Monthly Archives: May 2011

Tue 17th May 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo.com Sued For $10 Million Dollars Over Failed Women.com Purchase - According to a press release issued today: “DONE Ventures, LLC  has added domain name broker, Sedo, LLC, to its lawsuit over the domain names Women.com and Women.net.” Sedo is a business unit of Sedo Holding AG (XETRA: SDO.DE ), headquartered in Cologne, Germany, with US operations based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Sedo.com is tracked by our DomainStock Index) The complaint, filed in Federal Court last week, states that Sedo accepted an offer, on behalf of its client, NBC Universal, to sell ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Will Today’s SnapNames.com Showcase Auction Today Be The 2nd In A Row Without A Bid? - Last week we wrote about a SnapNames.com Shwocase auction that was about to end without a bid on any domain name. That auction did in fact seem to end without a bid placed on any domain name. Today another such auction is ending, and as of the time of publication once again not a domain in the auction has a bid. This themed auction is called the Premium Keyword Domain Auction and all the domain names seem to be owned by one party, NOKTA INTERNET TECHNOLOGIES. The auction ends today at 3:15pm EST. Here ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
A Game Changer? Frank Schilling Launches InternetTraffic.com - Since the concept of parking domains started the holy grail was to have a Google Feed and a Yahoo Feed included in one parking system which would automatically place domains on the highest paying feed based on performance. It existed only for a short time many years ago through TrafficClub.com. Yesterday Frank Schilling rolled out InternetTraffic.com which incorporates  a new Google feed, which you would guess at a high revenue share and without the typical expenses of a large parking company who ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Co Scores Another Big Win With Amazon.com - Registry sells four premium domains to giant etailer. Amazon.com has purchased a.com, z.co, k.co, and cloud.co from the .co registry, TechCrunch reported this evening. .Co Internet has previously sold other one letter domain names, including o.co (sold to Overstock for $350,000) and e.co (auctioned off for $81,000 in a charity auction). Other allocated one letter domains include t.co for twitter and x.co for Go Daddy. I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon uses a.co ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
“Cooking Games” in Spanish Sells for $90,000 on Sedo - Spanish domain name is top sale for the week at domain broker. Domain broker Sedo didn’t turn in any six figure sales this week, but they still have some good ones worth mentioning. First, they sold juegosdecocina.com — which means “cooking games” in Spanish — for a nice $90,000. Last year CookingGames.com sold for $350,000. Just behind that was the three letter domain ese.com for $85,000. Solar Power company Cleanergy.com paid a hefty $50,000 to upgrade ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Peruvian Broadcaster Loses Case for RPP.com - Broadcast company can’t have three letter domain name, panel rules. Peru broadcast company GRUPORPP S.A., which has an online news portal at rpp.com.pe, has lost an arbitration case in which it fought for the domain name RPP.com. According to the panel decision the company managed to get a trademark for RPP.com in Peru back in 2001, which is quite scary given that it didn’t own the domain name. Although the company has been around since 1963, it didn’t say whether ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Are Investors or Inviduals Driving .Co Registrations? - Data shows that bulk of domain registrations are not from domainers. Are domain investors or individual site owners and end users driving most of the .co domain registrations? I just got some data from the .co registry that suggests it’s the latter. Registrants with 50 or more .co domain names comprise only 1% of the total registrant base. What’s more, these people only account for about 10% of all domain names registered. That means people with fewer than 50 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Oversee.net Gets Updated Domain Parking Patent - Company granted continuation patent for parked domain optimization. Today Oversee.net, parent company of domain parking company DomainSponsor, was granted U.S. patent #7,945,662 for “Internet domain keyword optimization” (pdf). This patent was a continuation of previously granted patent #7,281,042 filed in 2004. The patent covers a number of parked domain name optimization techniques. Here’s the abstract: A computerized system and method for optimizing contents ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign and 25 Others Ask ICANN for “Packaged” IDN TLD Applications - Request asks for bundling of multiple transliterations and translations of new gTLDs in applications. VeriSign is amongst 26 signatories on a letter (pdf) to ICANN requesting “packaged” top level domain name applications. The group writes that “there is no mechanism in the Guidebook that will support applicants that wish to offer multiple script versions of their community or product, whether ASCII or IDN, to serve the diverse needs of non-English and non-Latin ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Sued for $10 Million for Failing to Enforce Women.com Transaction with NBC Universal - Domain broker added to suit over failed Women.com transaction. DONE! Ventures has added domain name broker Sedo to its lawsuit over a failed transaction for Women.com. DONE! sued NBC Universal last year after it alleged the media giant failed to follow through with a transaction to sell Women.com and Women.net for $1 million. According to the suit, NBC Universal’s CEO at the time Jeff Zucker vetoed the deal after it had been agreed to. Sedo broker Jeff Gabriel ... read more ...
