Monthly Archives: February 2012

Mon 13th February 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Mothers Against Drunk Driving takes on MADDSEXY - Company files trademark lawsuit, demands lingerie company cease using domain name. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, known by its acronym MADD, is taking on lingerie company MADDSEXY in a trademark lawsuit (pdf). Among MADD’s requests is that MADDSEXY cease using its domain name Maddsexy.com. According to the advocacy group: Defendants’ promotion of lingerie products, along with their highly sexualized portrayal of women in their promotion of their products, is likely ... read more ...
Sun 12th February 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Hundreds of Whitney Houston domains purebred after death - Singer’s death prompts speculators to register Whitney Houston related domain names. Speculators have registered a flurry of domain names related to Whitney Houston since the singer’s death yesterday. According to domain registrar GoDaddy, 325 Whitney Houston related domain names were registered in fewer than 24 hours after her death. You’ll find a lot of Houston domain names on eBay. And most of them are worthless. You can pick up WhitneyHoustonDiedAt48.COM ... read more ...
Sat 11th February 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Apparently I’m Moses & All Of You Are Mindless Robots Following Me - A post about selling domain names on Noobworld.com, was brought to my attention today entitled “How to sell domain names to clueless end-users?” The article which goes on to chat about Frank Schilling, Mike Mann, Rich Schwartz, Kevin Ham, Richard Lau and Brian Wick starts with this: “”Have you ever visited TheDomains.com? ” “The owner of the domain blog runs MostWantedDomains.com and WWMI.com. ” “Michael Berkens is a master of misleading the end-user with unreliable sale data to score ... read more ...
Fri 10th February 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Minds + Machines Raises Another $14 Million For New gTLD’s By Selling 110M New Shares - According to a press release today  Minds + Machines raised an additional $14 Million dollars by selling shares of its parent company in what was described to me “as a oversubscribed funding round” Shares of the company are up  7%+ today on the news Here is the press release: “The Directors of Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (AIM:TLDH.L), the only publicly traded company focused exclusively on acquiring and operating new generic top-level domains (“gTLDs”), are delighted to announce ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Dolphin.co Sells For $48K To Dolphin Energy a Huge Oil Company In The UAE - Ron Jackson reported the news today as part of his weekly report on DnJournal.com, that the domain name Dolphin.co sold for $48K. The seller was the .Co registry. The buyer was Dolphin Energy which is a big oil company out of the United Arab Emirates. Dolphin  put out a press release on January 26th last week (without the price listed) announcing the acquisition: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, January 26, 2012: “”Dolphin Energy Limited today announced that it has acquired the Internet domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Auctions sole 38,366 domains final month including Go.Pro for $40k - A phenomenal .pro sale among domain sales on GoDaddy Auctions. GoDaddy Auctions sold 38,366 domain names last month, about 1,000 fewer than it sold in December. That includes the eye popping sale of Go.Pro for $40,000. That’s not a typo. The domain was purchased by a doctor in Maryland. Other top sales for the month include: diy.org $60,000 bestrecipes.com $45,000 uros.com $30,000 quod.com $30,000 10-4.com $16,000 eventguru.com $15,925 retireme.com $15,495 definedbenefitplan.com $15,000 gamebreak.com $12,650 About ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Top Level Domain Holdings raises $14.2 million - Company has more money to apply for top level domains. Publicly traded Top Level Domain Holdings Limited has added £9,031,139 (US $14.2 million) to to its war chest to go after the top level domain market, the company announced today. Top Level Domain Holdings owns Minds + Machines. The placement will be used for working capital including slotting and application fees for applying for new top level domain names. The company is applying for top level domains for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN reaffirms second turn of new gTLDs - Board instructs CEO to outline plan and steps for opening a second round. ICANN’s board of directors has passed a resolution reaffirming that it plans to open another round of new top level domain applications as “expeditiously as possible”. The resolution instructs the CEO to create a work plan that outlines the steps necessary to initiate a second round of applications. This includes addressing Governmental Advisory Committee concerns over trademark protection ... read more ...
