Monthly Archives: December 2012

Mon 31st December 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Domainer Page Howe Gets A Feature Article On BusinessInsider.com - Long time domainer Page Howe just got covered by Businessinsider.com with a big assist from DnJournal.com and DomainSherpa.com Page was covered by BusinessInsider.com in an article entitled: “Meet Page Howe, A Man Who Made Millions Selling 2 Of The World’s Most Expensive Domain Names” If you don’t know the two domains they are talking about are: Seniors.com, which he purchased for $100,000,  and sold for $1.8 million (or $1.5 million after commission) through Moniker.com traffic auction ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Domain King, Rick Schwartz Closes Out 2012 With A $250K Deal on A Hand Reg Domain - In a email sent out to domain holders on the JointVentures.com project, the Domain King Rick Schwartz announced that he just closed a deal on a hand registered domain name which will return him over $250,000 over the next 8 years “”I have also just closed a deal this morning with a domain that I hand registered in 2002 and have an 8 year deal with. The total value of those payments are in excess of $250,000.”” “In my blog post I will explain how I came up with my numbers and why it was ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
House Representative Drafting Bill To Stop ICE Domain Seizures Without Notice or Hearing - According to jdsupra.com, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif),  is drafting legislation that would seek to increase judicial oversight ICE’s ability to seize domain names. To date the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has seized 1,630 domain names, of which 684 have been forfeited to the government. According to the article “Lofgren’s bill will apparently propose that the government must provide notice and an opportunity to be heard ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
2012 Domain Dunce: The .com agreement renewal - Verisign lost an awful lot of market cap but consumers won. It’s difficult to say who exactly is the deserving subject of this Domain Dunce Award. It goes way back. In 2006 ICANN settled a long running dispute with Verisign by giving it a very nice contract to run the .com registry. The contract allowed Verisign to increase prices 7% per year in four of the six years of the contract. The contract was up for renewal this year, and ICANN rubber stamped a new contract ... read more ...
Sat 29th December 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Richard Lau Becomes Director of a Water School - Uber Domainer Richard Lau has just announced he has taken on the position of the Executive Director at Water School. In his year end newsletter he wrote, “2012 is almost at an end. It’s Christmas Eve and while my shopping is all done, wrapped and tucked under the tree, alas the Lau Christmas Newsletter is yet to be done. It’s my (Richard here) turn to write so I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone that it is Late As Usual. So, here’s what’s happened in our lives this past year…..” “”I’m ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
We Think .TK Domains Are Screwing With Verisign’s Quarterly Domain Report - Last week when Verisign released its 3rd Quarter  Domain Name Industry Brief  everyone focused in on the raw numbers 246 million domain names. However what if I was to tell you that one change made by Verisign has made a huge impact on the overall domain registration numbers. That change was including the .TK registry in the Domain Name Industry Brief. Two quick points. The .TK registry was not always included in the quarterly reports, matter of fact Verisign included the registry for the first ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Merry Christmas: Go Daddy Groupon understanding adult to 67% off - Go Daddy offers a Groupon that might be hard to pass up. Back in October Go Daddy ran a deal with Google Offers for $20 in credit for only $10. Now it is running a Groupon that’s even better: $10 for $30 or $25 for $70. It appears the deal is run in most if not all U.S. markets. For example, the Austin deal says 30 have been bought and the deal is on. But if you drop the city name it shows the deal but zero bought. Don’t worry, you can buy from any city. Adam ... read more ...
Fri 28th December 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Vietnamese Man Registers TM Domain, Points It To Porn; Company Agrees To Pay $50K & Calls Police - December 28, 2012 by Michael Berkens 4 Comments Well not your typical domain story. A Vietnamese man Nguyen Trong Khoahas was summoned by police after a company, Eurowindow Holding accused him of buying four domain names related to the company and directing users of one of the sites to porn in “order to pressure it to buy the domains at exorbitant prices”.= According to the story that appeared in tuoitrenews.vn,   Khoa  registered the domain nameseurowindowholding.com, and linked it to a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
2012 Domain Dunce: TAS and Digital Archery - “Glitch” filled system gets Domain Dunce honors in 2012. ICANN’s new top level domain program is the most watched initiative in the non-profit’s entire history. So you’d think ICANN would have double and triple checked all of the technology supporting it, including the TLD Application System (TAS). Alas, TAS failed. Big time. In April ICANN had to take the system offline due to a technical “glitch”. The glitch made it possible for some applicants to ... read more ...
