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.

Fri 16th October 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afilias acquires 101Domain - Hello, vertical integration. Domain name registry Afilias has acquired domain name registrar 101Domain. Afilias, which manages the .info and .mobi domain names as well as a bunch of new TLDs, now owns a registrar known for carrying every domain name under the sun. 101Domain made a name for itself by carrying just about every domain name, regardless of how challenging their requirements. One of the reasons I quote pricing for new TLDs at 101Domain is because I can be sure they’re carrying it; I ... read more ...
Thu 15th October 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How we did on a .Miami domain name launch - .Miami is growing quickly, and I’m pleased to have picked up a number of good domains in it. The .Miami top level domain name launched on October 2. It’s off to a good start, with nearly 10,000 domain names in the zone file. It’s growing at a good clip, too. I’m a big fan of geos and went relatively “big” on .miami compared to other domain names. (Granted, big for me in new TLDs isn’t all that much.) I pre-ordered 35 domain, including a couple that had small annual premiums, with several ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Board to rethink .Hospital preference subsequent week - .Hospital has been on life support since bad objection decision. .Hospital is on life support.ICANN’s Board of Directors will consider the fate of a .Hospital top level domain name when it meets on Sunday. It’s a chance for the board to right a wrong. .Hospital was killed off after two of three panelists agreed with a Limited Public Interest Objection filed by the Independent Objector. The panelists disregarded the guidelines and essentially created their own standard for if .hospital should ... read more ...
 
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University of Cambridge withdraws heading plea after UDRP loss - Tail between the legs. University of Cambridge has withdrawn a challenge to a trademark application for a Cambridge.com logo after losing a UDRP for the same domain name. As I reported earlier this week, a UDRP panel admonished the 800-year-old university for making some incorrect statements in a UDRP for Cambridge.com. It seems the UDRP and trademark opposition were filed as a way to get the domain name. Once the UDRP failed so miserably, the university backtracked. John Berryhill represented domain ... read more ...
Wed 14th October 2015
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Calvin Harris wins cybersquatting explain for CalvinHarris.com - Famous musician gets .com domain name. DJ and Taylor Swift boyfriend Calvin Harris has won rights to the domain name CalvinHarris.com through a World Intellectual Property Organization proceeding. Harris, whose real name is Adam R. Wiles, successfully argued that the owner of the domain name was cybersquatting. His attorneys sent a demand letter to the domain name owner and didn’t hear back. The domain name led to a parking page, which apparently also offered the domain name for sale for $49,999. Harris’ ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What's inside 1 Month of Network Solutions emails? - What is Network Solutions pitching to its customers in all of that email? Here’s the answer. Anyone who has registered a domain name with Web.com registrars Network Solutions and Register.com know that the company sends lots of promotional emails. How many? One per business day. Now, I know a lot of retailers send daily promotional emails to customers. But I’m not aware of other registrars that do this. If nothing else, it shows there’s not much more juice the company can ring out of customers ... read more ...
 
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XYZ is trending…in .Com - XYZ makes .com’s trending keywords list. The .XYZ domain name has garnered a lot of attention since Google’s new parent company Alphabet selected ABC.XYZ for its domain name in August. Now XYZ is hot in .com. Verisign released its monthly review of the top “trending” keywords in .com for last month, and sitting at #6 is .xyz. Verisign and .XYZ are due in court early next month for a false advertising lawsuit, in which Verisign claims .xyz’s marketing has hurt .com. Hmmm…perhaps it’s ... read more ...
Tue 13th October 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
This week's new TLD: .Study - You might want to study this domain name. Yep, there only appears to be one new top level domain name launching this week according to the Calzone.org calendar. That means it gets a little extra attention. Open Universities Australia Pty Ltd (OAU) launches .Study in general availability on Wednesday. OUA is a not-for-profit company committed to the provision of online education, especially in Australia. Originally it wanted to restrict the domain name to a number of partners, but it has since agreed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
NameJet's Sep in Review - Looks like July, 2 months ago, was just a dress rehearsal for September at NameJet. During July, the auction platform set its all-time record by selling an LL.com for $555k. As for September? $694k. Also, back in July, NameJet set a record total for individual sales at or above $2k: $1.05 million. And September? $1.32 million. Both months are less impressive once that outlier LL.com result is removed. (Last month’s 102 sales don’t begin to approach the 148 we saw in January.) Yet even subtracting ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Radio field plead Independent Review Process - Companies ask for independent review in .radio decision. Three applicants for the .radio top level domain name have filed for the Independent Review Process (IRP) after losing out to a community applicant. Donuts, Afilias and BRS Media all lost their bids for the .radio domain name after European Broadcasting Union (EBU) prevailed in the Community Priority Evaluation. EBU scored 14 of 16 points, the minimum required to gain community status. The three losing applicants subsequently filed a Request ... read more ...
Mon 12th October 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
University of Cambridge loses box opposite Cambridge.com - University “seriously misdescribed” website in attempt to win transfer of site. The University of Cambridge has lost a cybersquatting dispute against the owner of Cambridge.com. The panel found that the University and its lawyers Stobbs IP Limited also “seriously misdescribed” contents of the domain name owner’s website. Kirkland Holdings LLC bought the Cambridge.com domain name in 2010 for $85,000. It subsequently created a website for Cambridge, United States and Cambridge, UK on the ... read more ...
 
