Author Archives: DomainNameWire

About DomainNameWire

Domain Name Wire is a blog that deals with the domain name sector. The blog covers a range of domain related topics ranging from issues concerning expiring domains, monetization, domain registries and registrars, ICANN, policy, law etc. The blog began in March, 2005, after Mr. Allemann had dropped out of meetings to become involved in domain portfolio company, iREIT. The project began as a hobby to keep him involved in the domaining business, and then became his full-time business.

Mon 22nd February 2016
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VaultPress drops it cost for WordPress confidence and backup - Must-have security service now costs less. I was one of the first customers to sue Automattic’s VaultPress service, and it has saved my behind on multiple occasions. VaultPress is a WordPress backup and security system created by WordPress. The backup tool is nice, but plenty of other companies offer some type of backup. It’s the security that makes this system a no-brainer. VaultPress scans your site for any potential security holes or hacking and alerts you when it finds something. It’s ... read more ...
 
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This week: Your dog can finally register a .Pet domain name - A new domain name for furry friends becomes available this week. There’s one new top level domain name entering general availability this week: .Pet from Afilias launches on Tuesday. The good news for pet lovers is that they won’t have to pay much to get Fido a domain name. Registrars I checked this morning are charging $12-$15 for .pet domains, about the same as a .com. This isn’t the first opportunity for animals to register a domain name. Over 5,000 people have registered .dog domains and ... read more ...
 
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A Domainer's Dashboard – DNW Podcast #72 - This service lets you get a handle on your domain name investing business. Can Efty help domain name investors make more money? Co-founder Doron Vermaat explains how Efty creates a dashboard for your domain business, and how it can help you sell more domain names. Also: Berkens’ big payday, Tesla gets Tesla.com, big .org contract out for bid, Rightside’s biz and .Cloud shoots up into the clouds. Subscribe via iTunes to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, or click play ... read more ...
 
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Is this retreat domain name hijacking? - Cybersquatting case between vineyards should have never been filed. A single-member UDRP panel has denied a California company’s attempt to get the domain name WilsonVineyard.com. I think the panelist should have also considered reverse domain name hijacking. The complainant is Wilson Vineyards, a California vineyard that uses the domain name WilsonVineyards.com (plural). The respondent was Wilson Vineyard, a Pennslyvania vineyard that uses the domain name WilsonVineyard.com (singular). Based on ... read more ...
 
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Antony Van Couvering dismissed as CEO of Minds + Machines - Van Couvering out, Hall in as CEO. Minds + Machines co-founder Antony Van Couvering has been ousted as CEO of the company by its board. He will be replaced by Toby Hall, who was named Chief Marketing Officer of the company just last month after working as a marketing consultant for the company. Hall was worked for years with companies publicly traded on the London AIM exchange. Minds + Machines trades as MMX on the AIM. In a press release issued today, the company wrote: The Group is currently making ... read more ...
Fri 19th February 2016
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Expired Domain Report: KeyPoint.com, SellOff.com and more - A weekly roundup of expired domain name sales. February 8 marked the Chinese New Year. Yes, 2016 is to be the “Year of the Monkey”. After the amazing surge in prices we saw during 2015 – the “Year of the Sheep”, it amuses me to say – the Chinese domain sector went through a predictable downturn that has lasted 2 months so far. Partly to allay worries about stagnant or falling prices, domain investors in the West have clung to this New Year holiday like a life raft, assuring one ... read more ...
 
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R.I.P. DNForum, 2001-2016 - DNForum has been offline for a week. I’m calling it: DNForum is dead. What was once the industry’s go-to place to discuss domain names has been down for a week. I’ve tried to contact forum owner Adam Dicker about it over Skype, but I have not heard back. Dan Gessler founded DNForum in 2001. Domain name investor Greg Ricks purchased the forum from Gessler about a year later, and then Adam Dicker acquired it from Ricks. DNForum used to be the place people went to get deals done, and there was ... read more ...
 
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.Cloud finishes a clever entrance week - 26,000 names registered as of today. The .Cloud top level domain name launched in General Availability on Tuesday, and had one of the most successful launches for a new top level domain name to date. .Cloud crossed the 20,000 domain name milestone after about 24 hours of general availability. As of this morning, it has about 26,000 registrations. Most of the names have sold for about $25 retail at registrars. Ten premium domains have also sold through the registrar channel as well, mostly at the ... read more ...
 
