Monthly Archives: February 2011

Sat 12th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
“Conflict of Interest? Ads Are The Least Of It - DomainConsultant.com wrote post entitled “Conflicts Of Interest” citing a post published a few days earlier by by DomainerIncome.com, entitled “Isn’t It Time Bloggers Declared Conflicts of Interest?” as the “Post of the Week” In its post DomainConsultant.com wrote: ”When it comes to domain blogging and matters of analysis and advice (beyond news coverage), the question then becomes: how do they make a living? Or more specifically, do they make a living off domains or blogging about ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google Launches “Map Your Valentine” - Map your Valentine with Google. On Thursday I wrote about how Google had registered the domain names GoogleValentine.com .org and MapYourValentine.com .org. Today MapYourValentine.com is now active and invites you to “Use Google Maps to remind your Valentine of a special place.” Essentially it’s what I guessed on Thursday with an added Google maps component. The service let’s you send a Valentine’s eCard to someone but with a twist — remembering a special ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Playboy: Don’t Blame Us for Illness - Playboy rep says its staff didn’t get sick at party. The New York Post wrote an article today about the illness outbreak after last week’s DOMAINfest conference. It quotes both Ron Jackson and Elliot Silver. The story asks if the Playboy Mansion was the source of the illness. (It wouldn’t be “New York Post-worthy” without the Playboy part.) The article quotes a Playboy rep saying: There is no truth in the rumor that anyone caught anything at the Playboy ... read more ...
Fri 11th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
President Obama Orders The Establish Of The “Intellectual Property Enforcement Committee” - This week President Obama signed an executive order establishing the Intellectual property Enforcement Committee. According to TechDirt.com, the order seems to give  high level folks in different federal government agencies coordinating their “enforcement” strategies, when they do things like seizing domains without due process or First Amendment considerations. Here is a copy of the order “”By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
L.A. County Department of Public Health Looking in to DOMAINfest Illnesses - County looking into cause of outbreak; Oversee.net issues statement. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is looking into the outbreak of illness after last week’s event, sending a survey to all those registered to attend DOMAINfest. The first people have begun receiving the survey link and you may not have received it yet. Oversee.net released a statement this evening about the matter, which is in its entirety below: Domain Sponsor, the organizer ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eNom “Backpack” Girl Turned Into Oil Painting - eNom’s famous “backpack girl” is now available as an oil painting. It’s one of the most popular pictures on the internet, made famous thanks to eNom/Demand Media. And now she’s available on canvas. The so-called “backpack” girl was made popular by eNom’s parking templates and is a common joke in the industry. At Demand Media’s party during DOMAINfest they brought in “backpack girls”. When company employees travel to Austin they go to The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Tel Pages Will Soon Look Like… - Contest for .tel facelift ends. Now for the winner… .Tel pages may soon get a facelift courtesy of a design competition. Telnic, which runs the .tel domain, ran a contest on 99Designs to get user submissions of a potential new template. It received 223 submissions as of Wednesday’s deadline. .Tel is a unique domain name created for disseminating contact information across the internet. Now Telnic will make a shortlist of the templates and present them to the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SanDiego.com Dispute Goes to Court [Updated] - Former owner files breach of contract claim. [Update: I now have a copy of the complaint (pdf). It focuses on mostly alleged verbal contracts between Burgess and DeuPree for total damages of $185,00. It also alleges that when DeuPree negotiated to buy the site that he “and unknown collaborators planned for force Burgess from sandiego.com, the business Burgess founded, and refuse to honor agreements between Burgess and SanDiego.com.] Last year the original owner ... read more ...
