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 26th November 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
37 finish user domain sales - 37 end user domain name sales at Afternic and Sedo. My turkey hangover is gone, so I’m catching up from last week’s end user domain name sales report. Enjoy. Afternic Agito Medical, seller of used medical equipment, bought MovingMedicine.com for $2,977. Here’s an interesting one. BlackCow.co.uk sold for $1,899; it’s for a milk vodka. Lolly Wolly Doodle, a children’s clothing company, bought LollyLane.com for $2,595. Its web site is LollyWollyDoodle.com. Class ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Audi loses quarrel for AudiCity.com domain name - Audi will have to stick with audi-microsites.com for now. Car company Audi has lost a dispute at World Intellectual Property Organization over the domain name AudiCity.com. Earlier this year Audi launched its first “Audi City” showroom in London and it wants to open 20 more Audi City showrooms by 2015. But the domain name AudiCity.com was registered by a California man in 2001. The registrant argued that he registered the domain name because it is a play on “audacity”. ... read more ...
Wed 21st November 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Panel Tells GTMS to GTFO with RDNH - GTFO, that’s RDNH! A World Intellectual Property Organization National Arbitration Forum panel has found satellite services company Global Transmission Media Solutions (GTMS) guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. GTMS filed a UDRP on the domain name GTMS.com, which was registered in 1999. That’s well before GTMS’ purported first use of the acronym as a brand. GTMS suggested that the domain owner’s non-use of the GTMS.com and two other domains he owned (which ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Huh? Australia gives 129 GAC early warnings - Whining down under. Yesterday over 200 GAC early warnings to new top level domain applicants were published. The biggest complainer? Australia. The country filed early warnings on 129 top level domain names covering everything from .baby to .weather. ’cause you know, weather is such a controversial thing. One of Australia’s big peeves is that groups want to use generic terms exclusively. That’s its complaint about both .baby and .weather. Johnson Johnson wants ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Watch ICANN’s new TLD lottery online - The biggest sweepstakes in the history of ICANN. ICANN will hold its new TLD lottery “prioritization draw” on December 17 in Los Angeles. The results will be used to determine the order in which initial evaluation results are released. This will have some correlation to when you can actually get your TLD live on the web, so it’s a big deal. ICANN is doing four things for the draw that I think are smart: 1. It’s at the Hilton LAX. You can literally fly into ... read more ...
Tue 20th November 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Marchex posts domain jobs: domain sales, register analyst - Marchex is hiring domain people. Marchex is spinning off its domain name business into Archeo and is looking for a few good domain name experts to help it grow the business. Currently I see two domain name-specific positions listed on Marchex’ job openings page. Senior Domain Sales Executive Responsible for successfully selling domain names from our world-renowned portfolio of top-tiered generic domains; most efforts will be responding to inbound inquiries. Domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New site collates registrar stats and pricing - RegistrarOwl makes it easy to compare domain name registrars. Domain name registrar NameSilo has just launched a new web site that tracks domain registrar and top level domain data. RegistrarOwl.com tracks domain name stats related to each registrar, such as total domains, transfers, etc. It uses publicly available registry reports from ICANN’s web site as its data source. This is good because the data is accurate but unfortunately it’s three months in arrears. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Walmart owns pivotal domains for Black Friday kinship showdown - Company acted last year to corral domains from group organizing protests this Friday. Walmart has asked the National Labor Relations Board to help shut down potential worker protests at its stores on Black Friday. The protests are being organized by a group called Our Walmart. Our Walmart has been part of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in the past, although the group told the Wall Street Journal that it’s no longer a subsidiary. Until ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN threatens registrar for unwell to respond to UDRP requests - Registrar not responding to UDRP verification requests, says ICANN. ICANN has sent a notice of breach to Grand Cayman domain name registrar Bargin Register, Inc., for failing to respond to UDRP verification requests. In a letter dated November 19 (pdf), ICANN claims that Bargin Register has frequently failed to respond to UDRP verification requests from multiple UDRP providers. The latest issue appears to involve the domain name Rexrothdistributors.com, which was ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GiftBasket.com domain sells for $350,000 - Owner of WineGiftBaskets.com shortens name with six figure domain name purchase. Domain name broker FindYourDomain.com is reporting its second six figure domain name sale in less than a week. Today the company announced the sale of GiftBasket.com for $350,000. The domain forwards to WineGiftBaskets.com. The buyer is the owner of WineGiftBaskets.com, and the domain now forwards to the wine domain. Getting this better domain, just in time for the holidays, should be ... read more ...
Mon 19th November 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
At Formula 1 race, a shining use of a domain name - Advertisement with nothing more than a domain name — but that’s all that was necessary. Formula 1 racing returned to United States’ soil yesterday with a race at the new Circuit of the Americas in Austin. Living in Austin, I’ve heard quite a bit about the race, the investors, and the building of the track over the past couple years. It’s been a fascinating project to watch through all of its ups and downs. When the location of the to-be-built racetrack was ... read more ...
