. While there is still some opposition and some cautionary voices, their voices are much less than number than they were just a few months ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange arrested in London - According to various news sources the Founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange was arrested today in London. Scotland Yard said Mr Assange was arrested by appointment at a London police station at 0930 GMT, meaning that he turned himself in. The arrest is not for his activities on Wikileaks but based on a warrant issued in Sweden accusing him of one count of rape, one of unlawful coercion and two counts of sexual molestation, alleged to have been committed in August 2010. If the district judge rules ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Breaking News: .Co To Star In Godaddy Super Bowl Commercial - The big news for domainers out of the ICANN meeting in Colombia today was delivered by none other than Bob Parsons CEO of Godaddy. Tonight .Co held a party for some of the attendees of the ICANN meeting. As part of the party Juan Calle, who is the CEO of CO Internet S.A.S., gave a presentation using video to show some of the achievements of the registry. Mr. Parsons the CEO of Godaddy delivered a video message directed to Juan, to the effect that Godaddy would be making a BIG announcement on December ... read more ...