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 10th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Q&A: Aron Meystedt launches March.com - Owner of the world’s oldest .com domain name launches a new web site. [Update: it appears March.com has been shut down.] Aron Meystedt and his company domain investment company XF.com investments just launched a new web site builder tool on March.com. You may have heard of XF.com because it owns Symbolics.com, the oldest .com domain name in existence. I reached out to Aron to get the background on why he launched the site on March.com and what the business plan ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy climbs behind online - GoDaddy.com and access to millions of sites finally being restored. With domain name registrar Go Daddy and millions of sites down today, clicking on a Google search result was a bit like playing roulette: you might get a blank result. A Go Daddy spokesperson told me the problems began around 10 am PDT today. I was in a meeting at the time, and saw a tweet from Go Daddy about site problems. I clicked over to GoDaddy.com and it didn’t resolve. I then checked Domain ... read more ...
Sun 9th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Frank Schilling to launch upgraded domain sales height subsequent month - Schilling says it “exceeds the best sales platforms available”. Frank Schilling has already rocked the domain parking industry with his Internet Traffic service. Now he hopes to shake up how you sell your domain names. In a blog post titled “Lobster“, Schilling explains the current state of domain name investing business as he sees it. Shilling views domain sales as a key part of a balanced approach to making money in the domain name business. Although he ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UDRP craziness alert: Oakley wins one “fake” case, loses a other - Win won, lose another: the inconsistency of UDRP. A couple weeks ago I wrote about how Oakley lost a UDRP case over the domain name MyFakeOakleySunglasses.com. The panelist in that case, Houston Putnam Lowry, ruled that the domain name was not confusingly similar to Oakley’s mark because it contained the word “fake”. Everybody knows what the work “fake” means. The word “fake” appears before the trademark in the domain name. The web site makes it pretty ... read more ...
Fri 7th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Libya loses anticybersquatting lawsuit - Libya and its embassy lose a domain name lawsuit that started well before Gaddafi’s overthrow. A federal district court yesterday handed down a ruling in a very interesting cybersquatting case, and much of the interest lies in who the plaintiff was: Libya. Back in 2006 The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the Embassy of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya filed suit against Ahmad Miski for cybersquatting. (After the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi’s government, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Public Storage refiles UDRP, row declines to hear it - Company upset that decision was different from similar case it filed. Generally speaking, the only reason a UDRP panel will re-hear a case is if the complainant brings forth new evidence that could not have been discovered prior to the initial case. But that didn’t stop Public Storage from filing a new case against the owner of publicstoragephoenix.com. Here’s the background: In October 2011 Public Storage lost a case against the owners of publicstorage-phoenix.com ... read more ...
Thu 6th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The many critical .tv domain turns 10 - This one .tv domain name has bolstered the entire .tv namespace. The one .tv domain name that has done the most to build the .TV domain name brand turned ten last month. And it doesn’t even resolve to a web site. MLB.TV, Major League Baseball’s live game streaming service, launched at about this time in 2002. Since then it has delivered 1.5 billion live video streams. This season it is running at a clip of 1.1 million live video streams per day. But MLB.TV is ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Clint Eastwood proves that as prolonged as there’s news, there will be domain registrations - Dozens of domain names registered about…a chair. Clint Eastwood’s speech at the Republican National Convention last Thursday gave 24 hour news networks and election watchers something to talk about for the next few days. And it once again showed that when there’s news, there will be domain name registrations. On the evening of Eastwood’s speech, in which he pretended Barack Obama was sitting in an empty chair next to him on stage, a California man jumped on ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
How to change your new tip turn domain application - A one page word doc is all it takes. Domain Name Wire was first to report back in June that ICANN was working on a plan to allow new top level domain applicants to modify their applications. Now the guidelines and process are complete. Applicants must fill out a short, one page form explaining the change and the reason for the request. They also must attached a redlined document of the changes they’re making. The request will be considered against seven factors, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Is this a world’s misfortune web site name? - Quite possibly. So you create a sort of “eLance for legal cases” and you need to come up with a name. You end up with… Shpoonkle.com? Oh c’mon. You can’t be serious. Shpoonkle.com has been out for a while, but I just heard about it today. The site lets you post details of the legal work you need done and lawyers will bid for your work. It’s a lot like eLance.com. But the name…it’s so painful. Company founder Robert Niznik told VentureBeat last year ... read more ...
Wed 5th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Top Domain Name Wire stories of August - ccTLDs, domain parking, and more make the top five list. If August is over, why is it still 100 degrees in Austin? Sigh… Here are the top 5 news stories from Domain Name Wire last month. Oops, I entrusted my domain name to a tiny island nation! – think about political and technical risks before setting up your web site on a country code domain name. Wow: Craigslist loses Craigslists.com domain dispute – so this guy creates a list, and his name is supposedly ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
AOL bought a new code for $3,300 and AFL-CIO PAC buys a debate domain name - End user sales report includes some big names. This week’s end user domain name sales report includes a purchase by AOL that’s likely for a new site and the Workers Voices PAC picking up a domain name for the upcoming campaign. Afternic The Hangout, a restaurant in Gulf Shores, Alabama, bought TheGulf.com for $4,479. The owner of EdHelper.com bought EduHelper.com for $$21,288 and ExHelper.com (a typo) for $1,245. The EdHelper.com sale must have been through Afternic’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
4 new TLD applications withdrawn - Google and one .brand applicant withdraw applications. Kudos to Michele Neylon for spotting an option on ICANN’s web site to see which new top level domain name applications have been withdrawn. Thus far four applications have been withdrawn, including three by Google. The three by Google should not come as a huge surprise. ICANN Senior VP Kurt Pritz previously announced that three application had been withdrawn, and you can thank Kevin Murphy for that. Murphy earlier ... read more ...