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DNAcademy is a good authority for new domain name investors - Online course will help new domain name investors get up-to-speed in a hurry. I’m always a bit wary when someone releases a course about investing in domain names. There are a handful of people selling domain names as a get rich scheme, and this ultimately harms the industry. But I believe a new online course from Mike Cyger, publisher of DomainSherpa, is a good resource for people just getting their feet wet in domain name investing. It will save them many hours of research, teaching them the ... read more ...
Thu 18th February 2016
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BrandShield takes a opposite plan in a universe of many TLDs - How should brands manage infringement in a world of many top level domain names? Brandshield suggests taking a common sense approach. Brands face new challenges in a world of many new top level domain name options. Brand protection company BrandShield, spun-off from a registrar in 2013, recommends that companies focus on infringement that really matters. In 2000, Yoav Keren and two colleagues launched a registrar reseller based in Israel called Domain The Net. Keren was a senior advisor in the Israeli ... read more ...
 
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Tesla finally acquires Tesla.com domain name - Tesla.com now forwards to TeslaMotors.com. Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) has finally acquired the Tesla.com domain name. It is now forwarding Tesla.com to TeslaMotors.com. The domain name was registered in 1992, well before the company was formed. The earliest whois record at DomainTools shows that the same person has owned the domain name since at least 2002, and may have been the original registrant. The domain name was registered to Stu Grossman of SG Consulting in California. (I will call him at ... read more ...
Wed 17th February 2016
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Did GoDaddy compensate $35.5 million for Michael Berkens' portfolio? - Maybe… GoDaddy released earnings today. Although the company doesn’t directly disclose how much the company paid for Michael Berkens’ Worldwide Media domain name portfolio, there’s a clue. As of the end of September, the company’s cash flow reconciliation included $30.7 million used for acquisitions. At the end of the year, the number spiked to $66.2 million. That’s a $35.5 million difference. This does not necessarily mean this was just for Berken’s portfolio. It could have included ... read more ...
 
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GoDaddy roughly essential in Q4 - GoDaddy almost turns a GAAP profit in Q4. Domain name and web hosting company GoDaddy (NYSE:GDDY) reported earnings after the bell today. GoDaddy had a net loss of $(0.5) million and an adjusted EBITDA of $73.5 million. Total bookings hit $464.0 million and unlevered free cash flow came in at $52.3 million. (The latter two measures are important for a subscription-based business like GoDaddy’s.) The company reported $425.4 million revenue in Q4, up 14.4% year-over-year and 3.5% over the Q3. Revenue ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Name.com to heading a Bearglecorn - Don’t rip off the Bearglecorn or Statton Hammock will send you a cease desist. Rarely seen in the wild, the Bearglecorn was just spotted in a trademark application filed with the USPTO.Perhaps fed up with people trying to rip off its Bearglecorn (you know you’re out there!), Name.com parent company Rightside has filed a trademark application covering the beast. Wait–I’m sorry? You aren’t familiar with the bearglecorn!?! Perhaps that’s because you’ve never landed on a Name.com 404 page. ... read more ...
 
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Here's what's function during Rightside - Company will invest more in marketing to improve new top level domain name results. Yesterday, Rightside released Q4 earnings. The good news is that it turned in record revenue and an adjusted EBITDA that topped guidance. The bad news is that revenue growth over Q3 was nominal, especially for new top level domain names. While it’s probably fairer to look at year-over-year revenue growth in most product lines, new TLDs are different. Rightside needs to show strong quarter-over-quarter growth in ... read more ...
Tue 16th February 2016
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Rightside reports record income though new TLD income expansion is slow - Revenue grows in Q4 but new TLD revenue remains just a small fraction of the total. Rightside (NASDAQ:NAME) today reported record quarterly revenue for Q4 of $55.7 million, and full year revenue of $212.5 million. All three segments of the company — registrar, registry and aftermarket — showed quarter-over-quarter growth. But registry services (aka new TLDs), where the company is betting on its future, grew only slightly. The company reported $2.5 million of registry services revenue, up from ... read more ...
 
