Monthly Archives: December 2011

Fri 16th December 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows resumes batch buybacks, adult to 12.2% of superb shares - Company offers to buy up to 6.5 million shares of its stock. Tucows, which owns the world’s third largest domain name registrar, announced a Dutch auction tender offer to repurchase up to 6,500,000 shares of its common stock. That’s up to 12.2% of Tucows’ outstanding shares. The company has frequently bought back shares in its company as it feels it is the best use of cash right now. Tucows CEO Elliot Noss explained, “We continue to believe that the repurchase ... read more ...
Thu 15th December 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
India Court Upholds Order Canceling The Registration Of The Domain Internet.In Based Off Of A Trademark On Internet - The  High Court Of Delhi At New Delhi has just upheld an arbitrators determination that the domain name Internet.in should be taken away from the domain holder, its registration cancelled and ordered the domain to be held at the registry level,  based on an Indian trademark for the term “Internet”. It’s a complicated case but to the extent any of you have any .in domain names you should really read the opinion. .In have become somewhat popular as a Hack outside of India. Also you should keep ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
House Markup Hearing ON SOPA Underway & Won’t End Today - With the following statement, “Its not going to be the shortest markup we ever had, so expect the markup to run throughout the day into the night and maybe into tomorrow”, the “House Judiciary Committee Markup of #SOPA: H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act is underway.” You can watch the hearing live at judiciary.house.gov Due to one House member the entire Bill is being read into the record which will take around 1 hour. The member objected to the “bill not being read into the record” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Even CSC doesn’t make whois accuracy - Two months later Cocomo.com still has bogus whois information. You would think that a brand management intellectual property company would enforce whois accuracy on its customers. But apparently not. Two months ago I wrote about the sale of Cocomo.com for $33,000. The domain name had just been transferred to CSC (Corporation Service Company) with obviously bogus whois information: I submitted a whois inaccuracy report to ICANN. I assumed the registrant information ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
191 domain .co auction ends today - No reserve auction attracting lots of bidding attention. An auction of nearly 200 keyword .co domain names ends today at Sedo. With just two hours to go over 60% of the domain names in the no reserve auction already have bids. 31 bids have been place for Safe.co, driving the price up to $2,800. Finder.co and Wear.co are each at $1,050. The Spanish language Horoscopo.co, which comes with a web site, has been bid up to EUR 1,050. Some of my favorites in the auction ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google doesn’t consider YouTube.ae is a tube trade marketplace - Company files complaint against site that says it’s for “tube trading”. Google has filed a complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization in an attempt to get the domain name YouTube.ae. .Ae is the country code for United Arab Emirates. YouTube.ae is either a legitimate business or a clever scheme to hide the true intentions of the domain’s owner. The site says YouTube (they capitalize it YOUTUBe) is the “leading portal of tube trading”. A copyright ... read more ...
Wed 14th December 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Mike Mann Sells News.Co For $50K - Mike Mann’s Codom Holdings, LLC , just sold News.Co for $50,000 through Sedo.com The Domain is still in Sedo escrow. Its certainly not Mr. Mann’s 1st .Co domain sale Mike has sold Luxury.co for $60K, Business.Co for $80,000,  Women.co for $25,000; Finance.co $25,000.00, Automotive.co $20,000.00, Cigar.co $20,000.00 and Ski.co $20,000.00 That’s $300,000 in .Co domain names this year! Congrats to Mike and the buyer   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
From House Hearing: CADNA “There Are Probably Tens of Millions of Cybersquatting Domains” in .Com - At The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing on new gTLDs Josh Bourne President of CADNA’s testified: “”The U.S Congress should take much-needed action to improve the language of the Anti- Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), so that it provides proper deterrents against cybersquatting.”” “”Cybersquatting to the left of the dot is already a massive problem; with approximately 200 million domain name registrations concentrated mainly in .COM there already exist millions ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
House conference On New gTLD’s Underway - The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing on new gTLDs in underway. The title of the hearing is “ICANN’s Top-Level Domain Name Program.” You can watch the hearing live online We will be watching it and reporting as it goes.   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Major League Baseball and Current TV buy domain names - A look at end user domain name sales from the past week. My list of end user domain purchases for the week is a little bit shorter than usual, but contains big names including Major League Baseball. All sales were at Afternic unless otherwise noted. Major League Baseball bought Justice4U.com for $3,000. MLB.com Executive Correspondent Richard Justice writes a blog at Justice4U.mlb.com. Al Gore’s Current TV bought PoliticallyDirect.com for $4,488. The network has ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Macy’s sues association perplexing to revive the bequest brands - Company tries to revive old brands such as Bullock’s and The Broadway. File this one under “did you think to ask a lawyer about this first?” Department store company Macy’s has filed a federal lawsuit (pdf) against a company that’s trying to bring back Macy’s legacy brands. The company, Strategic Marks, LLC, has filed trademark applications for some of Macy’s brands such as May Company and Robinson’s, and set up shop on the web at RetroDepartmentStores.com. According ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
James Brown estate fights for JamesBrown.com - Late singer’s estate files complaint over domain name JamesBrown.com. The estate of the late “Godfather of Soul” James Brown has filed an arbitration case with National Arbitration Forum over the domain name JamesBrown.com. The domain name is registered to Lac Management, Inc., which manages “RJ The James Brown Band”, the group that performed with Brown until his death in 2006. When contacted for comment about the case, Lac Management said it was contacted ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Better Business Bureau thinks it should have initial dibs on BBB.xxx - Group’s IP attorney miffed that it couldn’t get bbb.xxx under ICM Registry sunrise process. In planned testimony for today’s hearing about new TLDs in the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology on new TLDs, Council of Better Business Bureaus IP attorney Anjali Hansen said her group should have had first dibs on the domain name BBB: Even more astounding was the fact that ICM Registry refused to accept CBBB’s registration of its most famous trademark ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Walden messes adult Apple domain instance in ICANN hearing - Chairman of committee calls out iPad.com as an example of someone buying a domain just to sell it to a big brand. Want to know how to lose credibility in a hurry? Take a look at the statement of Greg Walden Chairman, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Hearing, for today’s hearing about new top level domains. The representative from Oregon uses Apple as his example for the cost companies incur protecting their brands on the web. Here’s the choice quote: To ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Top 20 web sites now protected in .xxx - Top 20 web sites won’t be “sexsquatted”. The top 20 most visited web sites (according to Quantcast) are now “safe” from cybersquatting/sexsquatting in the new .xxx domain name. Earlier this week I ran an analysis and found that two of the top 20 — HuffingtonPost.xxx and WordPress.xxx — had been registered by people other than those companies. Later that same day I ran the Huffington Post story the domain name HuffingtonPost.xxx was transferred to corporate ... read more ...
