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 21st February 2013
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
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 ...
Wed 20th February 2013
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 ...
 
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
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
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
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 ...
Tue 19th February 2013
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 ...
 
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
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
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 ...
 
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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 ...
Mon 18th February 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Go Daddy lick that keeps on giving - This year’s Go Daddy commercial may have been its most effective yet. One thing Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons figured out a long time ago, before GoDaddy.com was a household name, was that the 30 seconds you buy during a Super Bowl is only part of what you’re buying when you advertise in the big game. If the only time people see or hear about your advertisement is during that 30 seconds, you got ripped off. Parsons was the master of getting press before and after ... 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 ...
 
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
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 ...
Sat 16th February 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dear Miami Beach: save yourself some difficulty and don’t buy this domain - City is apparently spending internal resources looking at a domain it shouldn’t bother with. Today’s Miami Herald reports about the domain name CityOfMiamiBeach.net. The article explains that the husband of a Miami Beach Commissioner is brokering the sale of the domain name. It goes on to discuss the city’s ethics rules and the problems of having a commissioner’s husband broker the sale. The broker said he’d hand negotiations over directly to the seller ... read more ...
Fri 15th February 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
April 23 for a new TLD approval? Will anyone be means to sell them? - ICANN CEO sets a surprising date for the first new TLD approval. ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé has disclosed a target date of April 23 to recommend for delegation the first new top level domain. [Note: I originally misheard Chehadé in the video to say April 23 would be the date of delegation, not to recommend for delegation. That takes some pressure off.] Although he admits the timeline might slip, he suggests it will be a slippage of days or weeks, not months. That sounds ... read more ...
Thu 14th February 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New domain parking association adds a free twist - New domain parking company offers charity donation and no cost brokerage services. A domain industry vet has started a new parking company with a charitable twist. Jakob Knightly, formerly with NameDrive, is launching Rikimu.com next week. At a high level, Rikimu is a domain parking service with a charitable element: the company donates 5% of its share of revenue to charity. Currently you can choose from three different charities. Two of them are domain industry favorites: ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows: fewer large domain sales, though good numbers on reduce labelled domains - Tucows generates less revenue from its portfolio but sales of $2,000-$3,000 domains still strong. Tucows reported earnings yesterday, which should give domainers some insight into how large domain portfolio holders are doing. The headline number is that sales from Tucows’ domain portfolio in Q4 2012 were $300,000 less than the same quarter of 2011. But a lot of that has to do with the lumpiness of high dollar domain sales. Here’s how Tucows CEO Elliot Noss explained ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
BuzzFeed buys BuzzFeed.co.uk - BuzzFeed gets a country code domain and other end user domain purchases. There aren’t a lot of end user domain purchases from Sedo to report this week. A lot of domains that are probably end user sales are still in escrow. But there are a couple big names on this week’s list, including BuzzFeed and Eli Lilly. Swiss company HRsolution International AG bought HRSolution.co.uk for $1,300 BuzzFeed bought Buzzfeed.co.uk for 2,150 GBP. It is forwarding the domain name ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Registrars competence have to adopt new RAA in sequence to sell new tip turn domains - In October I wrote about negotiations for a new registrar accreditation agreement (RAA). The RAA is the contract between domain name registrars and ICANN. It is periodically updated. When it’s updated, ICANN provides some sort of incentive to existing registrars to abandon their existing RAA before it expires and adopt a new one. For example, ICANN has previously reduced per-domain fees in a newer version of the RAA. One idea that was being tossed around in October ... read more ...
Wed 13th February 2013
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23 finish user domain name sales - Buyers include two public companies. Here is a list of end user domain sales through the Afternic platform last week. Onesta Restaurant Consultants paid $1,488 for RestaurantAdvisors.com Ottawa landscaping company Instant Lawns bought InstantLawns.com for $3,500 to go with its InstantLawns.ca domain name. Online fundraising service YouCaring.com paid $1,500 for HeroPages.com Event and travel company Wyndham Jade bought RoomLogic.com for $1,500. Documentary film maker ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Some humorous things about that RonPaul.com domain dispute… - Both sides in the dispute have some explaining to do. Over the past few days the tech media has been abuzz about Ron Paul filing a UDRP against the owners of RonPaul.com. For the most part the press has been taking the side of the Ron Paul supporters who have been operating the site for the past 4+ years, apparently selflessly. There are definitely many things about Paul’s complaint that stink, as the tech press has pointed out. But the same can be said for what’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why I’m not worried by sealed general tip turn domain names - As a domain investor, I find it difficult to oppose the idea of closed generic top level domains. There’s been a lot of talk in the domain industry about “closed generic” top level domain names. A closed generic is a generic term (non brand) such as .baby, .kid, .cloud, in which the applicant wants to keep all of the second level domains for themselves. If the applicant wants to run a closed registry on .cloud, that means no one other than the applicant would ... read more ...