Monthly Archives: January 2012

Tue 24th January 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Some authorised advice: LegalAdvice.org is generic - Panel rules against company claiming rights to LegalAdvice.org. A company called Capitalism, Inc. didn’t quite get the legal advice it needed in a recent UDRP case. The company asked a National Arbitration Forum panel to give it the domain name LegalAdvice.org. No such luck, the panel ruled. After all, it’s merely a descriptive term. Capitalism, Inc does have a trademark on the term, but not in the class of legal services. The terms of the domain name are common ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
QE.com hits haven and other Moniker auction insights - Three domains have already hit reserve ahead of auction, and CA lists five domains for sale. Next week DOMAINfest comes to Santa Monica, California. That means it’s time for another Moniker premium domain auction. As it has done recently, the company is holding “pre-bidding” on a number of domains that will be in the auction. Already QE.com has hit its reserve with a $57,500 bid. That means the domain will sell for sure at next week’s auction. A couple other ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UK-based Transpact offers domain escrow services - Another option for domain name escrow services. There are lots of options for domain name escrow services. One I just became aware of is Transpact.com based in the UK. Two things make Transpact interesting: its location and low fees. The company (Transpact is actually the trading name for Anpa Forward Ltd) is based in the UK and specializes in pound and euro transactions. It’s fees are also low and not based on a percentage of the transaction. The company charges ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
HostExploit says Oversee.net is improving, creation a box study - HostExploit applauds Oversee.net for fixing problems that landed it at top spot at recent “Bad Hosts” list. HostExploit, a group that compiles a list of what it calls “Bad Hosts”, no longer lists Oversee.net as the #1 bad host. In its fourth quarter report, the group says Oversee.net is now ranked as the #12 bad host. Why? It’s kind of hard to tell. Last quarter I reached out to both Oversee.net and HostExploit about the ranking. I heard back from neither ... read more ...
Mon 23rd January 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Newspapers.com Hits The Sales Block - According to a press release today the owners of Newspapers.com has put the domain up for sale and according to a  Seller’s broker the owners are looking for something close to $1 Million for the domain. First here is the PR: “”Internet Express Inc., the company that owns the domain name “newspapers.com” and related website has indicated it will entertain offers for the name and site, according to newspaper brokerage firm Cribb, Greene Associates who represent the seller in the contemplated ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Compete.com Says XXX.com Traffic Doubled Since The .XXX Launch - With hundreds of new right of the dot, gTLD extensions being applied for, I though I would take a look at the most recent extension, .XXX and see what effect it was having on the traffic of XXX.com According to Compete.com traffic on XXX.com has doubled since the launch of the .XXX extension in December. According to Compete XXX.com had around 100K visitors a month, each month for 2011 up until November the month that Sunrise and LandRush applications were due. In December when .XXX officially launched ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Tucows Publishes Results Of Its Tender Offer - According to a press release today Tucows has repurchased millions of shares of its own stock based on an Oversubscribed tender offer. Here is the PR: “Tucows Inc. (NYSE AMEX:TCX), (TSX:TC), aannounced today the preliminary results of its modified “Dutch auction” tender offer, which expired on Friday at 5:00 p.m.. Tucows expects to purchase up to 7,569,952 shares of its Common Stock at a purchase price of $0.77 per share, for a total of $5,828,863. The 7,569,952 shares expected to be purchased ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Story Behind The $280K Sales Of 45.com: The Seller Got The Domain As Collateral For A $15K Loan - In December the domain name 45.com sold for $280,000 Today the NorthJerseyNews.com told the story behind the sale including how the seller of the domain name, Glen DiGirolamo got the domain as collaterial for a $15K loan. Its an usual story of how a professional pool player got the biggest payday of his life by selling a domain name. Here are some quotes of Mr. DiGirolamo from the story which you should read in full. “”The story behind DiGirolamo’s recent quarter-million-dollar windfall is ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SOPA goes to Ireland - Ireland may enact a SOPA-like law without much debate. The Stop Online Piracy Act in America may be “dead” for now, but the United States isn’t the only country that wants to fiddle with the internet. Net heads in Ireland are revolting against a proposal from Sean Sherlock, Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation in Ireland. His proposed law would curtail access to websites in Ireland by forcing ISPs to block sites that are reported to link to infringing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Buy.XXX: a box investigate of consumer recognition of TLDs - The general public doesn’t know that domains can end something other than .com. On November 22 I wrote an article about ICM Registry’s TV ad campaign. The ad campaign invited viewers to visit www.buy.xxx to learn more about the new .xxx domain extension. The campaign reached a lot of eyeballs judging by the flood of traffic Domain Name Wire received from search engines. But did people understand that Buy.xxx was a domain name, just like Buy.com is? Some did, but ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New domain hunt to find accessible domains…fast - Lean Domain Search finds available domain names that include your search term. A couple years ago I wrote about domain finding tool Domain Pigeon. Creator Matt Mazur is back with a new tool to identify available domain names that include a specific keyword. Just type in a keyword and Lean Domain Search matches it with 1,000 words commonly used in domains. It then tells you which ones are available. I tried out multiple searches on the site and was impressed with ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
USPTO wising adult to new TLD frontrunning - Cancels two approvals, more to come? The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is finally catching on to a game I’ve reported about many times: trying to sneak through a trademark on a top level domain name. The USPTO has a policy of not issuing trademarks for top level domain names. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying to get one, which may give them some negotiating or legal power for TLDs. One common trick is to use a Wild West Domains domain reseller account ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Mail Boxes Etc. in Spain gets Mailboxes.org in dispute - UDRP panel hands over Mailboxes.org domain name. MBE Spain 2000, S.L., which manages franchises of Mail Boxes Etc. in Spain, has been awarded the domain name Mailboxes.org by a World Intellectual Property Organization panel. The domain name was owned by a franchisee of MBE Spain. After the case was filed the franchisee forwarded the domain name to a new web site. The decision is in Spanish, so I can’t quite understand if the previous page it resolved to used the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
CIT gets control of nasty John Thain domain names - Domains transferred to Thain’s latest employer. There are a lot of people out there who don’t care for John Thain, current chairman and CEO of CIT. He was, after all, at the helm of Merrill Lynch during the banking meltdown…and apparently spent $1 million renovating a couple offices while on the government dole. When his new employer CIT hired him, apparently a slew of protective domain names came along with him. CIT was just unmasked this month as the owner ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Which domain forum is best? - Take this five minute survey. There’s been a bit of news in the domain name forum world recently, with NamePros selling to the owner of Bodis.com. Will that shake up the “ranking” of domain forums? You tell me… You have the opportunity to vote for the best domain name forum on the 7th annual Domain Name Wire Survey. Click here to take the survey. The survey has already received hundreds of responses, but I want to know your opinion. In addition to selecting ... read more ...