Thu 10th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
KeyNote From .Nxt Meeting: Juan Calle “.Com Is Really A Typo Of .Co” - As the 1st .Nxt show in came to a close in  San Francisco today, Juan Calle the CEO of the .Co registry took the stage and spoke on the future of domain names and the opportunity that new gTLD’s will bring. Mr. Calle stated that the size of the opportunity is huge.” “Relative to the growth of the Internet the registration of domain names is quite low” “Presently the ratio of domain name registrations to Internet Users is 11%” Actually I never though of it in that manner until Mr. Calle ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
2.De Draws during $28K bid On Sedo & 2 Other Domains Hits Five Figures With Days To Go - The super premium one character .De domain name, 2.De has a bid of $28,000 on Sedo.com The domain has hit reserve and will sell. According to Sedo.com the domain 2.De has received over 6,000 visitors over the last 32 days. The auction still has over 4 days to go. Another nice domain, CUV.com has drawn a bid of $27,500 on Sedo.com with over 1 day to go. Finally with over 5 days to go a .Me has a $12,000 bid Truly.me has met reserve at $12K and will sell. This would be the 3rd 5 figure .Me domain sale ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
A Game Changer? Court Awards Trademark Holder $292K In Damages Against Advertiser On Google Keywords - Although several courts have held that Google is not liable for selling ads to a competitor under a trademarked keyword a Federal Court has just held the advertiser is liable for buying the ads. A California federal district court has just held that a law firm specializing in disability law WAS liable under the Lanham Act for purchasing advertising on Google Adwords under a trademark, in this case,  the law firm name “Binder Binder” . The case  Binder v. Disability Group Inc., C.D. Cal., ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Gary Kremen Former Owner Of Sex.com and Match.com & The 900th Person to Ever Use The Internet, Live From a .Nxt Meeting - Gary Kremen Anyone who has been in the domain business for a while probably knows the story of Mr. Kremen fairly well. Mr. Kremen is the former  owner of Sex.com and Match.com, the subject of at least one book and the original registrant of some of the best .com’s on earth. Although I have know of Mr. Kremen for well over 10 years, this is the 1st time I have had a chance to hear him tell his story in person. Actually I’m pretty sure he has never spoke at a domain conference before. A self admitted ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Unsubstantiated Rumors About DOMAINfest Illness - Rumors behind DOMAINfestitus. So I decided to go to the doctor today after reading Dr. Ron Jackson’s coverage of the mysterious DOMAINfestitus. I haven’t had flu-like symptoms; just a cold that has gotten progressively worse over the week. My doctor gave me a Z-pack to hopefully wipe it out. But what exactly happened at the conference last week? I’ve heard a number of rumors. I should stress that these are completely unsubstantiated and weak at best. – ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Be Very Afraid of UDRP Reform - Domain investors have uphill battle in UDRP reform. UDRP reform is coming. And this should scare the crap out of you. Now let me get a few things out there: 1. I’ve never been a party in a UDRP case 2. I’ve read (and written) about many UDRP cases where the wrong decision was made Thus I’m a fan of fixing some of the inequalities in UDRP, the lack of contracts with UDRP providers, etc. But let’s be honest. When’s the last time domain investors got what ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Send a Valentine with Google? Company Registers Valentine’s Domains. - Google may be offering some sort of Valentine’s Day gimmick next week. Valentine’s Day is Monday, February 14th. As millions of guys struggle to find that perfect gift, it’s possible that Google will come to the rescue on Monday. The company has registered a couple domain names that suggest this: GoogleValentine.com and GoogleValentine.org. The domain names were registered on February 8. Does that mean you’ll be able to send a Valentine’s eCard via Google ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Comodo Buys DNS.com - Security firm buys DNS company with domainer roots. Congratulations are in order for two people close to the domain name industry — Dan Kimball and Sean Stafford. The pair have sold their company DNS.com to Comodo, a large online security firm. DNS is a natural extension for Comodo’s product line. DNS.com started as ComWired.com, a geodirectional DNS system. Once the company started offering authoritative DNS services it picked up the DNS.com domain name for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Premium Listings New Business Model for Domainers - Some domainers get bulk of revenue from Go Daddy sales service. I’ve written before about my success with Go Daddy Premium Listings that place your domain names for sale directly in front of buyers in the Go Daddy registration path. But with only a few hundred domains at Go Daddy my sample size is small. While at DOMAINfest last week I spoke to a few people who have large portfolios at Go Daddy. Two of them told me Go Daddy Premium Listings have basically become ... read more ...
