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.

Thu 6th June 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
33 finish user domain sales - Miami’s airport and a Boston sports network among end user domain name buyers. Afternic released a double report of domain sales this week covering the past two weeks. Here are 33 end user domain name sales from the list. Environmental company Summerhill Group bought Summerhill.com for $12,500. Clearwater Seafoods in Nova Scotia bought ClearwaterLobster.com for $1,088. Energise Health Management in Sydney, Australia, which offers tennis fitness conditioning, bought ... read more ...
 
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10 Simple Tips to Protect Your Domain Names from Bogus Legal Threats - Limit the chances of receiving bogus legal threats with these helpful tips. [Editor’s note: Bill Sweetman participated in a legal panel about domain names at TRAFFIC Las Vegas. He gave ten tips to help domain owners protect their domains from bogus legal threats. I asked him if he would turn his talk into an article for Domain Name Wire. I’ve split the tips into two separate posts.] In a perfect world everyone is knowledgeable, honest, and has the best of intentions ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Heads up, .GMBH applicants: this heading focus is slipping by a cracks - .GMBH applicant’s trademark application approved for publishing. I’ve written numerous times about companies trying to trademark top level domain name strings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Although the USPTO won’t grant trademarks on top level domains, some applicants have been able to sneak their applications through at least part of the process. One is getting rather far. TLDDOT GmbH, an applicant for the .gmbh top level domain names, has managed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
27 investors chip $7 million into .Club as it wins private TLD auction - .Club applicant eliminates competition and raises $7 million to launch top level domain. .Club Domains, LLC has raised a combined $7 million from 27 individual investors and has eliminated its competition for the .club top level domain through a private auction. The new top level domain applicant recently filed its SEC Form D to raise up to $7 million, and later announced it raised half of that amount to participate in the private auction. Citing confidentiality agreements, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Board manners on non-safeguard GAC advice - Resolution doesn’t resolve much; uncertainty remains. The ICANN Board New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) has approved a resolution ruling on a number of items of advice from the Governmental Advisory Committee with regards to new top level domain names. The resolution is specifically limited to non-safeguard advice. You can see how it ruled on each item here (pdf). For the most part, the decisions are limited to “we’ll consider the advice”. For example, some ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN hires new COO, moves Atallah - ICANN shakes up leadership positions. ICANN has moved chief operating officer Akram Atallah to a new role and hired a replacement from outside the organization. Atallah has been named president of the Generic Domains Division. This new group will focus on generic domain operations, domain name industry engagement and web services for the community. The division is being created because of the increase in “scale and responsibility” for ICANN in the wake of new ... read more ...
Wed 5th June 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Irony alert: Trademark association loses cybersquatting explain on TrademarkDirect.com.au - “UK’s Leading Trade Mark Service” loses cybersquatting complaint. Oh, it’s delicious. Trade Mark Direct Ltd of London has lost a cybersquatting complaint filed under the .au Dispute Resolution Policy for the domain name TrademarkDirect.com.au. The irony of the Trade Mark Direct’s utter failure to provide sufficient evidence in the case was not lost on the panel, which wrote: It is clear that the disputed domain name is identical to the trademark which is ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Scammy consult site beats Tumblr in domain dispute - Lawyers don’t provide enough evidence to convince panel that domain was registered in bad faith. Tumblr, the company that Yahoo is acquiring for $1.1 billion, has lost a cybersquatting claim for the domain name tublr.com. In its complaint filed with World Intellectual Property Organization, Tumblr argued the domain name was registered as a typo of Tumblr.com to take advantage of the blogging site. The company is probably right. Type Tublr.com into your web browser ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A pointed (yet big) change in GoDaddy’s ads - Verisign paying to include .com in GoDaddy ad. I was watching the Cardinals game last night when I noticed ads for GoDaddy.com behind the batter. This is nothing new. GoDaddy frequently advertises on baseball broadcasts. But something about the ad looked different. Take a look. Can’t see the difference? Here’s a close-up. We already know that GoDaddy is rebranding by dropping .com from its name. But this ad not only drops the .com from the original GoDaddy.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft buys ToDoApp.com and 16 other domain name sales - Microsoft and Magazines.com among end user buyers at Sedo last week. Is Microsoft about to release an organization app a la Evernote and Google’s Keep? It bought ToDoApp.com last week on Sedo. Here are details on that sale and many other end user sales. Financing First Limited in the United Kingdom bought DentalFinance.co.uk for 1,500 GBP. Vertical Media, which owns VMPublishing.com, bought VerticalMedia.com for $10,000. Upperdog Interactive AB, owner of upperdog.se, ... read more ...
Tue 4th June 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Telepathy fends off Valio’s conflict on LGG.com - Company tries to make claim to LGG.com 15 years after it’s registered. Telepathy, the domain name company run by domain investor Nat Cohen, has successfully defended his domain name LGG.com in a UDRP. The complaint was brought by Valio Ltd, a Finnish dairy company and was filed with Czech Arbitration Court. If you’re not familiar with Telepathy, it owns the largest portfolio of three letter .com domain names in the world, with over 1,000 of them. Cohen also helps ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Can this one elementary step save we in a UDRP? - …or how about those “disclaimers” on prostitution websites which say things like “This offer is for companionship only. By contacting me, you agree you are not a law enforcement officer, and that anything that might happen other than companionship is between consenting adults” and so on. You might as well put up a flashing GIF that says “PROSTITUTION HERE!” When I was about five years old, I had left a mess in the kitchen and my mother lined us up to ask “Who left this ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
If you’re going to TRAFFIC in October, we should buy a sheet now - Discounted tickets available through tomorrow. The T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference is expensive, and everyone has their opinion about whether it’s worth it or not. But there’s one thing that’s not debatable: if you know you’re going to go, buy your ticket early. Until tomorrow afternoon you can get a ticket to the October show in Fort Lauderdale for $995. The price will go up fairly rapidly, with a full conference pass costing you nearly $2,000 if you wait until ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why do people rubbish income filing this arrange of UDRP opposite Name Administration? - No one has ultimately prevailed after filing a UDRP against Name Administration. Before you filed a UDRP, you’d think you’d google the domain name’s owner to learn more. Yet time after time I see people file long shot UDRP complaints against Frank Schilling’s Name Administration. Today’s winner is the company that filed against Klipz.com. Since the case was filed at National Arbitration Forum, we don’t yet know who the complainant is. There’s one registered ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy releases vital refurbish to Domain Manager - Upgrades to Domain Manager make it easier to complete common tasks. GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, has released a new Domain Manager for managing domain names held at the registrar. Compared to other registrars, GoDaddy’s system has always been a bit bloated. The new interface is a step in the right direction. Whereas before it took multiple clicks and pageviews to change a nameserver, you can now do it from the main Domain Manager screen: You ... read more ...
Mon 3rd June 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Interesting: Nokta Domains’ 18 leased domains from May - Nokta’s typical lease is about $100 a month. When you think of domain leasing, you probably think of big ticket domains that companies couldn’t buy outright so they opted for a lease instead. But it’s not just expensive domains that people are leasing. Case in point: Nokta Domains has published a list of the 18 domain names it leased last month. The most expensive monthly lease fee? Just $250. The company leased one domain (Seyahat.net) for just $30 per month. ... read more ...
 
