Monthly Archives: February 2013

Thu 28th February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Generic Domain Name Opulence.com Hit With UDRP - The domain name Opulence.com has been hit with a UDRP. With almost 8,000,000 references in Google opulence is a dictionary word that has been registered since at least 2000 according to Domaintools.com The domain name was owned until recently by  Opulence Communications Ltd of the UK with an expiration date of 2018. Suddenly in early 2013 the domain name whois information was gone and the domain name no longer resolves. There are 8  trademarks for the term Opulence filed with the USPTO. Neither ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CEO Of Marchex: We Don’t Believe The New TLDs Are A Significant Factor In Value of .Com’s - In the Marchex (MCHX) earnings call today a question was asked about how the new gTLD’s will effect .com’s values specifically those domains held by Marchex. and how the continued movement of consumers to smart phones will also effect the values. Here is the question which was asked by  Andre Sequin  of RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division: “In terms of the value of the domain portfolio, how do you think the introduction of the new gTLDs, which will be happening here in the next 2 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domainers give curtsy to NameJet for lapsed domains - NameJet selected as best service for expired domain names. When it comes to snagging expired domain names, NameJet gets top billing amongst domain investors. 33% of respondents in Domain Name Wire’s 8th annual survey said NameJet is the best expired domain service. NameJet, a partnership between Demand Media and Web.com, has exclusive access to the expired domain stream from some of the older registrars including Web.com companies Network Solutions and Register.com. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Top 5 domain news stories for February - A much talked-about kiss is the biggest domain news story of the month. February is one of those months that catches you off guard. With only 28 days, things you plan to finish “by the end of the month” get pushed into March. Despite the short month, February is always a big month for domain industry buzz thanks to the Super Bowl. And that’s where we’ll start this month’s list. 1. Wow: the Bar Refaeli Go Daddy Super Bowl commercial – it had the right mix ... read more ...
Wed 27th February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Fallout From Contention Sets: .Law/.Lawyer; .Hotel/.Hotels; .Car/.Cars & Many More - Now that ICANN has stuck to its guns and only placed 4 new gTLD’s strings that look confusingly similar into contention sets, rather than those that sound identical, such as .inc and .ink or those that have the same meaning like .Law and .Lawyer or those that are singular and plurals of the same word, we now know what we will get when the new gTLD’s roll out and in part its going to be a very a tough marketing road for some of the strings. Not only will the new gTLD strings have to sell themselves ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Nominet Haults Plan For .Uk Domain Names, For Now - According to a post on its blog, Nominet.org.uk, is stopping with its plan to sell  the shorter, “direct.uk,  domain names for now. Nominet says there will be studying the issue over the coming months. The plan which would have allowed Nominet the company that runs the .UK ccTLD to start selling domains ending in just .UK rather than the current .co.Uk came under attack by domain holders and others in the domain space. According to the announcement listened to the “feedback” and decided it ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Ron Paul Now Files UDRP For RonPaul.Org -                   A couple of weeks after Ron Paul filed a UDRP with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for the domain name RonPaul.com, the congressman has now filed a UDRP on the domain name RonPaul.org The domain RonPaul.org is being forwarded to RonPaul.com which is a “fan site”. The domain RonPaul.org is owned by a Martha Roberts of  DN Capital Inc out of Panama and has a creation date of 1999.  RonPaul.com is owned by another company out of Panama. RonPaul.net ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainHack.er in NL and tagged
