Monthly Archives: February 2013

Mon 25th February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
Now That uBank Got A $8M Investment They Will Buy The Domain uBank.com - According to Quintura.com, “The Russian venture capital firm Runa Capital has invested $8 million in uBank, a Russian mobile payment provider”. “uBank offers a mobile app for smartphones that helps pay utility bills. Released last December, uBank free app for Android has been downloaded more than 250K times from Google Play.” What the company does not have is the domain name uBank.com. The domain name which has been registered since 1997 is parked at Sedo.com and does NOT have a BIN now price. In ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The 6th Annual Launch Festival Gets Started In SF On Mar 4th: Launch.co - The 6th Annual Launch festival is being held in San Fransico on March 4th–6th and their official site is Launch.co The 2013 LAUNCH Festival  according to show organizers is “the the best place to launch your startup, raise money and learn about starting a company”. The Festival awards prizes and has an impressive list of judges Here are the just some of the prizes: Grand Prize $25,000 investment or $10,000 cash from Jason Calacanis $25,000 investment or $10,000 cash from Dharmesh Shah The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Ernst & Young finds out that code insurance is easier in .US - Company doesn’t have to pay to protect domains with the S word. I got a chuckle out of a few domain names that had a registrant change last week. The three domains were all previously registered to Ernst Young: ernstandyoungeatsshit.us ernstyoungeatsshit.us eyeatsshit.us Obviously brand protection company Mark Monitor helped the company register these domains back in 2009 for defensive purposes rather than for a new consulting practice. Which makes it somewhat ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Oakley goes after counterfeiters and their domain names - Sunglass brand fights counterfeiters with federal lawsuit. Oakley has filed UDRP cases in the past to take down sites selling fake Oakley sunglasses. Now it’s going for damages against alleged counterfeiters with a federal lawsuit (pdf) filed in Illinois on Friday. The lawsuit alleges that the owners of an unspecified number of domain names are selling counterfeit goods using the domains. The actual domain names at issue were filed under seal. Oakley is asking the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DNForum is tip domain forum again - No surprise: DNForum is your favorite. DNForum.com has once again been voted the top domain name forum in Domain Name Wire’s annual survey. The survey of over 500 domain name investors and professionals selected the long running domain forum as the clear winner. 45% of survey respondents selected DNForum as their favorite. Although that’s less than last year’s 54% share, there’s still a long gap between DNForum and its competitors. It was a close battle for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lead Gen association buys AutoInsurance.com domain name - Big insurance domain name changes hands. Lead generation company TZ Insurance Solutions, LLC, also known as Tranzact, appears to have purchased the domain name AutoInsurance.com. Domain investor P.A. Gordon owned the AutoInsurance.com domain. Nameserver records show that the domain name was apparently leased to OnlineAutoInsurance.com since early 2010. Tranzact recently acquired OnlineAutoInsurance.com, but a source says the AutoInsurance.com lease may not have been ... read more ...
Sun 24th February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
The Academy Awards Rebranded as “The Oscars” Why Isn’t TheOscars.com Working? - I’m sure a lot of you will be watching the Academy Awards’ tonight.  This  is actually the first year in which the award show has been officially Rebranded as The Oscars. The award show is put on by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts Sciences which owns most of all the related domain names, including AcademyAwards.com, Oscar.com, Oscars.com and TheOscars.com All of the domain names forward to the official site for the Award show at oscar.go.com except for TheOscars.com, which is the new official ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UDRP Panel Should Have Found Reverse Domain Name Hijacking In Case Of simplyinked.com - LD Products, Inc. lost its attempt to steal the domain name simplyinked.com and lucked out without a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) when the domain holder didn’t respond to the complaint. Although the Complainant says it was founded in 1999, it just filed for a trademark on the term “SIMPLYINK” on March 30, 2010, which was registered December 20, 2011. The domain holder which “failed to submit a Response in this proceeding, registered the simplyinked.com domain name on February ... read more ...