Tue 13th December 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic.com Sells Over $1 Million In Domain Names - Afternic.com just posted it sales for the week ending December 12th 2011. In all Afternic sold $1,014,045 in domain names. The reportable sales were led by Calculatrice.com which sold for $30,250 (Spanish for calculator) and iBud.com which sold for $25,000   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICM Registry Suspends TM Domains Including BusinessWeek.xxx, cnbc.xxx, VerizonWireless.xxx, WashingtonPost.xxx - According to a Press release by the ICM Registry, the official registry of the new .xxx top-level domain TLD, ICM “announced that as part of its investigation of reported cybersquatting by a handful of individuals, it has suspended registrations that appear to involve unmistakable, blatant cybersquatting in violation of the Registry’s policies and the Registry-Registrant Agreement” “The suspended registrations include patterns of abusive registrations for names like businessweek.xxx, cnbc.xxx, ... read more ...
 
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Sedo.com Sells $1.53MM In Domains Led By Makassar.com At $40K - Sedo.com just announced it’s weekly sales data for the week ending December 12th. In all $1.53MM of domains were sold. The top seller was Makassar.com at $40,000 USD which we had previously reported. Other domains topping the list of public sales were HeartOfLove.com at €30000 and EasycareOnline.com for $13,000 USD. On the non.com front the domain name Dj.Fm Sold for $10K In all 899 domains were sold. Below is the entire list of publicly reportable sales in their respective currencies:   Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Microsoft’s New Study Showing That Domain Names Are VERY Important - Microsoft has just released a paper (.pdf) on the value of good domains calling it “Domain Bias” which looks like one of the best papers ever written on the subject of domains that prove out the value of a good domain. This paper may become a domainers best friend in helping to sell domains to end users. The authors call this as Domain Bias according to the author is defined as “a user’s propensity to believe that a page is more relevant just because it comes from a particular domain.””We ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
New Study Says PPC Ads Generate Up To 26% More In Offline Sales - According to a story on MediaPost.com today, paid search and display ads also drive activity into brick-and-mortar stores, but the online ad campaigns are not getting credit for the offline sales. The article cites a study from RevTrax, which found that “offline sales benefit most from online paid-search ads. A two-year study ending in August found that for every $1 of ecommerce revenue generated from paid-search ads, marketers gained approximately another $6 of in-store revenue.” “The study ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Head Of House Committee Proposes To Change SOPA To Only Apply To Sites Operating Outside Of The US - According to Variety.com, (I do think its the 1st time we cited this source)  the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is going to propose changes to the Stop Online Piracy Act, (SOPA) to make it applicable to only to sites located outside of the US Under the change it would require that foreign sites be blocked by preventing them from resolving to that Web address. “The new text of the bill removes provisions that would prevent courts from issuing orders that would ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Sorry domainers, though Microsoft’s investigate has zero to do with domains - Study is about brand loyalty to certain web sites, not the quality of a domain name. A study by Microsoft over “domain bias” in searches is making the rounds today. Unfortunately I think domainers are misinterpreting what it says. I’m even going to disagree with Michael Berkens on the importance of this one. The study is titled “Domain Bias in Web Search” and it shows that people are more likely to click on listings associated with certain domain names. Score ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
The dual biggest misconceptions about .xxx domain names - News stories propagate fear over .xxx. I’ve watched with amusement over the past week as the press has written story after story about defensive .xxx domain name registrations. Almost every article I’ve read suggests two things about .xxx that I think are flat out wrong. 1. ICANN wanted .xxx. I think it’s safe to say that ICANN didn’t want .xxx to become reality. Remember how it voted against it (after voting for it)? Remember how it spent money fighting ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Democrats register Bet10k.com domain name - Democrats register two domain names that could be used to attack Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney’s attempt to bet Rick Perry $10,000 during a televised debate is the latest (non-issue) making waves in the Republican primaries. His opponents are seizing the opportunity. It appears the Democratic National Committee registered the domain names Bet10k.com and Bet10k.org yesterday at GoDaddy. Both of the domains names are protected with a whois privacy service but the nameservers ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy rocks on with Kid Rock (video) - GoDaddy party transforms Chase Field into amusement park. Every year Go Daddy spends millions of dollars on a holiday party for its employees at Chase Field in Phoenix. This year it expanded with a road show in Iowa and Colorado, but the big show in the desert was as big as ever. The company gave over $1 million in cash prizes to its employees and entertained them with performances by Kid Rock, Dierks Bentley and Trace Adkins. The pictures and video of the event ... read more ...