ICANN beschermt tegen domeintjepik - Domeinenbaas ICANN opent eind maart een lijst waarop bedrijven kunnen intekenen om te voorkomen dat derden hun merknaam inpikken als topleveldomein. Zo wordt voorkomen dat boeven of concurrenten domeinen krijgen onder extensies als .klm en .heineken. Vanaf 26 maart kunnen merkeigenaren zich voor 150 dollar per jaar indekken tegen rare praktijken met hun namen via topleveldomeinen. Vanaf die dag kunnen zij zich melden ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Breaking: ICANN Publishes Contention Sets & Only Puts Four Non-Match gTLD’s Strings Together - ICANN just published it long awaited New gTLD String Similarity Contention Sets fand quite surprisingly just put four non-matching applications into two contention sets. ICANN placed the new gTLD application for: .Hoteis by  Despegar Online SRL into the same contention set as  the application by Booking.com for .Hotels ICANN however, did not include the 7 applications for .Hotel into the contention set for .Hotels. It should also be noted that the applicant for .Hoteis also has an application for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Marchex domain sales dump in Q4, $6.3 million for a year - A look at Archeo’s revenue numbers. Marchex just reported earnings for Q4 2012 and the full year. It sold just $863,000 worth of domain names last quarter, which gave it $6.3 million in domain sales for the year. Had it already been spun out, its Archeo domain name and directory business would have generated $5.5 million in revenue last quarter without domain sales, which was about the same as the prior quarter. With domain sales it would have generated $6.4 million ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
20 finish user domain sales from Afternic - Insurance, media, and vitamin companies among domain buyers. Here are 20 end user sales completed at Afternic last week. Last week I wrote about American Association of Young People buying YAU.us for $3,200. Now they’ve bought YPNC.com for $3,300. Advanced Healthcare Partners in Florida bought LungInstitute.com for $3,750. A site launching later this year did a much needed upgrade: iPropertyz.com bought Propertyz.com for $5,000. Now if they just did something about ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Home Depot buys ThrilloftheGrill.com from Mike Mann for $30,000 - A big domain sale to a big company is among Sedo’s highlights this past week. Earlier this month Mike Mann posted on his Facebook page that he sold the domain ThrillOfTheGrill.com for a sizzling $30,000. Now the sale through partner Sedo has gone through and we know who the buyer is: Home Depot. Here are other sales to end users that Sedo reported this week: Leap Legal Software bought Leap.co.uk for $5,000. J2 Global, parent company of eFax.com, bought eFax.gr for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nominet shelves devise for shorter .uk domain names (for now) - No second level registrations — for now. .UK registry Nominet has delayed approving its own proposal for offer second level domain names. The proposal would have allowed people to register domain names at the second level (e.g. name.uk) instead of the existing third level requirement (e.g. name.co.uk). That concerned existing registrants of third level domain names, who wouldn’t necessarily be first in line to get the second level equivalent of their third level ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ron Paul files another domain brawl targeting RonPaul.org - Ron Paul files additional domain dispute. Ron Paul has filed another domain name complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization. The new case is targeted solely at RonPaul.org. Earlier this month Paul filed a case against both RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org. So why a new case specifically for the .org? The original case against the .com and .org has not been withdrawn (at least yet), so this doesn’t appear to be a case where the parties have amicably settled ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
A lot of worrying for nothing: usually 4 new TLDs are too similar - Only for top level domain applicants find themselves ensnared by string similarity. Did you hear that? It’s a collective sigh of relief from many new top level domain applicants. Today ICANN announced which domain names would be placed into string similarity contention sets, meaning they are likely to create confusion among users thanks to their similarity. There are only two contention sets involving a total of four domains: .hotels (booking.com) .hoteis (Despegar ... read more ...
