Monthly Archives: June 2011

Mon 27th June 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo.com Sells Wellnessfinder.com For $210K - Sedo.com just sold the The domain name Wellnessfinder.com for a whopping 150,000 Euro’s or around $210,000. The domain is already going to a site with a trademark up on it for the term Wellness Finder. The domain was owned by a company Wellnessfinder e.K. in Germany and the buyer is TOP International Hotels GmbH. It would be interesting to know if the sale included the trademark. In any event its a huge price for that domain name. It also looks like the buyer of the .com owned the .de version ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New York Passes Gay Marriage (.com): Will .Gay Be Approved As A Community Application Or Will It Go To The Highest Bidder? - As most of you know by now, New York has become the newest state to legalize gay marriage. As the owner of GayMarriage.com we have been following the story closely and now all eyes in the domain world will turn towards the new gTLD .Gay. Its no secret that a group lead by domainer Alexander Schubert is going to apply to operate the .Gay registry based off a community application. Why try to get the extension as a community? Because if you can do that, you avoid a possible auction where the high bidder ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Gay Trademark Application Filed - Trademark frontrunning continues. A Washington man has filed an intent-to-use trademark application for “.gay” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Thomas Petersen DBA Creighton Investments, LLC filed the application on June 20 just after ICANN approved a plan to open up the top level domain name system. Petersen doesn’t seem to be connected to either of the two groups that have publicly announced plans to apply for the .gay top level domain name thus ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
My Thoughts on a Go Daddy Buyout - What a Go Daddy sale would mean. If the chatter is to be believed, The Go Daddy Group could announce a multi-billion dollar buyout sometime this week. While neither Go Daddy nor the buyers will confirm or deny this, it’s typical for bankers involved in the deal to leak news like this. It helps bring other potential suitors to the table and puts pressure on the buyers to close the deal. Go Daddy has been shopping itself around unofficially for a while. Word is ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Could Shake Up Domain Registry Market - Registrar could take a big chunk of back end services business for new top level domain names. Last week new TLD consultancy Minds + Machines announced flat rate registry services pricing of $100,000 per year. Apparently this is the first time there’s been “transparent” pricing in the registry business, although the pricing doesn’t apply to super-generic top level domains (i.e. ones that get a lot of volume). Although this might lay it out on the table a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Adam Dicker Dishes on Domain Industry and DNForum - DNForum founder discusses the state of domain investing and his popular forum. I last interviewed DNForum owner Adam Dicker over five years ago. A lot has changed in the domain industry since then, so I thought it would be a good time to connect again. DNW: Bring readers up to speed on how big the forum is now in terms of users, visitors, etc. Adam: Dnforum.com is now up to about 106,000 members and that number grows by over 250 each day. We have over 1.7 million ... read more ...
Sun 26th June 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
Wow What A Difference Between ICANN San Francisco & Singapore: The United States Could Learn A Lot From Singapore - Singapore is one of those places I probably would never have visited if not to attend the ICANN meeting which just concluded this week. I’m certainly glad I had the opportunity. The last ICANN meeting in March of 2011, was held in San Francisco and the comparison between those two cities is remarkable. Travel is always mind expanding for me. To see how other people live, learn about other cultures and see how other countries operate. Singapore is another one of these countries like Hong Kong and ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
FBI Seizes Servers during Digital One In US, “Taking Tens of Clients Sites Down” When Only Wanting 1 - The New York Times reported a few days ago that  “The F.B.I. seized Web servers in a raid on a data center early Tuesday, causing several Web sites, including those run by the New York publisher Curbed Network, to go offline.” “The raid happened at 1:15 a.m. at a hosting facility in Reston, Va., used by DigitalOne, which is based in Switzerland.” “In an e-mail to one of its clients on Tuesday afternoon,  DigitalOne’s chief executive, Sergej Ostroumow, said: “This problem is caused ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft Lists Over 100 Domains For Sale on Sedo - Company gets proactive with domain sales. Yesterday I wrote about Microsoft’s sale of Do.com. Last month Microsoft finally relented and sold HotList.com to startup TheHotList.com. But it appears that Microsoft might also be proactively selling some of its domain names. Abdu Tarabichi noticed that the software giant has listed over 100 domain names for sale on domain marketplace Sedo. If you type any of the domains into your browser, they’ll forward you to a ... read more ...
Sat 25th June 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Tucows & Demand Shares Benefit From Godaddy.com Reported Buyout - Shares of both Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) and Tucows (TCX) had nice gains in the stock market on Friday following on the heals of the pending sale of Godaddy.com for up to $2.5 Billion which is expected to be announced officially on Tuesday. As we reported in our story about the possible sale of Godaddy.com earlier today, Demand which had previously been seen as some as overvalued at a market cap of just over $1 Billion may now seem cheap as they own the world’s 2nd largest registrar, Enom in addition ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft Sells (or Places for Sale) Do.com - Domain name transfers to IP protection company. An old Microsoft domain name has changed hands. The whois record for Do.com changed yesterday from Microsoft to Glendale, California company Marksmen. Marksmen is an intellectual property company that often helps companies acquire domain names. But it also owns NameQuiver, a domain name brokerage that sells domains on behalf of other companies. NameQuiver was the seller broker for the now complete $2.6 million Social.com ... read more ...