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TLDH raises $10 million for new TLDs - New TLD applicant issues new shares to raise money, also confirms possibility of participating in private new TLD auctions. Top Level Domain Holdings Limited, parent company of Minds + Machines, has conditionally raised $10 million. The company today conditionally placed 110,375,276 new ordinary shares at 6p per share. The money will be used as additional working capital, with much of it earmarked for settling contention sets. The press release also confirms what ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
14 finish user domain sales from Sedo - End users including Taser snap up domain names. Last week’s Sedo end user sales report is late because I was at the TRAFFIC conference last week. Afternic skipped last week and is doubling up on its report this week, so expect a long Afternic report on Wednesday. IFN.com, the same company that previously bought LiveAgent.co.uk for 1,100 GBP, bought Communicate.co.uk for 10,000 GBP. UK insurance seller Neilson Financial Services bought InsuranceLine.co.uk for 1,250 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Samsung news site can keep the domain name notwithstanding Adsense ads - Site with Google Adsense ads still may qualify for “non-commercial”, UDRP panel rules. SamsungHub.com, started in 2006, now forwards to SammyHub.com.The owner of SamsungHub.com can keep his domain name, a WIPO panel has ruled in a UDRP brought by tech giant Samsung. Kunal Gangar began using the domain name in 2006. In 2011 Samsung released an app called SamsungHub, so Gangar registered a new domain – SammyHub.com – and redirected SamsungHub.com to it. Although ... read more ...
 
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Marchex co-founder John Keister resigns from board - Keister has held a number of executive positions with the company. John Keister, a founder of Marchex, resigned from the company’s board today. (Photo: Marchex.com)John Keister, a founder of Marchex, resigned his board position today. Keister was executive vice chairman since May 2010 and was a member of Marchex’ board of directors since its inception in January 2003. He also served in a number of executive positions for the company, including as president from ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TLDH explains the change of heart on private domain auctions - Antony Van Couvering explains why it believes private TLD auctions make sense. Up until last week, it appeared that Top Level Domain Holdings, one of the largest new TLD applicants, would not participate in private auctions for TLDs. But that changed, and now TLDH/Minds+Machines CEO Antony Van Couvering has published an explanation for the reversal. It’s worth reading the explanation in its entirety. One of the key reasons for TLDH’s opinion: applicants will ... read more ...
Sun 2nd June 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Verisign whois secretly returning “no match” results - Have to submit query twice to get correct result on Verisign’s whois. Verisign’s whois service for .com and .net is sometimes falsely returning a result of “no match” the initial time you search for a domain name. For example, if you search for DNW.com on Verisign’s site or via port 43 whois, you’ll get a “no match” result the first time. Click “search” a second time and the correct whois will be returned. You can see example screenshots on the ... read more ...
Thu 30th May 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN warns AsiaRegister over late payments - Hong Kong based domain name registrar at risk of losing ICANN accreditation. ICANN has sent a breach notice to AsiaRegister, Inc. for its failure to pay past due accreditation fees. [Update 6/26/13: the breach has been cured.] According to the breach notice sent yesterday, the Hong Kong registrar owes past due accreditation fees of $16,362.64. ICANN also says the registrar is not linking to ICANN’s Registrant Rights and Responsibilities webpage on AsiaRegister’s ... read more ...
 
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Fling.com discovers a hurdles of branding with a general domain name - Descriptive nature of domain means registrant not necessarily lacking rights or legitimate interests in domain. Fling.com, an adult social network that facilitates hookups, has lost a domain name dispute over best-fling-sites.com. According to Fling.com owner Global Personals, LLC, the registrant of the domain optimized it to show up high in search results when a user searches for the Fling.com site. The company presented evidence that suggests the respondent was ... read more ...
 
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3 reasons TRAFFIC Vegas matters - The domain investor community is in Las Vegas right now. Here’s why this TRAFFIC conference matters. I’m writing this post from the Bellagio in Las Vegas, where the latest TRAFFIC conference is taking place. I think this conference “matters” for three key reasons. 1. Without this event, it would be a long time between seeing the domain community. Webfest was in early February. If TRAFFIC only had its Florida show this year, it would be about 8 months between ... read more ...