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$32 million .Org agreement adult for bids - Public Interest Registry asks for proposals to run its backend registry. Public Interest Registry, the non-profit that runs the .Org top level domain name, just put out a request for proposal for its backend registry provider. Afilias currently runs the registry operations for .org, and has since .org was transitioned from Verisign to Public Interest Registry in 2003. The company is richly compensated for managing the registry. According to Public Interest Registry’s 2013 tax return, Afilias was ... read more ...
 
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Domain name financier gets RDNH win - China ready, but not ready for a UDRP. Domain name investor Warren Weitzman has successfully defended his domain name ChinaReady.com, and the panel found complainant China Ready and Accredited Pty Ltd to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking by bringing the case. The complainant uses the lengthy domain name chinareadyandaccredited.com. It claimed first use of the “China Ready” mark dating to 2012. But Weitzman registered ChinaReady.com back in 2006. See the problem for the complainant? ... read more ...
Mon 15th February 2016
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A Report from China – DNW Podcast #71 - What are people in China saying about the domain name market? Tom Jennings, Director of Business Development at Snapnames, just returned from a trip to China, including the CNNIC conference. On today’s episode, Tom discusses what people in China are thinking about the current state of domain names there, and if they’re bullish for the future. Also: ICANN’s new boss, Verisign’s opening brief, and Donuts deals with MPAA. Subscribe via iTunes to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your ... read more ...
 
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.Cloud hits ubiquitous accessibility on Tuesday - Affordably-priced domain name presents an opportunity for domain name investors. One of the most-anticipated new top level domain names arrives on registrars’ shelves tomorrow. Aruba IT won a hotly-contested auction for the top level domain name in 2014, beating the likes of cloud giants Amazon and Google. I interviewed Eric Sansonny, General Manager at Aruba, after his company won the auction. Although plans were tentative at the time, he said the goal was to launch the domain at mass-market ... read more ...
Fri 12th February 2016
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What domain names Mozilla and others bought final week - Mozilla buys domain names for open web game. It used to be that domain name marketplaces saw a sales slowdown over major Western holidays, particularly Christmas. Now, there’s another holiday that dials things back: Chinese New Year. Sedo handled about $1 million worth of domain name sales last week. This is in line with many weeks last year, but below recent weeks propped up by Chinese buyers. But with “everyone” in China on vacation, it’s back to the old norm for a couple weeks. Perhaps ... read more ...
 
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Verisign: What goes adult competence come down - Strong end of 2015 could make for a challenging end to 2016. .Com domain name registry Verisign reported Q4 results after the bell yesterday. Thanks to Chinese domain name investors, the company had 12.2 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net last quarter, as compared to 8.2 million for the same quarter in 2014. This boosted its base of .com and .net by 4.6 million after deletions. Verisign does not expect this surge to continue. It expects a return to normalcy in Q1, with net additions ... read more ...
Thu 11th February 2016
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Halle Berry wants her domain name - Actress files complaint against owner of HalleBerry.com. Actress Halle Berry has filed a cybersquatting complaint in order to obtain the domain name HalleBerry.com. The case was filed under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) with World Intellectual Property Organization. The domain name is owned by Alberta Hod Rods, a company that has registered many celebrities’ domain names. The company has already lost cases filed by Pamela Anderson, Ashley Judd, Sandra Bullock and Cameron ... read more ...
 
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Carman's Fine Foods is a retreat domain name hijacker - Australian company nailed for abusing cybersquatting dispute policy proceedings. An Australian seller of cereals and granola has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking in a .au Dispute Resolution Policy dispute. Carman’s Fine Foods went after the owner of Carmans.com.au, whose name is Ross Wayne Carman. Mr. Carmen used the domain name for one of his businesses. The complainant made some silly arguments, including: The Respondent’s surname is distinct from his former business ... read more ...
 
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Two engaging GoDaddy obvious applications - Applications describe system for recommending different domain names for a website, and making it easy to transition. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has published two interesting patent applications from GoDaddy related to search engine optimization and localization. Applications number 14/453415 and 14/453418 (pdf) are for “Optimized domain names and websites based on incoming traffic” and “Search engine optimization of domain names and websites”. Both describe essentially the same ... read more ...