Sat 23rd February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Disney Loses UDRP On 3 Domains Related To The Broadway Musical Aladdin - In a one member panel UDRP decision handed down by the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) Disney Enterprises, Inc. and Marvel Characters, Inc lost a UDRP seeking three domain names related to the coming Broadway Musical Aladdin but won 10 other domains related to Disney Broadway shows. All the domain names were parked. The UDRP was filed for a total of 13 domain names: Aladdinonbroadway.com Aladdinthemusical.com Aladdinmusical.com Disneymeetup.com Disneyonbroadway.net Disneythemusical.com Mickeymouseonbroadway.com Spider-manonbroadway.com Spider-manthemusical.com Spidermanonbroadway.net Tangledonbroadway.com Thedisneydream.com Thedisneyfantasy.com The ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Another Brand New gTLD Applicant Drops Out This Time AIG on .CHARTIS - Another .Brand new gTLD application has been withdrawn.  American International Group, Inc. (AIG) has withdrawn its application for .Chartis with ICANN. .Chartis was proposed to be used as a closed registry and becomes the 19th withdrawn new gTLD application posted on ICANN’s website. American International Group, Inc. still has a new gTLD application in for .AIG which has a priority number of 174 while .Chartis has a propriety number of 1782. Here is how AIG described its application for .Chartis “AIG ... read more ...
Fri 22nd February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
Who Would Have Thought .Biz Domains Will Cost More Than .Com - In its letter to ICANN today, Neustar the operator of the .Biz registry, notified ICANN that it will be raising the wholesale cost of a .Biz domain name registration or renewal to $8.63 effective September 1, 2013 Once the increase goes into effect the wholesale cost of a .Biz registration will be higher than the wholesale cost of a .Com Currently the wholesale price of .Biz is exactly the same amount of a .Com $7.85 . According to the most recent monthly report filed with ICANN, the .Biz registry ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Did Someone Today Put At Risk Losing A $100K Domain In A UDRP? - I got the newsletter from Calvin Washington at Perfect Investments about a hour ago and was shocked to see the domain name Ferraris.com as the star of the newsletter with an asking price of $100,000. The domain name goes to a parked page and has links to » Ferrari Photos » Ferrari F430 » Maserati Cars as well as rental car companies. Its a domain name that could be problematic to being with, then to park it and put it on top of in a newsletter sent out to who knows how many people with a six figure ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
After 75K In Lost Domains, Igal In Death Teaches Us We Need An After Life Plan - This week the domain industry mourned the death of one of its greats, Igal Lichtman. The tragic loss of Igal, way before his time, is also a cautionary tale for all domainers, as some of Igal’s prize domains were lost this week as well. Three domain names owned by Igal’s company, Mrs Jello LLC, expired and were auctioned off this week generating almost $75,000 in sales for the auction companies but nothing for the family of Igal. (these are the only one’s I know of but there could have been ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Neustar to lift .biz prices 10% - Cost of renewing or registering a .biz domain name will increase later this year. Neustar (NYSE: NSR) will hike the wholesale cost of .biz domain name registrations 10% this fall. Michele Neylon of Blacknight reported about the increase announcement today. The wholesale cost will increase from $7.85 to $8.63, an increase of $.78, effective September 1. Public Interest Registry recently announced plans to increase the wholesale cost of a .org registration to $8.25. While ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Survey: GoDaddy.com is your favorite domain registrar, and here’s why - The biggest registrar is also a domain investor favorite. There may be a causal relationship there. This year’s survey of over 500 domain professionals shows that GoDaddy.com is the clear favorite registrar. You probably didn’t need a survey to tell you that given that the company registers about half of all new domain names. Nonetheless, 48% of survey respondents selected GoDaddy.com as their favorite registrar. The next highest contender had just 8%. Here are ... read more ...
