Monthly Archives: February 2011

Fri 18th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Microsoft Now To Allow Advertisers To Use Trademark Terms On Bing/Yahoo - According to a post on Microsoft’s blog, “In a major change in policy, Microsoft has decided to allow marketers to use other companies’ trademarks to trigger search ads.” “To come in line with search industry practices, as of March 3rd, Microsoft will cease editorial investigations into complaints about trademarks used as keywords to trigger ads on Bing Yahoo Search in the United States and Canada” “While trademark owners can legitimately object when their trademarks are used ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is Bit.ly Toast if Libya Shuts Down a Internet? - It’s possible. One of my tweeps just sent me a link to an article questioning what would happen to .ly domain names if Libya decided to “shut down” the internet. It’s a very good question. One of the most popular URL shortening services, bit.ly, uses Libya’s .ly domain name. We can rewind a bit and note that this isn’t the first time this question has been asked, and look at what happened in Egypt for the answer. First things first, it doesn’t take ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
LionsDen.com Owner Wins Domain Dispute - WIPO panel rules in favor of domain name owner. The owner of LionsDen.com since 1995 can keep his domain name, a World Intellectual Property Organization UDRP panel has decided. Mile, Inc., which owns The Lion’s Den retail brand of adult entertainment products, filed the complaint arguing that the domain name infringed on its rights. The company faced an uphill battle since the domain name is generic and was registered some 15 years before it filed the complaint. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Will New TLDs Get Approved Apr 21? - Next opportunity for Board approval comes in April. We now know that ICANN’s Board will not vote on approving the new top level domain name applicant guidebook at its March meeting in San Francisco. But will the delay be just one month? ICANN’s Board of Directors will meet again on April 21 for a “Special Meeting of the ICANN Board of Directors”. Given that ICANN will have its bylaws-defined consultation with the Governmental Advisory Committee during its ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Zuccarini Files Another Lawsuit, This Time Adding ICANN to a List - Zuccarini sues three companies for negligence. John Zuccarini has filed another lawsuit (pdf) stemming from the sale of 14 domain names on NameJet. In this case he counts Network Solutions, NameJet, and now ICANN as defendants. Zuccarini owes the IRS and creditors $550,000, some of which involves a cybersquatting judgment against him. A court-appointed receiver was holding some of his domain names to satisfy these debts, but he accidentally let some of them expire. ... read more ...
Thu 17th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
GamesForGirls.com Sells For $500K At Sedo.com? - The domain name GamesForGirls.com is showing as having sold for $500,000 on Sedo.com. Its currently on their front page of recent activity. The domain currently gets over 43,000 visitors a month according to Compete.com If so its a ton of dough for another gaming domain and 2011 as predicted is starting to look like a record setter for domain sales. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
WIPO To Enter The Domain Seizure/Take Down Business? - According to IPwatch.com WIPO maybe the newest player wanting to get into the ever expanding, actually quite rapidly expanding,  business of Domain “take downs”and Domain Seizures. According to the article the World Intellectual Property Organization may create of an international “notice and takedown” system for alleged online trademark infringers.” “This will be followed in a few months by a separate proposal for a “notice-and-trackdown” article requiring internet service providers ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Domainfest Extended Auction Nets Around $145K - The extended domain name auction from Domainfest which is winding up on Snapnames.com today is going to finish with around $145K in sales. There is still one domain getting some bidding action as of time of publication but its still under $1K. Here are the results I have and they are UNOFFICIAL. The domain that sold for the most, ias.com appears to be a actual operating site for the sale of used airplanes. With over 4,000 visitors a month (according to Compete) it looks like a very good buy for anyone ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Co Sedo Auction Nets Around $150K - The .Co Sedo auction just ended up with a with around $150,000 in sales. Music.co lead the way selling for $30K Shop.co sold for $22K Love.co sold for $2oK.    (Love.com is owned by AOL and pretty much sits unused) Creditcard.co sold for $17K (creditcards.co only got as high as a $7K bid) Pizza.co sold for $15K Vodka.co for $10K Download.co sold for $10K There were several domains that sold in the $5k and lower range. The best buy of the auction in my opinion was Soccer.co which sold for a reasonable ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Rumor Mill: ICANN Jordan Meeting To Be Canceled - I just received a tip that ICANN will shortly be announcing the cancellation of the June Meeting schedule for Amman Jordan. As ICANN announced yesterday that they would not be voting on the new gTLD’s at the San Fransisco meeting, focus has already shifted to the Jordan meeting as the time and place that new gTLD’s framework would finally be approved. I’m also hearing that the June meeting might wind up in a place like Singapore. Personally I would welcome the move as part of my new venture ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Senate Judiciary Hearing on Online Theft and Domain Seizure Turns On Google - A lot of attorneys spoke on Capital Hill yesterday on the Senate Judiciary hearing on Online Theft and Domain Seizure Bill. Counsels for Rosetta Stone, Verizon, Visa and  Christine Jones from Godaddy were among those invited to speak. At issue is the bill proposed by Senator Leahy which would give the feds even more rights to seize domains (although ICE has been doing plenty of this without such authority) Most of those that spoke agreed that the law was a good idea, needed to combat the sale and ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Who At Oversee.net Thought That GirlTalk.com Was Worth More Than Girl.com? - A reader looking through the extended Domainfest auction list that closes On Thursday noticed these 2 domains back to back on the auction list. One benefit of the extended auctions on Snap Vs. the live auctions is that the reserves are stated in exact dollars amounts not ranges. Now that the actual reserves are listed, it looks like someone may have given one name a little too much credit by accepting the 1st name on the list with that reserve price for sale. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Co Registrations Up 35x on Super Bowl Sunday - .Co Internet CEO says .co off to good start but hard work lies ahead. In a blog post titled “The State of the .CO Domain“, .Co Internet CEO Juan Calle released some numbers about the effects of the company’s Super Bowl commercial tie-in with Go Daddy. Calle says that sales on Super Bowl Sunday were 35 times as much as a typical Sunday. Traffic to the company’s Opportunity.co and COinternet.co web sites was up 100x. Of course we don’t know the base for typical ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Survey: DNForum Still Top Domain Name Forum - Survey takers rank domain name forums. Once again DNForum is the highest rated domain name forum. That’s according to over 1,500 people who took the 6th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey. 48% selected DNForum as the top forum for discussing domain names, up from 37% last year. NamePros came in a distant second place with 21%, followed by the private Domain Boardroom at 14%. A few regional and/or niche domain forums also picked up votes: Poland’s DI.pl received 6% ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bidding Picks Up during Moniker Extended Auction - Moniker auction picks up steam and other domain name auction updates. Bidding has started to pick up at Moniker’s extended auction. The auction is a continuation of the company’s DOMAINfest Global auction held in Santa Monica earlier this month. Lots will begin closing at 12:15 PM PST today. At the time of writing 20 domain names have received bids ranging from $300 to $9,060. The top bid is for ePower.com. Only one auction is seeing competition at this point ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Nixes Jordan Meeting - Jordan meeting will be moved over security concerns. On Tuesday I wrote about how ICANN was heading to another hot spot in June for a meeting in Jordan. Now comes word via DomainIncite that ICANN is going to switch locations. Kevin Murphy reports that ICANN vice president of policy development support David Olive sent an email to members of the Generic Names Supporting Organization earlier today informing them of the change to an as-yet-unnamed location. Jordan is ... read more ...