Fri 16th November 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Top Flippa domain sales of 2012 - Flippa is making a name for itself in domain sales — not just web sites. You probably know Flippa best as a marketplace for buying and selling web sites. But it’s also an active domain name market. Yesterday I caught up with Flippa CEO Dave Slutzkin. He said they’ve seen an uptick in domain listing recently. Last month Flippa topped 700 domains listed for only the second time and the trend is up even higher this month. Here are some of the non-website sales ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows loses UDRP for Marker.com (but it ain’t over yet) - Domain name already subject to court case. World Intellectual Property Organization panelist David Perkins has ruled that Tucows’ registration of Marker.com is cybersquatting, and the domain should be transferred to Marker Völkl (International) GmbH. Marker Völkl owns the domain name marker.de. But don’t expect the domain name to be transferred to the maker of ski equipment anytime soon. Marker filed the case in July and Tucows sued for declaratory judgment ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
150,000+ domain portfolio sells for $5.2 million - Over 150,000 domains sell at auction for $5.2 million. A portfolio of more than 150,000 domain names has sold in a bankruptcy auction for $5.2 million. Yet that might not be the end of it. The auction was of two separate portfolios and were part of bankrupt firm Ondova. The $5.2 purchase price is 26.8% over the stalking horse bid. The domains had significant traffic and revenue. The first portfolio of about 3,000 premium domains earned close to $400,000 in the 12 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy creates speedier payments for Premium Listings, adds new remuneration options - Premium Listings will now be paid faster and by more than just checks. Go Daddy’s Premium Listing service, which lets you offer domains for sale in the registration path — is a big part of many domainers’ business models. The big drawback has been slow payments, which can take up to 45 days to arrive. Go Daddy is finally speeding up payments and offering more payment options. You can now get your payments by ACH, PayPal, your Good as Gold account, or old fashioned ... read more ...
Thu 15th November 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google and Yahoo among brands regulating insurance with .sx domain names - Some — but not all — major sites protect their brands in .sx. The general availability phase for .sx, a country code domain name for Sint Maarten, begins today. Already a number of large web sites have protected themselves by defensively registering equivalent .sx domain names — a domain that looks awfully close to .sex. I just checked the top 30 web sites in Quantcast to see if they were registered by their respective brand owners. This is easier said than ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ad network says scammers are impersonating it regulating cybersquatted domain names - Q Interactive says scammers are duping publishers into signing ad agreements. Chicago based online advertising company Q Interactive has filed a lawsuit alleging that someone is impersonating it to dupe web site publishers out of advertising revenue. The unknown perpetrators have used domain names very similar to Q Interactive’s real web address, QInteractive.com, in their scheme. According to the suit (pdf), the scammers have registered the domain names qinteractiveagency.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo reports earnings: domain parking still a drag, income down 18% - Sedo’s domain parking business continues to struggle. Sedo Holding just reported earnings (pdf) for the first three quarters of 2012, and the message is more of the same: domain parking is still a drag. Overall, Sedo Holding AG grew revenue €98.7 million in the first nine months of 2012. That’s up 7.3% compared to the same period last year. But earnings are struggling, and the domain marketing segment (i.e. Sedo) takes a lot of the blame. Sedo.com generated ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Co launches membership program - Program gives perks to .co domain registrants. .CO Internet has launched a membership program that offers perks to registrants of .co domain names. The program reminds me bit of American Express’ programs for small businesses, although many of the offers with .co are geared squarely at startups. By joining the program at i.go.co, members can score free tickets to startup events, get free co-working space, and free services to promote your web site. There’s also ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Uh-oh: Pritz out during ICANN over dispute of interest - The face of ICANN’s new TLD program abruptly resigns. Kurt Pritz was the face of ICANN’s new top level domain program. Literally. It was Pritz who defended ICANN on Capitol Hill. It was Pritz who spoke to the press and at conferences. Now he’s gone. In a shocking announcement this morning, new ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé announced that he had accepted Pritz’ resignation. Here’s the full announcement: To the ICANN Community, Regretfully, I have accepted the resignation ... read more ...
Wed 14th November 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows: 14.1 million domains and Ting has 5,000+ accounts - Tucows continues to grow domain business while mobile phone service Ting gets bigger. Tucows’ total domains under management hit 14.1 million at the end of last quarter, the company announced on its investor conference call last evening. That’s up 21% from the same time last year. New registrations declined by 12%, which the company blames on “general industry softness in North America and Europe and some one-time events”. The ratio of transfers-in to transfers-out ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft registers domains for Karaoke web standard - Is Microsoft working on a new web standard? Every once in a while I come across domain name registrations that leave me puzzled. [Update: now we know why Microsoft registered the Karaoke Web Standard domains.] Microsoft registered six domain names yesterday related to “Karaoke Web Standard”. I’ve searched the web and can’t find anything related to Microsoft and a new web standard by the karaoke name. The only thing that comes up is karaoke software. So that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
OrderInn.com sues Google Ventures-backed Ordr.in over name - Company claims trademark infringement. Las Vegas company Order Inn, Inc., which uses the domain name OrderInn.com, has sued startup Ordr.in for trademark infringement. Order Inn is a food service provider that connects hotels without their own room service to nearby restaurants — hence the “Inn” instead of “In” in its name. (I give branding credit to the company; it also owns OrderIn.com.) Ordr.in is a Google Ventures-backed company that helps restaurants ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
31 finish user domain name sales - Allstate, Batteries Plus among end user buyers. Let’s get right into it…here’s a list of end user domain sales from the past week via Afternic and Sedo. Afternic Asian Colour Coated ISPAT LTd (ACCIL) owns ACCIL.info and picked up ACCIL.com for $1,200. Australian entertainment agency Entertainment Management bought EntertainmentCasting.com for $1,450. Marlen Research owns Marlen.com but added Marlen.net for $2,588. Carolina Weddings and Events paid $1,477 for ... read more ...
Tue 13th November 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Domain Venture Partners new TLD representation deck - New TLD applicant hoped to raise up to £100 million, targeted 40%+ annual returns. In August a Florida man filed a lawsuit claiming he invested $123,000 into a business to run the .bim new top level domain that didn’t get off the ground. The suit names Domain Venture Partners PCC Limited, which is an applicant for 60 top level domain names. Domain Venture Partners’ (DVP) applications were all filed in conjunction with Famous Four Media but through various subsidiary ... read more ...