Fri 24th June 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Minds + Machines Game Changer For New gTLD Back End Providers: Unlimited Registrations For $100K - In what appears to be a bold move,  Minds + Machines, (London AIM: TLDH), today announced a flat pricing model for back end registry services for top-level domains. According to a press release (translated from German) Minds + Machines will offer unlimited registrations for new TLDs on the registration platform “espresso” for a flat fee of $100,000 per year. “For most new TLDs, no extra fee is charged for each domain name.” “We have simplified the model,” said Antony Van Couvering, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Bloomberg: Godaddy.com In Talks To Be Bought Out For $2 Billion - According to Bloomberg/Business Week, Godaddy.com the world’s largest registrar is in talks to be bought by a group led by KKR Co. and Silver Lake Partners for more than $2 billion. “Silver Lake is a Menlo Park, California-based private equity firm that focuses on investing in technology companies. KKR, the leveraged-buyout firm run by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, invests in private equity, debt and capital markets.” The New York Post reported earlier on the talks and possible purchase ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Some Stories On The New gTLD’s Are Just So WRONG, Here Is The Worst - There have been literially thousands of stories written on the new gTLD program but many contain inaccurate information or are just plain out wrong. Here’s the worst one we found: Domaininformer.com writes in a post entitled: “Top Level Domains to Shake Up the Web? Not Exactly” Here is the 1st sentence in the story: “”There’s been a lot of press lately regarding ICANN’s decision to allow the creation of just about any type of domain ending. ” Meaning that .com, .org, .edu and others ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Steve Crocker Elected New Chairman Of ICANN Board - Steve Crocker has just been elected as Chairman of the ICANN Board of Directors,  replacing Peter Dengate Thrush who served as Chairman of the Board very well Here is his bio from ICANN site. “””Dr. Crocker is CEO and co-founder of Shinkuro, Inc., a start-up company focused on dynamic sharing of information across the Internet and on the deployment of improved security protocols on the Internet.Dr. Crocker has been involved in the Internet since its inception. In the late 1960s and early ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
TheHill.com: Bill To Legalize Online Poker To Be Introduced As Soon As Next Week - According to TheHill.com, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is expected to introduce legislation as soon as next week that would legalize online poker and create a new federal regulatory body to oversee the sites. The bill would legalize only online poker, other forms of Internet gambling and betting would remain illegal. “Under the legislation, online poker sites would have to be registered in a state where gambling is already allowed, such as Nevada or New Jersey.” “Sites would be required ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN Approves The Renewal Of .Net Contract With VeriSign - ICANN has just approved the renewal of the .Net contract with VeriSign (VRSN) Here is the resolution which all Board members voted in favor of, with one abstention: Resolution on Renewal of the dot net agreement. Whereas, the current dot net registry agreement is due to expire on 30th June 2011. Whereas,, section 4.2 of the current dot net registry agreement provides that the agreement shall be renewed upon the expiration of the initial term so long as certain requirements are met and that upon ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Federal Trade Commission May Open Anti-Trust Investigation On Google - According to the Wall Street Journal the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may “start a wide-ranging, formal antitrust investigation into whether the search giant has abused its dominance on the Web. This could mark the start of a lengthy legal process, similar to the years long battle Microsoft faced in the 1990′s resulting in 10 years of legal problems with both the US and EU regulators. At issue is whether Google has used its dominant standing in search to improperly promote its products at ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Name Company Files UDRP for 3 Letter Domain, Loses - Domain registrar loses UDRP. [Update June 28: IVX tweeted that it plans to sue.] A domain name registration and brand protection company has tried its hand at filing a UDRP for its own name — and lost. Dutch company Besloten Vennootschap IVX Networks Europe B.V, which owns IVX.eu, filed the case to upgrade its domain name to IVX.com. The ten year old company specializes in international domain name registration and brand protection. The owner of the domain claimed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NYP: KKR Looking to Buy Go Daddy for $1 Billion Plus - New York Post says web hosting and domain giant may be sold for over $1 billion. The New York Post is reporting that Henry Kravis’ KKR is leading a group that is trying to buy Go Daddy for over $1 billion in a leveraged buy out. Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports the deal is in the $2B range. A Go Daddy spokeswoman told the New York Post “”We’ve heard rumors like this before and when there’s something happening we will comment” and KKR said it doesn’t comment ... read more ...
Thu 23rd June 2011
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NameCheap.com Says It Now Has Over 2 Million Domains Under Management - According to a press release by the company, NameCheap.com an ICANN accredited registrar says they now have broken the 2 Million mark in domain names under management. “Reaching 2 million domains is an incredible milestone for us,” Richard Kirkendall, CEO of Namecheap said. “We’re a service-oriented business that prides itself on providing the best deals with a support team that strives to make each and every customer happy. This goal reinforces our position in the marketplace as a customer-centric ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainHack.er in CZ and tagged
Nové generické domény: cesta k .SEX je dlouhá a ještě trnitá - Historie Nejprve se ale trochu podívejme na historii vzniku celého současného systému DNS. Podotýkám, že data, která budu v článku používat, nemusí být úplně přesná. Ač se zdá, ze výraz „vznik domény“ zní poměrně přesně, tak to může znamenat celou řadu událostí, které mohou být v čase poměrně vzdálené. Doména nejvyšší úrovně (Top Level Domain – TLD) v novější historii vzniká tím, že ji schválí ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned ... read more ...
 
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
O.Co a/k/a Overstock.com Wins The American Business Award For “Best Overall Company of a Year” - “O.co, also known as Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK), today announced that it won two 2011 American Business Awards in the following categories – Best Overall Company of the Year (Up to 2,500 Employees) and Executive of the Year (All Other Industries) for its CEO Dr. Patrick Byrne. ” O.co SVP of Customer Experience Stormy Simon was a finalist in the Customer Service Executive of the Year category and O.co was a finalist in the Customer Service Team of the Year.” “In March 2011, O.co ... read more ...