Tue 26th February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo Transactions Total $1.6 Million Led By Two Portuguese Domains - Sedo.com just released its weekly report. In all  844 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling over $1.6m. Over 42% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. The weekly sales were led by vagadeemprego.com which means  “job vacancy” in Portuguese The highest selling non-com was a .TV, Jogo.tv at $15,000 Euro’s or around $18K Jogo is also Portuguese meaning “Game”   Here are the reportable sales: <![CDATA[]]>Domain name  Price  Currency .COMs vagadeemprego.com  60,000   ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic Sells $1,050,000 In Domain Names Led By ChillerSystems.com For $18K - Afternic.com just released its weekly reportable domain sales report for the week of 2/18/13 – 2/24/13. Total domain sales for the week, including confidential sales and sales under $1000, summed to $1,043,176 All domain sales were led by ChillerSystems.com at $18K and we must mention the domain comingtoamerica.com a very funny Movie back in the day and a great call to action type of domain which was bought by an end user for what we think is a very good price for the buyers.   Here are the reportable ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Microsoft Releases ccTLD Registry Security Assessment Service To Find & Fix Security Vulnerabilities - Microsoft released the Microsoft Country-Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) Registry Security Assessment Service at the RSA Conference today in San Francisco: The new service was designed to help ccTLD registry operators find and fix security vulnerabilities before they are exploited. The offical annoucment was made on technet.com. “The exploitation of vulnerabilities specific to country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) registries has become an increasingly common problem, especially in relatively small ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Brands Are Missing The Boat Catching Cheap TM Domains On The Drop & Saving UDRP Money - Brands which have endlessly expressed their concerns over cybersquatting in the new gTLD’s space and complained about the cost of enforcement of their trademarks in existing TLD’s and ccTLD’s are still missing a huge opportunity to secure dropping trademark infringing domains for nominal fees. Brands which spent thousands of dollars to bring a single UDRP are failing to take advantage of  registering dropping trademark infringing domains which would save them not only a huge amount of money ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
TLDH (Minds + Machines) Gets Additional $15M In Funding For New gTLD Auctions - According to a press release we were sent today by Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (AIM:TLDH), better known to the domain community as Mind + Machines, the Company “has agreed a funding facility to support its participation in a prospective auction in relation to a specific contested gTLD application”. “The conditional funding will be provided solely in exchange for a perpetual share in the gross revenue generated by the gTLD string so funded (“Auction gTLD”) should the Company be successful ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Melbourne IT Promises A “Huge Dividend” From New gTLD Defensive Registrations - According to ComputerWorld.com.au, on a conference call with media after reporting its financial results for 2012 resulting in revenue and profit declines, Melbourne IT CEO Theo Hnarakis said ICANN’s release of new gTLDs would generate a “huge dividend” for the company in 2013. Mr. Hnarakins is quoting as saying: “We have 3800 corporate customers, many of which are very defensively oriented in protecting their brand,” “When these new extensions are launched, they naturally register that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
More sum about URS and National Arbitration Forum - Pricing not set, but technology paved the way for inexpensive service. Last week ICANN announced that it appointed The National Arbitration Forum as an administrator of the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS). URS is a faster and cheaper way to take down an infringing domain name than a UDRP. While faster and cheaper, it doesn’t result in the transfer of a domain when the complainant wins. ICANN posted the two page memorandum of understanding between it and National ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
No surprise: Escrow.com is still your favorite escrow service - Escrow.com is most popular domain escrow service for domain investors. There’s one question on the Domain Name Wire survey that always has a predictable result: Escrow.com is selected as the best domain escrow service. This year it once again came out on top by a wide margin. Here are the results: 1. Escrow.com 66% 2. Sedo 15% 3. Afternic 7% 4. eCop 4% 5. Moniker 3% As one of few pure play escrow services, Escrow.com has constantly innovated to meet the needs of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TLDH gets adult to $15 million for a singular tip turn domain name auction - TLDH and investor are going big on one top level domain. Top Level Domain Holdings Limited announced it has received up to $15 million in backing to be used to chase a single top level domain at auction. The money is strictly for bidding in an auction for one undisclosed TLD. Not disclosing which domain the funding is for was a brilliant move. Now companies in a contention set with TLDH will have to worry about which domain TLDH will have this warchest for. The money ... read more ...
Mon 25th February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Despite Trademark, Artek.com Saved In UDRP - A one member WIPO panel ruled in the favor of the domain holder in a case published today on the domain name Artek.com The complaint was brought by Artek oy ab of Helsinki, Finland  founded in 1935. The Complainant has continuously used the sign “artek” in business since it was founded. “The Complainant’s business is known worldwide as an innovative contributor to modern design and furniture, building on the heritage of the famous architect and designer Alvar Aalto”. “The Complainant ... read more ...