Mon 16th May 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Mayor Bloomberg To Create Digital City Around .NYC Extension - According to Dnainfo.com, the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg announced today’s his administration’s plans to register the .nyc web domain name and overhaul the nyc.gov website as part of a new push to create what he called a “digital city.” “Bloomberg and Rachel Sterne, the city’s chief digital officer, rolled out the new initiative, called “Road Map for a Digital City” “This isn’t just some wonky stuff,” Bloomberg said of the plan, which includes a collection ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
How About Trademark Squatting? Disney Files Trademarks on “Seal Team 6″ - According to a story in mediabistro.com,  two days after  Seal Team 6 killed Osama bin Laden, Disney applied for a trademark on the term “Seal Team 6″in several classes to cover clothing, toys, games, video games, entertainment and education services. Of course if a domainer registers a domain after an event they are called cybersqautters and worse. In the US trademarks are suppose to be registered AFTER use not based on planned or future use. So unless Disney already had project(s) for Seal ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Senator Wyden Come’s Out Against New PROTECT IP Bill - U.S Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) released the following statement against the new PROTECT IP 2011 bill we spoke about last week: You may remember that Senator Wyden led the  opposition against the predecessor bill of Leahy, the COICA last year. Here is the statement: “I felt compelled to block senate action on COICA in December 2010 because it employed a “bunker buster” approach to a problem that could be solved with a “strategic guided missile.”  COICA’s at-all-costs approach to protecting ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Goes With Domain Hack RO.ME For “Revolutionary Web Project” - The .ME Registry announced today that it assigned a premium domain name to Google for a web project called Ro.Me calling it a “Revolutionary Web Project” The site, was launched worldwide on May 12, Ro.Me is the destination of a new music experience called “3 Dreams of Black,” by writer/director Chris Milk. The site, featuring the revolutionary and open-source 3D WebGL browser technology, was developed in partnership with Google and takes visitors on a visual voyage ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Yep, Paul Stahura’s Donuts is All About New Top Level Domain Names - Another clue about Donuts’ plans. At first I could only make an educated guess that Paul Stahura’s new venture, for which he recently raised $1 million, was about new top level domain names. Then I got confirmation that the company was at least a domain name company thanks to a trademark filing. Now we know for sure. Donuts Inc. COO Richard Tindal just filed comments on the latest new top level domain name guidebook on behalf of the company. That means TL Ventures ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How Much is a One Character .CM Domain Name Worth? - We’re about to find out. Just how much is a one character .cm domain name worth? We’ll get a pretty good idea within the next few days. Sedo is currently running an auction consisting exclusively of these short .cm domain names. .Cm is the country code for Cameroon. It was made famous by Kevin Ham’s deal with Cameroon to wildcard the domain in an effort to monetize typos of .com domain names. Then Cameroon decided to sell the domain names off to anyone. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Unlike Its Competitors, Absolute Poker Doesn’t Get Its Domain Name Back - Online poker site strikes deal with government but doesn’t get access to domain name. Last week the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced a deal with Absolute Poker to help U.S. players get their money back. But the deal differed from the one struck with Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars last month in one critical way — Absolute Poker isn’t getting back control of its domain name. The deal with Absolute Poker’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Mrs Jello Gets a Win for Geo Domain Owners - Domainer wins case over geographic domain name brought by petroleum company. What do you do when the name of a place has also been incorporated into a business name? This was the issue in a recent