Monthly Archives: February 2013

Wed 20th February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
AnyDoc.com Saved In UDRP Despite Predated Trademark and Non-Use - Microsystems Technology, Inc. d/b/a ANYDOC of Tampa, Florida just lost a UDRP on the domain AnyDoc.com which is owned by Matthew Lamb, despite having a trademark on the term since 2004 and despite the fact that since the domain holder acquired it at SnapNames.com in  2006 the panel found the domain name usually did not resolve  and when it did, it went to a parked page with some links to products which compete with the trademark holder. Actually it seems the 6 year passive holding of the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Ruling is Out: After Spending $60K To Acquire GED.Net, Domain Lost In UDRP - Yesterday we let you know that A UDRP panel awarded the domain name GED.net to the company that administers the exam and owns the trademark on the term Today we have the actual opinion of the UDRP panel and with it additional facts. The first big surprise for me is that the domain holder failed to demand a three member panel and allowed to take the luck of the draw with a one member panel. Extremely surprising after reading in the opinion that the domain holder acquired this domain for $60,000 not ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
25 More End User Domain Sales - CarMax and United Way among buyers at Afternic last week. Here are 25 end user domain sales from Afternic last week. Young Americans United, which is part of American Association of Young People, bought YAU.us for $3,200. A CSC client bought Skytouch.net for $1,000 Carbon Credit Solutions Inc. went global with CarbonCreditSolutions.com for $2,500. It already owns CarbonCreditSolutions.ca. Barry L. Cohen Associates paid $1,088 for CohenLaw.net. United Way of Metro ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What domains Yelp, Bayer, and 16 others bought this week - Sedo brokers domain to Yelp and 17 other end user buyers. Sedo had a fairly strong week for end user domain sales, including selling a .ph domain to Yelp. Here’s the list: Harley Street Health Checks UK Ltd picked up HealthChecks.co.uk for 1,051 GBP. Reviews site Yelp bought Yelp.com.ph, the country code domain for the Philippines, for $4,000. Domainers.eu sold for 789 EUR. Regardless of whether it was bought for business or as an investment, it qualifies as an ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN vouchsafing registrar negotiations reason new TLDs hostage - No new agreement, no new TLDs. Last week I wrote about how ICANN’s latest proposed registry agreement for new TLD operators. The agreement mandates that new TLD operators use only domain registrars that have signed the new Registrar Accreditation Agreement with ICANN. The problem is that the RAA doesn’t exist yet. As far as we know, it’s still be negotiated. And negotiations are contentious. Michele Neylon of Irish registrar Blacknight submitted comments to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Another upside to sealed general TLDs: fewer defensive registrations - The more domains that are “closed”, the less brand protection is required. Last week I wrote about why I’m not concerned with companies registering generic terms as TLDs (e.g. .blog, .book) and keeping them “closed” to other parties for second level registrations. Today I was reminded of another benefit to some of these domains being closed, and why I find it ironic that big brands are upset over closed TLDs. Retail Council of Canada (RCC) sent a letter ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ECommerce association Eyemagine found guilty of retreat domain name hijacking - Company claimed rights to domain registered in 1996, well before it started using the name as a brand. Irvine, California eCommerce technology company Eyemagine Technology LLC has been found by the World Intellectual Property Organization to be guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. The company, which says it started using the Eyemagine brand in 2003, filed the complaint against a construction company that registered the domain eyemagine.com way back in 1996. The ... read more ...
