Monthly Archives: April 2012

Thu 26th April 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
VeriSign is backend for 220 new TLD field and relates for 14 itself - VeriSign releases numbers related to its new TLD plans. VeriSign released earnings today along with numbers related to its new top level domain aspirations. The company said it applied for 14 new top level domain names including 12 transliterations of .com and .net. Although not mentioned in the release, you can expect some of those transliterations are in Japanese, Hangul, Chinese, Cyrillic, Arabic, and Hebrew. I’m very curious what the other two domains are; it’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Aremi Group relates for .art (and claims trademarks) - Company announces plans for .art and says it has trademarks for it as well. Aremi Group is the latest to announce a formal application for a top level domain, announcing (pdf) that it has applied for .art. The Luxembourg company says the mission of .art is to “provide a unique online space in which creatively-inclined members of the Internet community, individuals and institutions alike, can share their works and ideas with those seeking creative content.” The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO row steals 4 minute domain from BuyDomains - Panel hands down the wrong decision in FACI.com case. A three member World Intellectual Property Organization panel has found that BuyDomains (NameMedia) registered FACI.com in bad faith. The case makes no sense. It seems that the panel’s judgement hinges on the fact that BuyDomains knew about the complainant’s trademark for FACI upon acquisition of the domain. But BuyDomains made it clear that, although it became aware of the trademark, it was very limited in ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Mimicking a company’s whois record to censor a cybersquatting domain - As I said, you don’t understand the difference between “evidence” and “proof”. They are not the same thing. If a bank was robbed on Elm Street at 9PM, then if a witness claims to have seen me on Elm Street at 9PM, that testimony is evidence that I robbed the bank. Is it proof? No. A lot of people were on that street. The witness could be mistaken, etc. But, it is one piece of evidence which, in connection with other evidence, may advance the argument that I robbed the ... read more ...
Wed 25th April 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Archives.com Launched in 2009 Was Just Bought By Ancestry.com For $100 Million Cash - According to a Press release just issued, Archives.com was just bought by Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ACOM) for $100 million in cash. “Inflection launched Archives.com, then dubbed GenealogyArchives.com, in July 2009 to satisfy a growing demand for comprehensive online access to historical records. ” “From humble beginnings, Archives.com rapidly grew to encompass over 2 billion records and generate over 5 million monthly visits.” “Key partnerships, like those with FamilySearch International ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Schwartz’s eRealEstate.com Responds To UDRP On Saveme.com; Asks For Reverse Hijacking & Blasts The Complaint - Rick Schwartz’s company eRealEstate.com, has just filed its response to the UDRP on the domain name SaveMe.com, filed by the owners of SaveMe.com.br. The full response is posted on Ricks site erealestate.com The response was written by Howard Neu, Esq, who blasts the complainant and asks for a finding of reverse hijacking. Here are some of the more interesting parts of the response: “”It is difficult to know where to begin to respond to the Complainant’s improbable and improper claims that ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Word Press Now Powers 70 Million Sites - According to a story in AllthingsD.com today,  Word Press now powers 70 million sites, up from 35 million sites a year ago. “Almost half of the biggest blogs in the world are hosted by WordPress.com” The company behind WordPress is Automattic which expects according to the story to generate $45 million in revenue this year. “The majority of Automattic revenue comes from premium subscription services, and that’s supplemented by a “VIP” enterprise publisher business — in total, there ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Bloomberg & Reuters Adds Sedo’s IDNX To Their Covered Financial Markets - According to a press release today, Sedo, announced that Bloomberg and Reuters have added IDNX, the industry’s leading domain price index, to the financial markets covered on their respective Web sites. “”IDNX provides critical insight into the current market value of domains, domain industry trends, and the risk-return ratio of domains as a financial asset. Using real estate economic methodology to index more than 200,000 domain transactions since 2006, IDNX exhibits strong correlation with ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo.com Sells sommerhus.dk For $115K; Hot.Net For $75,000 - Although Sedo.com just published it weekly list of sale just an hour ago, two new domain sales just crossed the Sedo wire. The domain name Sommerhus.dk just sold for 87,500 Euro’s or about $115,000. .Dk is the ccTLD for Demark. sommerhus is  Danish for the word Summer in english Hot.net sold for 56,750 Euro’s or just about 75,000 The seller of Hot.net appears to be Digital Dataflow Ltd of Great Britian and the buyer appears to be Patrick Drahi of Paris.   