Thu 21st February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN Announces Pre-Beijing Meeting Webinar: Here is How You Can Participate - ICANN just announced that it will be holding a webinar before Beijing Meeting. “Whether you plan to participate in the upcoming ICANN meeting in Beijing remotely or in person, you’re invited to an update on the background and current status of major policy issues which are likely to be discussed during the Beijing Meeting. The ICANN Policy Staff will provide a briefing on Thursday 21 March at 12.00 UTC and Thursday 21 March at 19.00 UTC, summarizing policy issues across the different ICANN Supporting ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Acting President & CTO Of Mike Mann’s DomainMarket Resigns - According to his Facebook Page the Acting President and CTO of Mike Mann’s DomainMarket.com, Chad Bennett has resigned. Chad Bennett wrote on his Facebook page today: After a little more than 10 months as acting President and CTO of DomainMarket, I officially resigned last Friday. In the short time I was there we doubled e-commerce revenues and traffic to the website, increased monthly revenues by over 160%, lowered our expenses by tens of thousands a month and had created a completely new internal ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN: Over 22% Of Changes Requests From New gTLD Applicants Not Approved Or Posted Yet - According to ICANN’s site, 143 new gTLD application which changes were requested by the evaluators still have either not been update or the changes have not been accepted by ICANN As of February 19, 2013 there were a total of 631 change requests submitted to applicants and only 488 of the change requests have been approved posted. Percentage wise that means that of all the  change requests submitted to applicants over 22% have still not been either submitted back to ICANN and/or not approved ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN terminates registrar with over 75,000 domain names - Registrar blamed for not maintaining accurate registrant data. ICANN has followed up on its threats by terminating Bargin Register’s registrar accreditation. ICANN sent a breach notice to the company in November, stating that the company had failed to respond to UDRP verification requests from multiple UDRP providers. According to the termination notice (pdf), as of February 20 the registrar still hadn’t maintained registration data and records for at least one ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Brand.com goes on a market - This domain name doesn’t need branding. For the first time since it was originally registered in 1995, the domain name Brand.com is up for sale. [Update: it has sold.] Chuck Pettis registered the domain name in 1995 and used it for his company BrandSolutions. BrandSolutions has advised a who’s who of major brands on their branding strategy over the years. He’s been reluctant to part with the domain name, which has been closely tied to the business. “I’ve ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A elementary doubt each .brand applicant should ask their consultant today - With deadline looming for partial refund, now is the time for TLD applicants to do a gut check. They aren’t quite dropping like flies, but .brand top level domain applicants are starting to pull out. GM is withdrawing all of its bids. Hasbro is gone. Eli Lilly pulled one of its drug names. Suddenly, I suspect a lot of brand owners will rethink their decision to apply for a new top level domain — especially those beyond their core brand. Although GM gave a general ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
When will Sony go after Playstation4.com? - Company announced new video game system but hasn’t yet secured key domain name. Sony gave the first glimpse of the capabilities of its forthcoming PlayStation 4 yesterday. You’ll find plenty of information about it at Playstation4.com, but that’s not an official site. The domain name is owned by Poise Media Inc., which forwards the domain to its PSXextreme.com web site. Sony owns Playstation.com, Playstation2.com, and Playstation3.com. It’s only a matter of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Org Project 94 kicks off subsequent month - Short .org domains go on auction block beginning next month. Next month .org registry Public Interest Registry (PIR) will begin auctioning off domain names as part of Project 94. Project 94 is the marketing name for releasing 94 one and two character .org domain names that have been reserved since the top level domain was introduced in 1985. A handful of the 94 domain names have already been allocated to users (such as country code owners) and the remaining 85 will ... read more ...
Wed 20th February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
SnapNames.com “Feb Deals” Auction Ends Thursday & So Far Only 1 Bid - SnapNames.com is running a “February Deals” auction of 65 domain names all at “no reserve”. So far not many are taking advantage of the “deals” As of time of publication there is only 1 bid in the auction, that on the domain name healthmyths.com which has a bid at $199. Although the auction says all the domain are at “no reserve” when you go to place a bid the minimum 1st bid is $199 which of course is not a true, no reserve auction. But I digress. The auction ends tomorrow on February ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN Tells POLITICO On Closed Generic gTLD’s: “The Train is Leaving a Station” - Politico has posted about the new gTLD closed generic controversy asking “should a company be allowed to run a generic term such as tire, insurance or book as a domain and wall off its use from competitors?” In response, Akram Atallah, ICANN’s chief operating officer, told POLITICO “The train is leaving the station,” “There are a few instances where stakeholders are feeling this is an issue that could limit competition, and therefore, we should bring it to the forefront.”Philip ... read more ...