Monthly Archives: January 2013

Thu 3rd January 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Amazon Finally Starts Using A.co & Cloud.co - Amazon.com is finally starting to use half of the .co domain names they bought back in 2011. A.co is now being used as a shortener for Amazon.com and cloud.co is being used for Amazon’s Cloud Drive service It was back in May 2011 that Amazon announced it had acquired four .Co domains, A.co, K.co Z.co and Cloud.co for an undisclosed amount. However the domain name did not go immediately into service. In October 2011 Amazon announced it has acquired z.cn as a shortener for its Chinese official website ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
You’ve got to review this one: Marchex wins Reverse Domain Hijacking charge - UDRP panel finds pet transportation company guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. Marchex, with the help of domain name attorney John Berryhill, has won a charge of reverse domain name hijacking. The case was brought by Airpet Animal Transport, Inc for the domain name PetExpress.com. What makes this case particularly interesting to the public is the volume of the two parties’ pleadings that are included in the decision. The complainant clearly left out important ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
FTC manners hunt disposition is OK, settles on Google scraping - FTC says it’s OK that Google promotes its own vertical search properties over rivals since it is designed to improve overall search experience. The FTC has closed its investigation of Google and the search giant has agreed to make certain changes to its business practices. One key issue was “search bias”, or Google promoting its own vertical search products over rivals. This was particularly the case with vertical search engines, such as product comparison sites. Some ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO perceived record series of cybersquatting cases in 2012 - UDRP cases hit record at WIPO in 2012. World Intellectual Property Organization received a record number of UDRP cases in 2012. The organization’s web site reports 2,879 cases were filed in 2012, compared to 2,764 in 2011. The cases covered a total of 5,081 domain names. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise. Filings in the first half of the year at both WIPO and rival National Arbitration Forum were up compared to 2011. It’s worth noting that total filings ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo holiday finish user sales report - A slow couple weeks but some good end user domain purchases. Domain sales typically slow during the holidays, and that’s evident in Sedo’s year end sales report. The company turned in $1.38 million in sales over two weeks. It typically sells that much in one week. I’m still waiting on Afternic’s year end sales. For now here are the end user sales I found on Sedo’s report, including a sale to Warner Music. Everest Reinsurance Company bought SpecialtyInsuranceGroup.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
2012 Domain Dunce: new TLD applicants - Many companies made big screw-ups on their $185k TLD applications. New top level domain applications are long. They are tedious. They are (mostly) boring. Still, some applicants made some huge errors on their applications. Consider VeriSign, which messed up its transliteration of .com in Hebrew. According to IDN experts, the string VeriSign submitted would take 7 keystrokes instead of the intended 3. For one of the characters, you’d have to type a character, then ... read more ...
Wed 2nd January 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
Sedo Transactions for Two Weeks Total Just $1.38 Million - Sedo just published its weekly sales lists for the two weeks of December 17th—24th and December 24th—31st. Over the past two weeks, only 932 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.38 million. Over 40% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales include: ·         Top .com: zodia.com at 35,421 USD ·         Top ccTLD: contactbank.ru at 23,000 USD ·         Top “other” TLD: sporbahis.net at 10,100 ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Loft.XXX Becomes 1st Reported .XXX Domain Sale Of 2013 At $17k - Just crossing the Sedo.com wire is the sale of the domain name Loft.XXX for a very respectable 13,000 euros or just over $17,000 based on today’s exchange rates. The seller appears to be Markus Herbig who got the  domain back in December 2011. The domain is currently in Sedo.com escrow This appears to be the 1st reported .XXX domain sale of 2013 and a nice sale at that. Its also maybe the highest reported .XXX domain ever sold other than by the .XXX registry   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Flippa Opens Up Voting For The 1st Annual Flippie Awards - Flippa.com, has just opened voting for the first annual Flippie Awards, by honoring some of the best sites sold in 2012. Nominated websites were chosen from over 29,000 websites and domains that were sold on Flippa.com in 2012. The Flippie Committee chose sites based on the level of interest they attracted from website buyers, as well as quality factors such as monetization, content and uniqueness. With 5 separate categories, sites and domains in various industries will be honored with a Flippie. All ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Auctions sole 32,767 domains in December, led by $50k Marchex deal - Travel domain sells for $50,000 to lead Go Daddy sales last month. Go Daddy Auctions is reporting 32,767 domain names sold in December. The top sale was VisitSanFrancisco.com, a domain sold by Marchex. The $50,000 purchase was made by San Francisco Travel Association, which owns SanFrancisco.travel. Other top sales include: league.com $40,005 zodia.com $35,421 silvergate.com $22,000 – purchased by Silvergate Bank in Southern California. The bank’s site is SilvergateBank.com. beats.us ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
L’Oreal Chief Digital Officer to keynote new TLD conference - L’Oreal to discuss its new TLD plans at conference. L’Oreal Chief Digital Officer Georges-Edouard Dias will be a keynote speaker at the Digital Marketing gTLD Strategy Congress in March. The even takes place March 11-12 at the Dream Downtown Hotel in New York City. This will be one of the first “end user” applicants to speak about new top level domains at a conference and it should be interesting to learn more about the company’s plans. L’Oreal has applied ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
HSC.com domain name stolen - Technology company lost its domain name in the middle of December. Someone at communication technology company Hughes Systique Corporation must have had a rough holiday. The company, which is part of satellite company Hughes Communications, says its HSC.com domain name was stolen from its Go Daddy account around December 14. It has so far been unsuccessful in getting the domain name returned. Hughes filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) against the domain name on December ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
2012 in review: Top 10 Domain Name Wire stories - From airline mergers to politics to new TLDs, 2012 was an eventful year. There are two types of stories that catch fire on Domain Name Wire: ones relevant to domain investing and those relevant to the world at large. All of my posts have to do with domain names, but sometimes they’re merely a tip off of something going on in politics or business. Consider this year’s top story on Domain Name Wire: it was about the airline industry. Here are this year’s top stories ... read more ...
Tue 1st January 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Bloomberg Asks Online Experts What To Expect From New gTLD’s, ICANN IN 2013 - New gTLDs will either change the nature of the internet or will go the way of all other gTLDs introduced after .com (when was the last time you bought or went to a .biz domain name?). Or maybe a little of both depending on the gTLD. Either way, they are going to exponentially increase the cost of monitoring and enforcement for IP owners. Marc H. Trachtenberg, @winstonadvlaw, Partner, Winston Strawn LLP, Chicago. Expect around 1,200 new gTLDs to be approved for the internet in the next couple of ... read more ...