Monthly Archives: May 2012

Sat 5th May 2012
Written by DomainHack.er in FR and tagged
Articles du mois de “mai 2012” - L’AFNIC tire un premier bilan de l’ouverture des IDN. Le 3 mai, 30 nouveaux caractères sont disponibles à l’enregistrement pour les 6 ccTLD opérés par l’AFNIC (.fr, .re, .yt, .pm, .wf et .tf). Le premier bilan et infographie sur les trois premières heures disponible sur : http://www.afnic.fr/fr/l-afnic-en-bref/actualites/actualites-generales/5938/show/l-afnic-tire-un-premier-bilan-de-l-ouverture-des-idn-2.html Du 3 mai au 3 juillet 2012, l’AFNIC a mis en place une période dite ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Breaking: ICANN 2,305 New gTLD Applications Received To Date; 2,091 Paid For - ICANN just announced tonight that when the TAS system was taken down there were 2,091 applications, either submitted or in progress. In addition, there were 214 potential applications that were registered prior to the March 29th deadline, but whose payments have not yet been received or reconciled. The total therefore should be 2,305  if payment is received for all applications to date. Of course there may be additional applications submitted after the TAS system re-opens for the 5 day period. For ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google wants to obvious associated links functionality - Lookout, YARPP. Are you a blogger that uses Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)? There are a lot of similar plugins (hence the funny name). But Google apparently thinks it’s novel, as the company has filed a patent application (pdf) for precisely this. United States patent application 20120109932, titled “Related Links”, covers the process of identifying keywords within an article and then displaying related articles (or searches) based on those keywords. In ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN’s $350 million windfall - ICANN has already collected $350 million in new TLD application fees. And that number will grow. One of the mysteries of ICANN’s new top level domain process is why it’s been so shy about releasing the total number of applications received so far. It released the number of application system registered users, but not the number of applications. That just changed: ICANN announced it had 2,091 applications completed or in progress when it took the application system ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
And…we’re back! - I just switched hosting providers over the past 48 hours. Transferring the Domain Name Wire database from one host to another, plus the propagation of the new name servers, caused some lag time between sites. As a result, a handful of comments submitted over the previous 36 hours are lost. I could take an ICANN -like TAS approach and go through the logs to find all of the missing comments. But then I’d have to take the site down for a couple months while I did this ... read more ...
Fri 4th May 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UDRP Thinks 32x.com Is “Identical or Confusingly Similar” to TM For 32Red & Gives Away The Domain - Well another day another horrible decision A three member UDRP panel just gave away the domain name 32x.com to the Trademark holder of 32Red. I have no idea of how 32x.com is “Identical or Confusingly Similar”  to a trademark for 32Red but that is what the panel found.  The panel also disregarded the fact that the complaints waited some six years before bringing the complaint. John Berryhill represented the domain holder. The complaint was brought by two Complainants. The first complainant ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Beckstrom Tells NationalJournal.com That Now The TAS Will “Track Users Every Keystroke” - In  an interview that Rod Beckstrom just did with the Nationaljournal.com, Beckstrom said that the TAS system will “To prevent further problems, will now track users every keystroke.” Duh Wouldn’t that have been a good thing to build into a system through which hundreds of millions of dollars will flow through? Beckstrom in the delay in getting the TAS system back up and running said: “What is driving us here is quality, not speed” “Software glitches are unfortunately inherent to almost ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
TRAFFIC To Return To Vegas - According to an email just sent out by the organizers of the TRAFFIC conference, after a several year absence, the TRAFFIC conference is returning to Las Vegas. The conference will be held right after the Memorial Day Weekend 2013. This time the conference is being held at one of our favorite hotels the Bellagio Hotel. Sounds like a great choice of dates and venue and we are already looking forward to it. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
BREAKING: BuyDomains.com Takes The FACI.com UDRP Decision To Federal Court - Last week we told you that BuyDomains.com lost a UDRP on the domain name FACI.com in a poorly reasoned decision. Yesterday Rare Names, Inc, d/b/a BuyDomains.com filed a federal court action in the Massachusetts District Court against the UDRP complainants, Foster, Andrew Co., Inc. and FACI Industries Corporation. Since a UDRP is not technically appeal-able, but a new action, BuyDomains asked the court to block the transfer and for a declaratory judgement that it did not infringe on FACI trademark The ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Marchex Reports Earnings & Sells 2.6 Million in Domains - Marchex, Inc. (NASDAQ:MCHX) today reported its results for the quarter ended March 31, 2012 and reported that year to date, including April 2012 has sold $2.6 Million in domains. According to the earnings report Marches sold $1.5 Million January-March and another $1.1 Million in April. Overall Marchex basically matched there year ago results which were in line with market expections and the stock remained basically unchanged in trading right about at its 52 week low Here are the rest of the results First ... read more ...
Thu 3rd May 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo Market Report For 1Q: 19.6 Million In Sales; & For The 1st Time BIN Sales Led The Way - Sedo  announced the results of its Q1 2012 Domain Market Study. During the first quarter, Sedo powered more than 10,000 domain transactions accounting for $19.6 Million in sales. The number of Buy Now sales surpassed offer-counter offer sales for the first time, becoming the most popular type of transaction. IDNX, the first standardized pricing index for the domain market, reached record highs in March 2012 after five months of consecutive growth. This suggests that the domain market has rebounded ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN TAS Update: 105 Applicants May Had File & User Names Viewed By Other Applicants - ICANN just issued another update on the TAS system and gave out some numbers this time. “”At the time we took the system offline, there were 1268 registered users and some 95,000 file attachments in the system.” “Of these, there were approximately 455 instances where a file name and the associated user name might have been viewed by another applicant.” “We are continuing to review system logs and packet-level traffic to confirm how many viewings actually did occur.” “Our review has ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
You unequivocally need to get on a bound cost domain bandwagon - SedoMLS and AfternicDLS are changing the game. Sedo released its first quarter domain name market study today (pdf). For the first time ever, fixed price “buy now” listings were the company’s most common type of sale. 39% of sales were buy now purchases and 34% were offer-counter offer purchases. There’s a simple reason for this: end user buyers don’t want to negotiate. And they want their domain now. I suspect a lot of these sales occurred through SedoMLS. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Should ICANN can digital archery? - Given the latest data, ICANN should consider changing how it batches new TLDs. With 1,268 registered users for ICANN’s new top level domain application system, it’s clear there will be over 1,000 unique top level domains going through the new TLD process. That means we’ll have “batching“, where approximately 500 domains at a time go through the full evaluation and addition to the root. The current plan for determining which 500 applications go into each ... read more ...