UDRP case involving a Brazilian petroleum company and the domainer commonly known as “Mrs Jello”. Ipiranga Produtos de Petróleo S.A. filed the case in an effort to get the domain name ipiranga.com. Ipiranga happens to be the name of a famous river in Brazil as well ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Oversee.net and ICA Blast ICANN on Domain Parking Mention in New TLD Guidebook - Equating domain parking with “social costs” should be struck from guidebook, organizations say. Both Oversee.net and Internet Commerce Association have sent strongly worded comments to ICANN regarding a new provision inserted in the latest new top level domain guidebook. As I wrote about in April, the latest guidebook asks applicants to answer: What operating rules will you adopt to eliminate or minimize social costs (e.g., time or financial resource costs, as ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google Acquires ChromeBook.com and ChromeBooks.com Domain Names - When company acquired domains is unknown; neither domain resolves yet. It appears that Google has purchased the domain names ChromeBook.com and ChromeBooks.comm but for some reason they aren’t using the domains yet for their recently-announced product. On May 15 both domain names’ whois records switched to DNStination, Inc., an affiliate of brand protection company MarkMonitor. Google has used DNStination in the past for domain name registrations it wanted to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XXX Domain Pricing From $75 - One year registrations will likely start at about $75; DomainMonster releases pricing. When .xxx domain names get past the sunrise and landrush period, you can expect general availability pricing to run from about $75 a year, just above the wholesale pricing from ICM Registry. Today DomainMonster announced its pricing. For general availability a .xxx domain will cost you $99.99, but bulk customers who register 25 or more “years” at once (e.g. 13 domains for 2 ... read more ...
Fri 13th May 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
Strangest Sale Of The Year? 143iloveyou.TV Sells For $1,750 on Sedo.com - Just noticed a sale come across Sedo ticker and it certain can qualify as the strangest domain sale of the year. The domain name 143iloveyou.TV just sold for $1,750 Maybe stranger is that the domain name 143ILOVEYOU.COM has been registered since 2003 (goes to a Godaddy placeholder) If you rush right now I can tell you that as of time of publication the gems 142ILOVEYOU.tv AND 144ILOVEYOU.tv are still available (as are the matching .com’s) Of course if appears that 143= I love you.       Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
L’Oréal & Demand Team Up & Demand Stock Pops Over 5% - This morning L’Oréal USA and Demand Media put out a press release that Wall Street seems to have loved since shares of Demand bounced up over 5% as of time of publication in a otherwise down day in the market. Here is the press release:   “Today L’Oréal USA and Demand Media announced an innovative, multi-dimensional partnership combining custom content and exclusive media designed to connect L’Oréal brands with women seeking personalized beauty solutions.” “The ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Caesars Entertainment CEO: Legalize Online Poker In The US - The CEO of Caesars Entertainment Gary Loveman wrote an Article last week talking about his desire for online poker to be completely legal and fully regulated in the United States. In the article entitled Online Poker: Legalize it!!”, Loveman said that the recent indictments of the founders of Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker, and the seizure of their domain names might actually be the catalyst that is needed to speed up pro-poker legislation. “”It’s not often that opportunity ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Mike Mann Launches AUX.com; He’s Got The Domains, If You Have The Idea - Mike Mann has just put up a site at AUX.com listing some of his huge inventory of domains on which he will  consider development partners: “”Can you create a powerful next generation corporation or charity like our others linked at 1. http://MikeMann.com/ or those we anticipate at 2. http://BrightFuture.com/, leveraging a domain brand we own below (or from our company http://DomainMarket.com/), and best practices documented at 3. http://InternetApplications.com/ and 4. http://MakeMillions.com/ ... read more ...