Tue 19th February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Demand Media Considering A Separate Co. For Registrar, Registry & Aftermarket - Demand Media(DMD) today announced that its board of directors has authorized a plan to explore separating its business into two independent, publicly-traded companies: A pure-play media company with a powerful outsourced content creation platform that organically grows its audience, leading web properties that reach over 100 million monthly unique visitors, and an integrated monetization platform that incorporates branded, network and mobile revenue streams; and A pure-play domain services company ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Demand Reports: Content Revenue Up 25%; Registrar Up 10%: Domains Up to 13.7 Million - Demand Media, Inc.(DMD), today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2012 and combined with Demand’s statement that they are considering spiting the company into to different public companies,  shares are up over 17% in after hours trading. Q4 2012 Financial Summary: Content Media revenue ex-TAC grew 25% year-over-year, driven by 24% page view growth on the Company’s owned operated properties as well as 37% growth in network RPMs ex-TAC, reflecting ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo.com Transactions for The Week Total $1.2 Million - Sedo.com just reported its weekly transactions, in all 763 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling just under $1.2m. Over 45% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales include: ·         Top .com: partners.com at 125,000 USD ·         Top ccTLD: videoshop.tv at 14,000 EUR ·         Top “other” TLD: assurance.org at 16,500 EUR All sales were led by Partners.com at $125K. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic Sells $1.1 Million In Domains Led by DiscountLoans.com At $39,000 - Afternic.com just published it reportable weekly domain sales for the week of 2/11/13 – 2/17/13. Total domain sales for the week, including confidential sales and sales under $1000, summed to $1,083,230 Sales were led by DiscountLoans.com at $39,000 and Clearwireless.com which sold for $12,000 probably to clearwire.com although the whois hasn’t updated yet. Non-.com’s were led by Hey.co which sold for $7,400.   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
GED.net Lost In UDRP - The domain name GED.net has been lost  in a UDRP in a case filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) We first wrote about this case when it was filed in November, noting at the time the domain name wasn’t a parked page but an informational site about the exam. The complainant is the  American Council on Education GED Testing Service LLC whose official site is Acenet.edu and who develops and delivers the GED test. According to DomainTools.com the domain was first registered ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UDRP Filed On Two Letter .Org: RT.Org - A two letter .Org domain name has just been hit with a UDRP. The domain name is RT.Org The domain is owned by Alexa Properties, LLC and goes to a Sedo parked page. The complaint was filed by The Restored Church of God whose site is at RCG.org The complainant,  The Restored Church of God has a trademark on the term, The Restored Church of God which was filed in 2008. The complainant The Restored Church of God also filed for two trademarks for the term RCG in 2011. The domain name has been owned by ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainHack.er in NL and tagged
Trademark Clearinghouse - In tegenstelling tot een handelsnaam dient een merk te worden geregistreerd voordat de bescherming daarvan kan worden ingeroepen. Een centraal register houdt de registraties bij. Voor Benelux-merken moet men bijvoorbeeld aankloppen bij het ‘Benelux-Bureau voor de Intellectuele Eigendom’, voor Europese merken houdt het ‘Harmonisatiebureau voor de interne markt’ de geldige merken bij. Merkhouders dienen periodiek te betalen voor de registratie van hun merk. Ontwikkelingen ICANN: Een ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
GM Withdraws Two More new gTLD Applications: .Cadillac & .Chevrolet - After withdrawing its application for .GMC, General Motors has withdrawn 2 more of its new gTLD applications with ICANN. GM has withdrawn its applications for .Cadillac .Chevrolet which become the 16th and 17th new gTLD application to be withdrawn. Officially General Motors still has a two new gTLD application remaining for .Buick and .Chevy but that seems like only a matter of time until those applications are withdrawn as well and reflected on ICANN.org. In all GM spent close to $1 Million dollars ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Demand Media considers spinning off domain name business - Domain business might become its own company. Demand Media, parent company of eNom and Name.com, is considering splitting its business in two. The move would see its domain assets and online media business separated. The domain business would have annual revenues of $150 million+ with gross margins around 20%, and the media business would be $250 million+ with 30%+ margins. Michael Blend will be working on the process of spinning out the domain business. While