Thu 9th February 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Jay-Z & Beyonce Trademark Their Baby’s Name But Don’t Own The Domains BlueIvy.com or BlueIvyCarter.com - According to a story today in in the Washington Post, Jay-Z and Beyoncé  have filed a trademark application on their baby’s name Blue Ivy Carter, On January 26th. The application was filed by TBGK Trademark Holdings,  Beyoncé’s company to cover all things fashion as well as baby carriages, baby cosmetics, and diaper bags. The article goes on to say that two other trademark applications filed after the babies birth have already been turned down: “Fashion designer Joseph Mbeh, who submitted ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN: Some New gTLD’s Will Be Approved Late This Year & Be Live In Early 2013 - ICANN has just published an announcement that it expects that some new gTLD’s to be approved late this year and be live in early 2013. In its new updated timeline ICANN under the date of  November 30, 2012 says: “”In the ideal case, an application that has encountered no problems has passed evaluation by this date. “The applied-for string can begin a transition that will result in being delegated into the root zone, and eventually the string will be live and reachable on the Internet as ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
One .XXX Registration May Lead Hawaii To Pass New Law On The “Fraudulent Use of Domain Names - According to a report in hawaiinewsnow.com,  one domain name registration, universityofhawaii.xxx, has the University of Hawaii asking legislators to toughen laws to make it easier to go after website operators who “fraudulent use domain names. In a story a couple of days ago the University of Hawaii (UH)  is none to happy that someone registered universityofhawaii.xxx and put up some porn on the domain and is trying to sell the domain name on eBay.com for $100K. The UH has already threatening ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Cnet.com: Google Goes With “Drive” As The Name Of Its Cloud Service, Of Course It Doesn’t Own Drive.com - According to Cnet.com “Google is reportedly getting ready to take on Dropbox with its own cloud-based storage service”. “The service called Drive”….will allow users to upload photos, documents, and videos to Google servers for sharing with others and later retrieval”” Drive, which is expected to launch in the coming months, will be free for most consumers and business, with a premium service offered for those who want to store a large amount of files, the paper reported. The domain ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Baseball.net Last Sold For $52K In 2008 Bought & Relaunched - Arbel Arif  and his partner Natan, acquired the domain name Baseball.net for an undisclosed amount in the five figures from DomainCapital.com in the last month and has launched it within the last week to “build a vast community of baseball enthusiasts who gather to talk baseball.” “In fact, we are prepared to transform our domain from a great place to find out everything you need to know about baseball’s past, present and future, and virtually become the “Facebook” of the baseball genre!” “It ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
8 observations about domainers - Sound familiar? They say there is a hint of truth in every stereotype. With that in mind, I present eight observations about domainers. Sure, they may be about the stereotypical domainer, but I’m sure you’ll nod your head to at least a few of them. 1. While companies think domain names are less important than they really are, Domainers think domains are more important than they really are. 2. Domainers always assume the worst about actions their service providers ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Orphaned domain listings still mucking adult domain sales process - When domains change hands or expire, “for sale” listings remain. [Update: I received a message from GoDaddy saying a solution is in the works and should be complete within a couple weeks.] [Update 2 Feb 20: GoDaddy says it has fixed the problem. If anyone has the same problem in the future please let me know.] In October I wrote about how domain name marketplaces still struggle with “orphan listings”. These are domains listed for sale that have either expired ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DOMAINfest assemblage was down, though still strong - Fewer people turn out to this year’s event but it remains the industry’s biggest conference. About 600 people attended last week’s DOMAINfest conference in Santa Monica. While down from previous years’ 700 attendees, it still makes it the largest conference in the domain name industry. Here’s why I think attendance was down by about a hundred… 1. Still sick from last year. Hey, the memories of last year’s sickness that afflicted 100+ people is still ... read more ...