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Sedo.com Sells $1.5MM+ In Domains - Sedo.com just announced its weekly sales data ending April 23. In all over $1.5MM of domains were sold. The top seller was gameglobe.com at $50,000. Other domains topping the list of public sales were geschenkideen.de for €50,000 racenet.com for $29,412. One of our domain names was 3rd on the top list of .com’s, In all 847 domains were sold. Below is the entire list of publicly reportable sales in their respective currencies:   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Nuts! Company that bought Nuts.com takes a large Google hit - Company buys a great domain, but changing domains is hard. The New York Times has an interesting “case study” today about Newark Nut Company. The company recently bought Nuts.com to replace its existing NutsOnline.com domain name. You’ll like the reasons the company decided to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for Nuts.com: people couldn’t remember NutsOnline.com, his company was mentioned on Rachel Ray’s show as just Nuts.com, and he was scared that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Man petitions to get Google trademarks canceled after Google files UDRP opposite 763 domain names - A whopping UDRP and a strange reaction. Google has filed a single UDRP case with National Arbitration Forum covering a whopping 763 domains. [Update: it won the case.] The domains names include the word Google followed by common search terms, e.g.: googleiphone4s.com googlevolkswagengroup.com googlescientology.com googlesamsung.com googledusseldorf.com googlesalvador.com googleducks.com googlesaints.com Many of these are “double trademarks” covering a Google trademark ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Beenz.com, domain of fantastic dot.com failure, sells for $20,000 - Beenz.com domain name sells for $20,000. Are we about to see a rebirth of online currency Beenz? A European company, Beenz Europe BV, has purchased the domain name Beenz.com for $20,000 and placed a “coming soon” page on the web site. The domain purchase was made through domain aftermarket Afternic.com. Beenz.com was one of the most spectacular dot.com failures to lose its, um, beenz in the dot.com bust last decade. Beenz rewarded web surfers with a virtual currency ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What domains Charles Schwab Co., Billabong and others bought this past week - 14 end user domain name sales. Here are some notable domain sales to end users over the past week. All sales took place at Afternic unless otherwise noted. Dental imaging company Northwest Radiography, Inc. bought NorthwestImaging.com for $1,495. The owner of themediamerchants.ca bought MediaMerchants.com for $1,400. BBCN Bank, which caters to Korean communities in the United States, bought BBCN.net for $3,688. It’s main web site is BBCNBank.com. The company does ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MegaUpload.net on auction again, DigitalArchery.com sale falls through - MegaUpload.net up for auction again, and DigitalArchery.com doesn’t have a new owner after all. Here are a couple interesting updates on Sedo domain name auctions. First, MegaUpload.net is on auction at Sedo…again. An auction for the domain closed at $11,099 on April 5. But the whois record for the domain never changed, so I’m not sure if the sale went through. The new auction has a current bid of $2,850, and it seems odd to me that someone who bought the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Neustar’s .us marketing: Cash mobs - Neustar continues .us marketing with cash mobs. Earlier this month I wrote about how .us registry Neustar was starting to market .us domains with its “Kickstart America” campaign. Neustar is continuing this effort with a couple new videos titled “cash mobs”. The company sends a bunch of customers to a retail store (that uses a .us domain) all at once. The customers have $500 to spend, and the store owner is surprised by the sudden influx of customers. Then ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
New TLD consultantant: a registrar is not your solitary channel - Architelos launches new TLD marketing service. In the past, domain registries generally have looked at their customer at the registrar, e.g. GoDaddy.com. They’ve been careful not to blur the lines as the registrar owns the actual domain registrant relationship, not the registry. Will this continue when hundreds of new top level domains are released in coming years? New top level domain consulting firm Architelos doesn’t think so. It just launched a new TLD marketing ... read more ...