Thu 27th December 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Alert!! Some Of The Domains You Got At SnapNames.com May Not Be Owned By You - If you use SnapNames.com you need to check the domain names you acquired since October, especially November and December. You may not be the owner of the domain. There are a few issues going on with SnapNames.com which I was first informed about by another large domainer yesterday who asked to remain anonymous. He reported that 10 domains that he got through SnapNames.com in November and December were not owned by him. I checked my account since October and found a total of 7 domains that we got ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Marchex & Berryhill Beat Back UDRP On Eurobaby.com - Liam Sutcliffe, Eurocycles Eurobaby and Eurotrek Group Limited of Dublin, Ireland (LIAM) brought a UDRP against Marchex (MCRX) who as always was represented by John Berryhill, Ph.d., Esq on the domain name Eurobaby.com The problem with the case is that the complaint (LIAM) that claimed registered and common law trademarks basically did have either. I don’t know if the domain holder asked for a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) but it would seem to be applicable to the shabby case ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
FreshDirect.com latest association to go down interjection to lapsed domain - Company forgot to renew its domain name, which expired December 23. Add FreshDirect.com to a long list of companies that suffered downtime thanks to not renewing their domain names. The company suffered an “outage” (a.k.a. registrar renewal notice page) when it neglected to renew its domain name earlier this week. The Wall Street Journal discusses the lapse in an article here, although the “person familiar with the matter” has the dates wrong. The domain name ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Marchex defends EuroBaby.com opposite Irish company - Company can keep domain acquired with UltSearch portfolio, panel rules. Marchex has successfully defended the domain name EuroBaby.com in a URDP proceeding brought by an Irish company. Eurocycles Eurobaby and Eurotrek Group Limited of Dublin, Ireland sell bikes and strollers. One of its brands, EuroBaby, sells strollers, car seats, baby furniture, and other baby goods. Its site for EuroBaby is EuroBabyNursery.com, so it’s no wonder it wants the better EuroBaby.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
My initial (much) faster payments with Go Daddy Premium Listings - Go Daddy is paying for domain sales even faster than promised. It had been a couple months since I sold a Go Daddy Premium Listing, but over the past couple weeks I’ve sold two domains. These were the first domains I’ve sold with Go Daddy since it sped up the payment process. I’m happy to report that it paid even faster than promised. The first sale was on December 17. That particular domain sold through Go Daddy auctions rather than the registration path. That ... read more ...
Wed 26th December 2012
Written by The Domains in EN
Our List Of The First 80 Non-IDN/Brand New gTLD’s That Will Come To Market - This a list of the first 80 Non-IDN , Non-.Brand new gTLDs that should come to market first. Why? Because all of these are new gTLD’s are non contested, meaning there was only one application made for the string, none were subject to an GAC early warning and drew a low number in the ICANN draw. Assuming the applications pass initial evaluation, are not put into a contention set by ICANN, no formal objections or GAC objection are filed, these are the most likely new gTLD’s which are not IDN’s/.Brands ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
4 domains in Stephen Colbert’s latest book (and one we can buy for $100) - New Stephen Colbert book references a number of domain names, none of which are in use. What did you do for Christmas? I’ll tell you what I did. I curled up in front of the fire with Stephen Colbert’s latest book, America Again. It comes in 3-D, which should be music to the ears of domain name investors that spent money registering ridiculous 3-D domain names. Colbert says 3-D movies make a lot of money, so he figured why not throw it in his book. I noticed four ... read more ...
Mon 24th December 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Appeals Court Overturns Bankruptcy Sale Of Baron/Ondova Domains & Axes The Receivership - The Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned the bankruptcy auction (pdf) of the 150,000+ domain name owned by Jeff Baron and Ondova and found that Receivership set up by a lower court should never have been set up in the first place. You may recall that 150,000+ domain names of Jeff Baron and Ondova was sold by a bankruptcy court just last month for $5.2 Million dollars. The court which stayed the bankruptcy sale just two weeks ago by this ruling now ruled that  no closing may ... read more ...