Wed 16th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Tucows Reports Earnings: YummyNames Scores Another 1.5 Million In Sales In 4th Q - After the stock market closed today Tucows a member of our Domain Stock Index report earnings for the 4th Quarter ending December 31, 2010 Here are the highlights: “”Net revenue for the fourth quarter of 2010 increased 8.6% to $22.1 million from $20.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2009. “Net income for the fourth quarter of 2010 was $1.2 million, or $0.02 per share, compared with $1.7 million, or $0.03 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2009. ” “Deferred revenue at the end ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN: No Vote On New gTLD’s At ICANN SF - According to ICANN.org blog, there will be no board vote on the new gTLD’s at the San Francisco ICANN meeting in March. “”We wanted to provide some additional information on the work being carried out by ICANN’s Board of Directors and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) to prepare for their upcoming meeting in Brussels on the new gTLD program. As detailed in our recent announcements and blog, the Board and the GAC will hold a joint workshop to discuss the GAC’s concerns regarding ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Texas Investigating Whether Google Is “Manual Overriding Or Altering” Search Result Rankings. - According to Fortune.com the Texas Attorney General Office is investigating whether Google is “manual overriding or altering” search result rankings. As part of the investigation the Texas AG demanded that Google turn over a broad range of internal documents as part of an antitrust review including its formula for determining advertising rates. State investigators also are investigating complaints of Bing and Yahoo about purchasing ads on Google. This comes just a couple of weeks after SearchEngineland.com ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
2 Big Domain Name Auctions To Close Tomorrow: DomainFest & Sedo .Co & Neither Have Much Bidding (that has met reserve) - 2 big auctions are set to close tomorrow and neither have many winning bids as of time of publication. SnapNames.com is holding the extended auction from Domainfest which ends tomorrow Feburary 17th at 3:15pm EST There are around 500 domains including all of the domain names that were in the Live Domainfest auction. As of time of publication these are the only bids and all have meet reserve: uzy.com $7,310 ipharmacy.org $3,050 miss.me $2,050 internetmarkets.com $1,050 whoyou.com $1,050 gnome.net ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Parked.com: .Co, .Tv and .nz ccTLD’s Can Now Be Monetized By Yahoo/Bing: .XXX Next - According to a post on Parked.com’s Forum made today by the President of Parked.com: “co, .tv, and .nz cctlds are now allowed to be monetized via Yahoo/Bing” “As of Monday, February 14, 2011, the .co, .tv, and .nz cctlds can now be monetized by Yahoo/Bing. If you already had domains in one of these cctlds in your account we are automically sending them to Yahoo/Bing by default. If you have domains at other providers we can now accept these going forward.”” “””Also we have ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Marchex Reports Earnings: Revenue Up & $2.1 Million In Domains Sold In 4th Quarter - Marchex, Inc. a member of our Domain Parking Stock Index, reported its results for the full year ended December 31, 2010 after the market closed today. Here are the highlights of the 4th Quarter 2010 Results Revenue was $28.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to $23.4 million for the same period of 2009. GAAP net income applicable to common stockholders was $593,000 for the fourth quarter of 2010 or $0.02 per diluted share. This compares to GAAP net loss applicable to common stockholders ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN: Definitely No Vote on New TLDs during Mar Meeting - No longer just a “probably not”. In case your glass-half-full optimism wouldn’t let go of the idea that ICANN’s Board of Directors would approve the new gTLD applicant guidebook at its March meeting in San Francisco, I’ve got news for you. It’s not going to happen. In a blog post today, ICANN outlines ongoing work with the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) on new TLDs. ICANN and the GAC are meeting in Brussels next month. Then it will have a bylaws-defined ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Took Down 36,000 Pharmacy Sites Last Year - Registrar’s General Counsel testifies on Capitol Hill. Go Daddy Executive Vice-President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary Christine Jones testified before The United States Senate Committee On The Judiciary committee today. The hearing was titled “Targeting Websites Dedicated To Stealing American Intellectual Property.” While her testimony provided many examples of how domain name registrars such as Go Daddy fit into the enforcement puzzle, I found the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Gotta Love The Media Coverage of DOMAINfest Illness - Media coverage of illness outbreak is just really…bad. Over the past week it seems that every major news outlet has covered the illness outbreak after this month’s DOMAINfest conference. Take one part Playboy, one part illness outbreak, mix it up, and you’ve got everything the media needs for a story. It’s even good enough for Jay Leno. But man, has that coverage been bad. Flat out wrong at times. When you see how wrong some of these stories are it makes ... read more ...