the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Where in a universe in Ron Sheridan? Here’s a “photo” that will uncover you. - Early Oversee.net employee has a new startup. Ron Sheridan was Oversee.net’s first employee and was a fixture in the domain name industry until he left the company in 2009. Since then he’s joined the web startup world. He was at Oversee.net’s Webfest a couple weeks ago showing off his latest venture, Pixt. Pixt is a photo sharing and collaboration platform. I’m not a big photo sharer, even on social networks, but Sheridan was able to quickly show me the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nintendo files censure over WiiU.com - Company says owner is cybersquatting with WiiU.com domain name. Nintendo released WiiU, the successor to its popular Wii video game system Wii, in November. But it was missing a key online marketing ingredient: the domain name WiiU.com. Now it has filed a cybersquatting complaint with World Intellectual Property Forum in an effort to get the domain name. The whois record for the domain shows a registration date of 2004, well before Nintendo came up with the name for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Get your one-year-old reward domains right here, folks! - A strange pitch for a domain name. I receive a lot of funny emails pitching domain names for sale. From the completely-unrelated-domain pitch: “Because you own HonoluluNannies.com, we thought you might like the domain SuperFastSportsCarsDepot.com” to the WTF would anyone do with that domain? pitch: “LasVegasCruises.com is now for sale!” (that was a real pitch I got last week). This week’s selling point? That a domain was one year old. I received two emails ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Survey: domainers have a new favorite domain parking company - InternetTraffic selected as top domain parking company. Less than two years after opening his own domain parking platform, domain investor Frank Schilling is at the top of the heap. Participants in Domain Name Wire’s 8th annual industry survey have selected InternetTraffic as the top domain parking service. Data show that the domain parking business is still fragmented. InternetTraffic received 22% of the vote but seven companies received at least 6%. Here are the ... read more ...
Mon 18th February 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Approval To Bid On 1 & 2 Character .Org Domains At Godaddy.com Opens Today - Go Daddy will be auctioning off  42 rare, valuable one- and two-character .org registry owned domain names as part of Project 94. However the registry,  Public Interest Registry (PIR) set aside these .org domain names for registrants who embody its core values. Starting today, if you want to participate in the auction, you can request approval on the .org Event Auction page. We recommend requesting approval before the auction begins on March 18, 2013. The last day to request approval is March 25, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Me Registry Publishes Infographic Highlighting The Success of .Me - The .Me Registry published an infographic highlighting the success of the registry today. According to the .Me registry: 53% of .Me domains are registered in the US; 46% of .Me domains are registered by businesses; That .Me is the most popular domain choice for startups after .com; There are still 35% of three-character .me domain names available! You can find all the details in the detailed infographic we’ve created for you reading and viewing pleasure:   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
City of Soledad “gets it”, registers domains associated to new inhabitant park - City registers multiple domain names for new branding campaign. I write about municipalities fumbling domain names all the time, so it’s nice to be able to write about the opposite. The city of Soledad, California is seizing on the nearby Pinnacles being elevated to National Park status by rebranding itself as the “Gateway to the Pinnacles.” It has smartly registered nine domain names related to this new slogan, reports the L.A. Times. The story mentions only ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eHow: “How to Become a Domain Broker” - …in six simple steps. eHow is owned by Demand Media, which owns the world’s second largest domain name registrar, eNom. These guys know a lot about domain names. Unfortunately you can’t say the same thing about eHow’s writers. A Domain Name Wire reader sent me this humorous article “How to Become a Domain Broker”. The good news is all you need to become a domain broker is a credit card or PayPal account, according to the author. Once you read through the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cargill registers Truvia lawsuit domain names - Cargill gets defensive with domain name registrations. Food giant Cargill registered dozens of domain names on Friday, many of which could be used to protect the company against a backlash over its Truvia sweetener and other company products. The domain names range from innocuous to damage control. Many of the domains were likely registered to keep them out of the hands of class action attorneys, e.g. cargill-classaction.com and cargill-truvia-lawsuit.com. Other domains ... read more ...