Wed 2nd May 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Web.com Owner Of Register.com & NetworkSolutions.com Reports Beating Estimates & Stock Rises 20% - Web.com Group, Inc. (WWWW), the owner of two of the worlds largest registrars, NetworkSolutions.com and Register.com announced results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2012 beating estimates and the stock was up almost 20% on the news. Revenue increase more than 100%. Summary of First Quarter 2012 Financial Results: Total revenue, was $91.5 million for the first quarter of 2012, compared to $39.5 million for the first quarter of 2011. Operating loss, calculated in accordance with GAAP, was $18.5 ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
11 Things we Learned From Reading ICANN’s 2013 Budget - ICANN published its draft budget last night and will open the public comment period on May 25th. It will approve the budget at the Prague ICANN meeting in June I went through the budget an found some pretty  interesting things. While everyone has a top 10, I thought I would go with a top 11: 1.   ICANN needs a new financial planner: “As of 31 March 2012, the Reserve Fund balance was $52.3 million. Total investment income for FY13 is budgeted to be $1.0 million” So less than a 2% return is ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
PurityNames.com “The World’s First Family-Friendly Domain Registrar Opens for Business” -   A new ICANN registrar PurityNames.com ts promoting itself in an unusual way as the “The World’s First and Only Family-Friendly Domain Registrar” According to a press release out today: “Up until now, if you were in the market for a domain name to launch a website, you would be forced into doing business with companies who almost certainly have been profiting from the sale of domain names being used to spread pornography. With the launch of PurityNames.com, consumers and businesses finally ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic.com Sells $1M In Domains Led By CYTS.com For $15,200 - Afternic sold $1,023,605 of domain names according to its weekly report. The reportable sales were led by CYTS.com which sold for $15,200   Here are all the reportable sales: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN: 105 new TLD field might have had information exposed - ICANN releases data about new top level domain application system bug. 105 applicants for new top level domains might have had the filenames of some of their application documents and their username exposed, ICANN revealed today. The non-profit also revealed that 50 applicants might have been able to view these details. Of course, just because filenames or usernames were exposed doesn’t mean that someone actually saw them or knew what they were seeing. And even ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sex + prohibited amicable site = vital press - Sex.com relaunches as a Pinterest clone for adult photos. I’ve got to hand it to the company that bought Sex.com for $13 million: nice PR move. The site was just relaunched in beta as a “Pinterest for Sex”. That’s a nice way to get buzz. For news story research purposes I just checked out the site. I assure you it’s NSFW. I’ve got to believe the site is going to run into all sorts of copyright issues with this new format. The company put out a “press ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hey buddy, it’s substantially too late to heading .NYC - A good way to waste $325. The guy who just recently wasted his money filing a trademark application for .music is at it again. Joseph Walker DBA ExtraWeb Ent just filed trademark applications for .nyc and .shop. New York City has already announced plans for the .nyc domain name and has selected a registry partner to bring it to market. Numerous companies want to bring .shop to market as well. Both of these applications will be summarily rejected by the U.S. Patent ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afterthoughts about Ammar Kubba’s new blog - Ammar Kubba pens a new blog. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the domain industry, it’s “don’t judge a book by its cover”. Thought Convergence founder Ammar Kubba is one of those people that could easily be misjudged. With his big diamond earring and gold chain necklace, you might mistakenly put him in the wrong bucket. In reality, Ammar is one of the nicest and most thoughtful people in the industry. And now he’s getting ready to enter the blogging ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Here’s how most any TLD generates for ICANN - A look at registry fees and transaction fees. ICANN’s contracts with registry operators for existing top level domains represent a hodgepodge of one off arrangements. In its recently released draft budget, ICANN included a table showing how it forecasts its revenue from each of these contracts for FY 2013. Seeing the data side-by-side is very intriguing. It’s also interesting when you add in how much ICANN collects in transaction fees from registrants/registrars ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Mastercard loses another Priceless case - Mastercard is devaluing its “Priceless” mark. Last Friday I wrote about how Mastercard lost UDRP cases for pricelessistanbul.com and pricelessamsterdam.com. It just lost another case (pdf), this one involving pricelesslondon.com, pricelessparis.com, pricelessnewyork.com, pricelesslosangeles.com and pricelessmexico.com. Why is Mastercard suddenly going after PricelessCity domain names? It appears to be related to its move to associate its “Priceless” trademark ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How ICANN will spend $12 million some-more of your income subsequent year - …and that doesn’t include new TLD costs. ICANN’s latest proposed budget segments out the core ICANN functions and the new top level domain program. But even its core functions budget are slated to grow by nearly $12 million next financial year compared to what it expects to spend in the current year (FY 12). Here’s why. Contractual Compliance: $2.4 million increase Let’s face it, ICANN’s contractual compliance has historically sucked. Fixing the problem ... read more ...