Wed 8th February 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
A Pure Drop Domain Formerly Owned By Verisign, ePhoto.com Sells On SnapNames.com For $16K - The domain name ePhoto.com just sold on SnapNames.com for $16,000. The high bidder’s ID was Maxbid. In all there were 174 bidders in the auction with 7 bidding $5K or more. The domain name ePhoto.com was a pure drop domain, meaning it didn’t drop to a certain service, and could have been caught by anyone. According to DomainTools appears to have been last owned by Verisign and registered at melbourneit.com. Whether Verisign actually owned the domain or took possession of it years ago on an earlier ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Blip.Tv Acquires Blip.com and Rebrands as Blip - According to a post on Paidcontent.org, Blip.tv has dropped the .Tv from its name and now rebranded as just Blip. “”Online video network Blip.tv announced a $12-million round of funding, and a rebranding. Now it’s known simply as “Blip.” I went to DomainTools.com and see that Blip Networks, Inc.  acquired the domain name Blip.com in August of 2011 from Marvel Characters, Inc. Of course we don’t know what Blip paid for Blip.com but now that they own both the .Com and .Tv domain name ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Domain Holder Loses UDRP On TommyBahamaSucks.com: If You Own a “Sucks” Name You Better Have Content - A one member WIPO panel just awarded the domain name TommyBahamaSucks.com to the Trademark Holder. While we usually post the relevant facts and findings by the panel this case can be summed up citing this finding of the panel: “”This case ultimately turns on the quality of Respondent’s evidence.” “In this regard, however, the Panel notes Respondent has not submitted any evidence that it has established a right or legitimate interest in the tommybahamasucks.com domain name. In the end, this ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
K.TO Sells for $40K on Sedo.com - A rare one letter domain name in an “off” extension just sold on Sedo.com The domain K.To sold for $40,000. It looks like according to Domaintools.com the domain was 1st registered just back in 2008. .To is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) of the island kingdom of Tonga. I have seem many one letter ccTLD’s in non-major jurisdictions sell for as little as $1K, this maybe a record sale for a .TO domain. As far as who owned or bought the domain name well .TO registry doesn’t ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
So When Is Oversee Going To Let Customers Of Moniker/SnapNames.com Know They Have Been Sold? - So its now a week since the 1st press release was issued announcing that Moniker.com and SnapNames.com were sold to Key Systems. In addition to being a blogger I’m a domainer that has multiple accounts at Moniker.com and an account at SnapNames.com where I spend six figures a year,  but to date I haven’t received a email from either Moniker.com or SnapNames.com telling me as a customer that the sites have been sold. Not an email. Not a call from my Rep. Nothing A letter from Key Systems, the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Judge issues initial outcome in Monte Cahn v. Oversee.net - Judge sides with Oversee.net on narrow issue in lawsuit. The Honorable Stephen V. Wilson has issued a verdict in the first trial between Monte Cahn and his former employer, Oversee.net. The decision was extremely narrow, covering just one aspect of Cahn’s claims against the company. Cahn had a bonus plan that was essentially an earnout from when Oversee.net bought Moniker from Seevast. It provided up to $13 million over three years. One of the bonus measures was ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Grocery sequence wins initial .XXX UDRP case - HEB gets HEB.xxx. HEB Grocery Company, headquartered in San Antonio, is the first complainant to win a uniform domain name dispute resolution (UDRP) case for a .xxx domain name. Atlanta resident Eric Gonzales registered the domain name after he claims to have contacted the grocery chain to see if they were going to register it. Gonzales’ approach is certainly interesting. Here’s how the World Intellectual Property Forum panel summed it up: Respondent is an individual, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DealDash buys gone Swoopo.com domain name (and 22 other finish user sales) - DealDash buys defunct rival’s domain name. Remember Swoopo.com, the auction site where you had to pay for each bid? It shut down amidst controversy, and now a competitor has purchased its domain name via Sedo. UK based DealDash Ltd paid 10,000 euros for Swoopo.com and now forwards it to DealDash.com. This was just one of many “end user” domain purchases over the past week. Here’s a look at 22 others. All took place at Afternic unless otherwise noted. College ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
2012 Domain Name Wire Survey…the formula are in - A look at who took this year’s survey. Domain Name Wire’s 7th annual domain name industry survey has concluded with over 1,500 participants. I’m busy collating and analyzing the results, which will be posted on Domain Name Wire throughout the month of February. Here are data about the participants in this year’s survey: 1,593 survey takers 25.8% of people who took the survey own more than 1,000 domain names. 27 participants own more than 10,000 domain names. The ... read more ...