Wed 9th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Is Ferrari A CyberSquatter? Ford Sues Ferrari Over Its Registration of FerrariF150.com But Ford Doesn’t Even Own F150.com or FordF150.com - According to theF1Times.com, Ford filed suit again Ferrari over the use of the “F150″ name. Ferrari’s now has a  2011 car by the same name. Ford is suing Ferrari over its registration of the ferrariF150.com domain name, which it claims goes against the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and is seeking.$100,000 in damages. The lawsuit claims Ford has suffered irreparable harm to its F-150 brand and is claiming unspecified damages as well as banning the use of the name on any Ferrari ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
HitWise Jan Search: Bing Gains On Google - According to a report released yesterday by Hitwise, Bing is gaining some market share at the expense of Google. Google’s market share for search in January was almost 68% down 2% from December. On the other hand Bing.com and Bing-powered sites collectively rose by 6%, giving Microsoft’s search engine a 27.4% market share. (Credit: Experian Hitwise) Bing.com by itself accounted for 12.8% of all searches, a 21% gain from December. Searches conducted at Yahoo sites powered by Bing were down ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
BuyOwner.com Sells For $1 Million Dollars - According to the Chicago Tribune the real estate site,  BuyOwner.com sold today out of Bankruptcy court for a cool million. “It was once billed as the nation’s largest for-sale-by-owner operation and according to the story, the company’s revenue declined from more than $28 million in 2008 to less than $250,000 last July. “Since July, the company generated about $588,000 in revenue but netted only $56,000 after expenses. So to be clear this is not the sale of just a domain but an operating ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Last Day for Discounted Hotel during Domain Roundtable - Hotel rates at Atlantis increase tomorrow. We got more ice in Austin today after a snow day last week. Whether you’re shoveling your driveway or trying to overcome that Domainfest-induced flu, I bet you wish you were in the Bahamas. Domain Roundtable is heading to the Bahamas the first week of March, but discounted hotel rates are only available through today. Reservations require a non-refundable two night deposit. The first day of Domain Roundtable on March ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UDRP Panel Transfers PayBack.es Domain Name - Generic domain name to be transferred as result of arbitration decision. Is the term “payback” generic? Of course it is. It has many potential uses. Still, a World Intellectual Property Forum panelist has awarded the Spanish ccTLD Payback.es to Germany’s Payback GmbH. The complainant offered to buy the domain name from the domain owner for a nominal sum, after which the owner said the complainant needed to make a “serious” offer. The respondent didn’t ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft Scores Bi.ng Domain Name - Company registers short Nigerian domain name. Microsoft registered the short URL Bi.ng on February 4 thanks to the liberalization of Nigeria’s .ng domain name to allow limited second level registrations. Previously you were required to register .ng domain names at the third level, e.g. name.com.ng. However, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) is now selling second level domains through an “auction“. Companies with trademark rights in a particular ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UDRP Cases Spike in 2010 - Number of cases filed in 2010 increases thanks largely to brand protection services. The number of Uniform domain-name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)cases filed at the two largest arbitration providers increased over 25% in 2010 compared to 2009, a Domain Name Wire analysis shows. However, the rate of filing defined as the number of cases divided by the number of registered domains remains near an all time low. World Intellectual Property Forum handled 2,696 cases ... read more ...
Tue 8th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic Sells $450K in Domain Names Lead By One Of Our’s DoubleYourBusiness.com For $22,500 - Afternic.com just released its list of domain name sales for the week ending Feburary 6th 2011, and one of our domains, DoubleYourBusiness.com lead the way selling for $22,500. The report includes all reportable sales $2K and over for a .com and $1K and over for non-com’s There were a few “strange” sales on the list IMHO including vistausa for $14k, RunGirlRun.com for $5K, and Sappeople.com for $3,500 (unless it was bought by SAP Technology). Congrats to all Sellers and Buyers Google+Michael ... read more ...