Tue 24th April 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Afternic.com Sells $1.01MM In Domains Led By GreenJuice.com At $35K - Afternic.com just published its weekly report of domain name sales totalling $1,014,184 for the week ending April 22. The publicly reportable sales were led by GreenJuice.com at $35K, followed by pinmyride.com and beenz.com each at $20K. Below is the complete list released of publicly reportable sales: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Are domain names mostly irrelevant? - Your age and tech savvy color how you look at the web. 19-year-old Henry Cooke, who blogs for Stuff.co.nz, says they are. At least generic ones like Sport.com I won’t go through his laundry list of reasons that have already been beaten to death by countless others. Or that fact that he refers to a press release on WSJ as endorsement of WSJ of how you can make money with domains. What I will do is focus on his age again. Not because being 19 means you don’t have ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Forget 3D TVs, it’s all about 3D printing - When you think 3D, don’t think TVs and funny glasses. Two years ago Michael Berkens wrote a post about how he missed the boat on the “next big thing” — 3D — when it comes to domain names. That post along probably spurred thousands of 3D related domain registrations. (Seriously, look at the comments.) To me the thinking of 3D in terms of movies and TV isn’t really interesting. That’s been around for a while, but the technology is getting better. We’re ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cybersquatting lawsuit filed opposite KnowMore.com - It will be interesting to “know more” about this lawsuit. A Florida broadcast video company has filed a lawsuit (pdf) against the owner of KnowMore.com claiming trademark infringement and cybersquatting. NewsProNet, Inc. has a registered trademark for “Know More” for “Entertainment services in the nature of the production and distribution of recurring television news programs, reports and features in the field of consumer issues, health and medicine, family, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
As .eco field squabble, .green might be a large winner - Legal challenges could result in .eco delays. The new top level domain application window hasn’t even closed, but possible applicants for .eco have already been fighting for years. Now three potential applicants are tied up court, as explained in this cancellation proceeding at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This may provide an opening for .green. Personally, I think .green is a better choice than .eco to begin with. And, if the most vocal .green applicant ... read more ...
Mon 23rd April 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
33 Inducted Into The Internet Hall of Fame Including The Chairman Of ICANN Steve Crocker - 33 people were just inducted as the inaugural group into the Internet Hall of Fame. Included in the group is the current Chairman of ICANN Steve Crocker. “Dr. Crocker has been involved in the Internet since its inception. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, while he was a graduate student at UCLA, he was part of the team that developed the protocols for the ARPANET and laid the foundation for today’s Internet.” Included in the 33 honored today was also Vint Cerf who is widely known as the father ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN’s Public Comment Period On Renewal Of Verisign Contract Closes Thursday - ICANN public comment period for the .com Registry Agreement renewal ends on Thursday April 26th. As you know, under the terms of the renewal contract Verisign will be able to raise their wholesale price on .com registration 7% in 4 out of the next 6 years. You can submit you comments on the contract to com-renewal@icann.org. You will get an email from ICANN  acknowledging the comment (this may take a little while) You have to reply to that email for your comment to be posted, received and published ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Another .music heading focus and an engaging one for .pay - .Music trademark application dead on arrival and merchant service company applies for .pay mark. A California sole proprietor is the latest person to waste money trying to trademark .music. Joseph Walker, through is company ExtraWeb Ent., filed the application on April 12. Walker claims he’s using .music in commerce since April 10. Here’s his proof: I tried to view that URL to see if it’s live on the internet, but I must not have been able to read it correctly. The ... read more ...