Tue 4th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Penn State belatedly registers domains for “Faces of Penn State” campaign - Penn State registers domain name for sensitive PR campaign…after news of the campaign already hit the press. If you’re a PR firm releasing a very sensitive campaign for a client, you better make sure to register the appropriate domain names ahead of time Over the weekend Pennsylvania State University kicked off its “Faces of Penn State” campaign, designed to move the university forward after the sex abuse scandal. And it looks like Penn State did register ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Formula 1 group woos cybersquatter, afterwards files complaint - After lavishing gifts on cybersquatter, Formula 1 team has a change of heart. With Formula 1 coming to Austin in just two months, I was interested to see this UDRP brought by a Formula 1 team. Force India Formula One Team Limited, which is strangely located in the United Kingdom, filed a dispute against the registrant of saharaforceindia.com and saharaforceindiaf1.com. The registrant of these domain names registered the domains the same day the Formula 1 team announced ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Auctions sells 31,481 domains in August - TeachingJobs.com heads list of domain name sales. The monthly Go Daddy Auctions Domain Market Report is out, and the headline number is 31,481 domain names sold during August. That’s lower than July’s 33,373 domains. The top sale for August was TeachingJobs.com at a strong $89,250. The domain name appears to have been previously developed or used as a lead gen site. Here are the top ten reported sales for the month: teachingjobs.com $89,250 curio.com $60,000 ced.com $60,000 ffun.com $25,000 eduhelper.com $21,288 myeyes.com $19,777 mrcglobal.com $15,000 southernrecycling.com $13,100 officerentals.com $12,500 livecasinotv.com $12,000 Go ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Spotted: Four minute .com permit image in Texas - At least two .com license plates exist in Austin. I recently got a DNW.COM license plate thanks to Texas now allowing dots on license plates. This past weekend I was leaving a parking lot when I spied this: Yep, that’s a four character .com license plate. In a way, a four character .com is rarer than a three character — when it comes to license plates in The Lone Star State. DNW.COM is technically a six character license plate because the dot isn’t counted. ... read more ...
Fri 31st August 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Macth.com owners sues Match.com and CitizenHawk after losing UDRP - Domain owner files complaint to halt transfer of domain name after losing UDRP. The owner of Macth.com has sued online dating company Match.com and domain name recovery firm CitizenHawk after losing a UDRP for her domain name. In a complaint filed in the Southern District of Florida (pdf), Liz Eddy is asking for declaratory relief and financial penalties. She says Macth.com is a generic typo. Eddy lost a UDRP for Macth.com on August 15. She alleges that Match.com ... read more ...
Thu 30th August 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Where do many cybersquatters live? - Oh, more thoughtfully composed and helpful info from WIPO: Still no delineation for 3rd Level Sub-Domains as a contributive source to these problems! Clever coding to isolate 3rd from 2nd, making 3rd look guilty when 2nd is far, far more guilty. The US Federal District Court, Eastern District Virginia I await comment. Cheers, Graham. Here is some useful information, for the less informed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting), according ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UDRP cybersquatting complaints boost in initial half of 2012 - Two largest UDRP services saw increased activity in first half of the year. The number of cybersquatting complaints filed in the first half of 2012 was up 9% compared to the first half of 2011. That’s according to data provided by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and National Arbitration Forum (NAF), the two largest arbitration services for the uniform domain name dispute resolution policy (UDRP). WIPO received 1,764 cases in the first half of this ... read more ...
Wed 29th August 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Rising Star AG forgets to replenish RisingStar.com, files UDRP 2 years after (and loses) - Rising star or a falling star? Here’s an interesting UDRP over a great generic domain name, RisingStar.com. Investment company Rising Star AG, which owns RisingStar.ch, bought the domain name RisingStar.com for $5,000 in 2006. It forgot to renew the domain name in 2010 and it went to auction on SnapNames, where it sold for $3,300. (Rising Star claims it sold for $1,000, but it apparently doesn’t know how to search on Google.) For some reason Rising Star AG waited ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
19 intelligent finish user domain buys from a past week - From governments to app developers, here are 19 end users that bought domain names over the past week. I’ve nineteen end user sales on the list this week. Enjoy. Afternic Direct response marketing company Ontel Products Corporation bought SoundSleepers.com for $2,088. I don’t see the product on its products page, so maybe it’s a new one. Another business I never thought of: Bar Codes Talk, which lets you create bar codes for your products and instantly print ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Do programmed appraisals work? - Sometimes, but there are notable limits. It’s one of the great debates in the domain name industry: do automated domain name appraisals work? Are any domain appraisals (even from humans) accurate? I thought about this again today as I put together the end user sales report. People usually comment that certain domains were priced really low. So I decided to run a non-scientific sample from Afternic’s sales this past week, starting with the top 15 reported sales. ... read more ...
Tue 28th August 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain Holdings continues to sinecure a whole domain name industry - Michael Feeley latest to join Domain Holdings. If you’ve been in the domain name industry for a long time and are thinking about making a move, I suggest you give Domain Holdings a call. The company’s latest addition is Michael Feeley as vice president of sales. To say Feeley has been in the industry for a while is an understatement. I still remember at the turn of the century when Feeley would call me to pitch me on Kanoodle, a pay-per-click company he co-founded. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
National Arbitration Forum continues to palm infancy of cases to name panelists - Seven panelists hear nearly half of all NAF UDRP cases. Zak Muscovitch has updated his National Arbitration Forum (NAF) panelist study originally released in 2010. The results published on DNAttorney.com have basically the same conclusion as his original report: the National Arbitration Forum hands most of its caseload to a select group of panelists. Just seven American panelists heard nearly half of all of NAF’s caseload from March 5, 2010 – July 4, 2012. It’s ... read more ...