Sun 22nd January 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICM Responds To Manwin’s .XXX Suit With Motions To Dismiss - ICM filed its repose to the lawsuit filed by Manwin Licensing International, S.a.r.l. (“Manwin”) and Digital Playground, Inc. (“DP”), which was recently acquired by Manwin, asking the Court to throw out the case. Manwin operates various adult websites including YouPorn.com ICM asks the court to hold a hearing on its Motion to Dismiss on April 2nd. We have read through the 31 page memo in support of ICM’s Motion to Strike and here are the highlights: “The Complaint here is nothing ... read more ...
Fri 20th January 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Matt Cutts: Google Changes Algorithm to Penalize Sites That “Don’t Have Much Content “above-the-fold” - In a blog post today Matt Cutts of Google delivers what appears to be bad news for mini-sites or other sites top-heavy with ads. According to the post, Google is once again changing their algorithm to penalize sites that  “don’t have much content “above-the-fold”. Here is the full post: “”In our ongoing effort to help you find more high-quality websites in search results, today we’re launching an algorithmic change that looks at the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Senator Reid Postpones Tuesday Vote On PROTECT IP (PIPA) - In a statement just released by Nevada Senator Harry Reid he has postponed a Senate vote scheduled for next Tuesday on the  PROTECT I.P. Act: “In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act. “There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bob Parsons credits Super Bowl ads for $1 billion in sales - GoDaddy.com founder says $70 million investment has driven $1 billion in business. GoDaddy.com founder Bob Parsons says he’s generated $1 billion in business from running Super Bowl ads. In a USA Today article about the sexing up of Super Bowl ads (which of course features GoDaddy prominently), Parsons says his company has spent $70 million to produce and air these ads. But the ROI has been good. Although it’s not easy to track long term results from ads like ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A demeanour during Escrow.com’s $1 billion miracle and new attorney tool - Escrow.com completes $1 billion in transactions and will soon release a tool for brokers. Escrow.com just hit a major milestone: $1 billion in completed transactions. I reached out to Escrow.com president Brandon Abbey to understand the path the company took to reach this milestone and the makeup of its current business. Abbey told me that Escrow.com started out with small transactions when it opened its doors in 1999. An actual example: 10 Garnet Ovals at $1.99 a ... read more ...
Thu 19th January 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Reports Earnings & Misses: Clicks Up 34% But Cost Per Click Down 8%: Stock Is Down 10% - Google reported its earnings for the 4th quarter of 2011 after the market closed today and missed its expected results. The stock is trading down $60 a share after hours or almost 10% after reporting. Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 25% to $8.13 billion, yielding EPS of $9.50. Analysts had been $8.43 billion and $10.51 per share in profit. Google ended the quarter with over $44 Billion in the bank. Here is the earnings report: Q4 Financial Summary Google reported revenues of $10.58 ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Feds Shut Down Megaupload.com & Charge 7 People & Make Arrests In New Zealand - According to the Washingtonpost.com, “one of the world’s largest file-sharing sites was shut down Thursday, while it  founder and several company executives” were arrested in New Zealand charged with violating piracy laws. “The  indictment accuses Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. ” The Justice Department said in a statement said that: “”Megaupload was unique not only because of its massive size ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New Report: .Au Domain Space Brought Half A Billion Dollars To Australia’s Economy in 2011 - The study commissioned by AusRegistry and the .au Domain Administration (auDA),  is the first of its kind to assesses the true extent of the .au domain’s influence on the Australian economy. “The key finding from the report was that the .au domain name space contributed $475 million to the Australian economy in 2011.” “More than 4300 full-time jobs were connected to it.” “$269 million of that, or 57 per cent, was connected to registration and hosting of .au domains, with services such ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afilias: .XXX Breaks 200K Domains Under Management: A Look Inside The Numbers - According to Afilias the company that provides the back-end operations for the .XXX registry, .XXX broke 200,000 domain names under management today. According to the report I received,  .XXX now has 200,295 domain names in the system. According to Registrarstats.com there are only 110K domain in the root. I reached out to Stuart Lawley CEO of ICM registry which operates the .XXX registry to ask about the why the numbers reported by Alifias differ so drasticlly differ from RegistrarStats.com numbers: “”Names ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
IAC sells Sendori for $3 million - IAC’s sponsored listing/traffic monetization unit sold. IAC has sold its Sendori unit for a total consideration of $3 million, nearly three years after buying the company, according to a recent SEC filing. When Sendori launched, it provided a way for domain name owners to monetize their domain names without requiring domain visitor to click on ads. Instead, domain visitors are automatically forwarded to relevant advertisers’ sites. Sendori’s consumer facing ... read more ...