Sun 23rd December 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN Decides Where To Invest the $355 Cash Haul From New gTLD Program - The ICANN  Board adopted a New gTLD Funds Investment Policy selecting Bridgebay Investment Consultant Services to assist in the design of a specific investment policy for management the funds held for the New gTLD Program” Here is the relevant part of Board Resolution.“ICANN has collected approximately US$355 million of application fees from applicants for generic top-level domains (gTLDs) in the New gTLD Program (net from pre-reveal withdrawals). “The purpose of these application fees is ... read more ...
Sat 22nd December 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN 2014 Meeting Locations Announced: Singapore, London & North America -           ICANN has announced that their 2014 meetings will be held in Singapore, London and somewhere in North America. The 2013 meetings will be held in Beijing China, South Africa and Buenos Aires. ICANN recently held a meeting in Singapore in June 2011, however that meeting was originally set for Jordan but due to conflicts in the middle east at that time, the meeting was moved to Singapore in February of that year. For those that haven’t gone to Singapore or London for that matter I ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN 48 To Be Held In Nov 2013 in Buenos Aires -           ICANN has selected Buenos Aires, Argentina as for their Latin America fall 2013 meeting. The Meeting will be held from 17-21 November 2013 The budget shall not to exceed US$2.37 Million The Buenos Aires meeting is  designated as ICANN‘s 2013 Annual General Meeting. If your wondering Thanksgiving in the United States is November 28, 2013. The good news is you have almost a full year to get some Tango lessons in before you hit Buenos Aires. The next ICANN meeting will be held in ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New gTLD Applicant Group Blasts ICANN On “Slippage Of Timelines” In Program - New gTLD Applicant Group (NTAG) blasted ICANN on meeting its deadlines and time frames on various on the new gTLD program. The letter cites 6 major issues involving the new gTLD program and ICANN for extending previously announced deadlines: Release of Contention Sets Release of Background Screening Results Extension of Rights Protection Comment Window Extension of Objection Deadline Extension of Completion of Initial Evaluation Results Clarifying Questions and the number of TLD that ICANN will delegate ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Domain Holder Beats Back UDRP On ManhattanCenter.com, Without An Attorney - A one member UDRP panel rejected the claim of Manhattan Center Studios, Inc. on the domain manhattancenter.com The domain name is owned by James Lawson who won this UDRP without the representation of an attorney and almost got a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH), although we are not sure why the panel did not makes such a finding in this case The domain holder acquired the domain name on a drop in 2004. The panel denied the complaint that was brought on a common law trademark claim ... read more ...
Fri 21st December 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Pool Shutting Down Registrar Threads: Refocusing From Drop Catching To New gTLD’s - We just got this email from Pool.com this morning: “The impending launch of new gTLDs has led Pool.com to refocus its business away from an emphasis on the secondary market and to a broader range of on-going services. ” “As a result, we will be shutting down a number of our registrar threads effective January 10, 2013. ” “This will have an effect on some of your domains acquired through Pool.com (a list of names is included below)”. Pool.com of course has been one of the three major dropping ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Wait, Pool.com is still in a dump throwing business? - Pool has long been irrelevant in the expired domain business. This morning I read Michael’s post about Pool “de-emphasizing” its expired domain drop catching business in favor of new TLD business opportunities. My first reaction was “Wait, Pool.com still does drop catching?” Alright, so obviously the first thing domainers think of when they hear the term “Pool” is expired domains. But I can’t think of the last time I’ve used the service or recommended ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Iran: .Gay domain would widespread hatred - Republic of Iran wants to stop .gay top level domain. The government of Iran has filed an early late warning to applicants for the .gay top level domain name. Iran thinks that a .gay top level domain will “spread of hatred and hostility in the society”. And it doesn’t think that’s an ironic statement. It further states: We believe that the right approach in new gTLD program should be based on creation of healthy environment in all the societies. Thus for ... read more ...