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Antony Van Couvering of Minds + Machines – DNW Podcast #54 - Minds + Machines’ CEO returns to the podcast to talk about new domain names. New top level domain name company Minds + Machines CEO Antony Van Couvering is back on the podcast this week. He discusses what’s happening with new top level domain names and how his company is responding. He also explains how people can partner with Minds + Machines, either to help sell domain names to communities or to develop a premium domain name into a web destination. Also: Scooping corporate plans, Frank Schilling ... read more ...
 
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Expired Domain Name Report: Over 200 names - Which do domainers need – a PriceTracker.com or a ProblemGamblingGuide.com? Both! But we’re incorrigible gamblers; so naturally we spent more to learn how to spend ($7.4k) than how not to spend ($1.6k). Indeed, PriceTracker.com was last week’s top expired domain at NameJet. Obviously, the domain can aim at a mass e-commerce audience. So if you’ve been hankering for an electric back scratcher that hums Brahms’s lullaby, track it till the blowout sale! Within the domain market right ... read more ...
Fri 9th October 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Hilton rising "True" Or "Tru" hotel brand - Domain name registrations point to name for new hotel brand. It seems that Hilton’s next hotel brand will be called True or Tru. The company just registered a number of domain names for this new brand yesterday: truebyhilton.com truehotelbyhilton.com truehotelsbyhilton.com truhotelbyhilton.com truhotelsbyhilton.com The hotelier recently launched the Canopy brand aimed at millennials. Hilton has also discussed a new low-to-mid-tier brand to fill a void in the company’s brands. Once again, domain ... read more ...
 
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Now this is a good UDRP panelist… - Panelist spends a few extra minutes to avoid an injustice. A UDRP panelist who doesn’t take the easy way out in a case where the respondent doesn’t reply? Meet Nick J. Gardner. Gardner decided a recent case in which German company MAGIX Software GmbH filed a UDRP against the U.S. owner of MusicMaker.com. The domain name was registered in 1996. Given that it was so long ago, the whois lists the owner as The Music Connection, and Music Maker is a descriptive term, Gardner decided to do some basic ... read more ...
 
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Wow: DropCatch adds 300 some-more registrars, now has 752 - Company increases stable of registrars going after dropping domains. The company behind expired domain name catching service DropCatch.com has adding 300 more accredited registrars to its arsenal, and now has a whopping 752 registrars. This is according to ICANN’s public list of accredited registrars. DropCatch.com, which is owned by the same people behind HugeDomains and NameBright, is a traditional expired domain service that goes after domain names when they fully delete after pending delete. ... read more ...
 
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.Gay fails village test, again - Queue the complaints about ICANN again…even though it’s not its fault. dotgay LLC, an applicant for the .Gay top level domain name that was seeking community status, has once again failed (pdf) to convince an independent panel that it qualifies. The company lost its Community Priority Evaluation last year, with the panel ruling in part: “The applied-for string neither matches the name of the community as defined by the application nor does it identify the defined community without over-reaching ... read more ...
Thu 8th October 2015
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A Frank Schilling association owns some-more than 5% of Rightside - SEC filing discloses interest in company. Some people say the domain name business is an incestuous industry. They might be right. An SEC filing this afternoon discloses that a company associated with Frank Schilling now owns 5.5% of the company. The filing was made by FTS, Corp in Grand Cayman. Schilling’s middle name is Taylor, hence FTS are his initials. The filing was made by Ria Scott Blyth, Administrative Assistant of FTS Corp. Her LinkedIn profile shows that she works for Frank Schilling’s ... read more ...
 
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World Trade Centers wins 89 domain names, including 9/11 names - Group takes over domain names registered on and after 9/11. World Trade Centers Association, Inc. has won 89 domain names in a cybersquatting dispute. The group filed a cybersquatting complaint with Czech Arbitration Court over 90 domain names, all of which included some reference to WTC or World Trade Center, such as 9-11WTC.com, RememberWTC.org and WTCForum.com. A panelist ordered that 89 of the domain names be transferred to World Trade Centers Association. It declined the transfer of ZWTC.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
An refurbish on a Adam Dicker allegations - Progress is being made settling issues brought to light earlier this week. Earlier this week I wrote about accusations made against domain name investor Adam Dicker. Since that time, a few things have happened that I think warrant posting an update. First, a number of people have come forward with stories about how they believe Adam deceived them or broke promises. Second, Adam is now responding to some of these claims. Third, it appears Adam has paid money to many of those that believe they were ... read more ...
 
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Here's what those Amazon AWS domain name registrations were for - Amazon’s domain name registrations this week indeed were for AWS announcements, but some are still to come. On Monday I wrote about Amazon.com’s domain name registrations that foreshadowed services it was likely to announce at this week’s AWS re:Invent conference. Now that the conference is underway, we know what many of these domain names are for. Monday domain registrations: amazoninternetofthings.com, amazoniotplatform.com, awsinternetofthings.com, awsiotplatform.com, awsiotservice.com ... read more ...
 
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.Club to auction dual minute domain names - Registry wants to tap into Chinese buyers with auction on EachNic.com. .Club is auctioning a number of two letter .club domain names, along with the single letter C.club, at auctions beginning later this month. Most of the two letter combinations, such as TB.club and DS.club, have $5,000 reserves. A couple have $10,000 reserves and C.club starts at $50,000. Here are a couple observations about the approach .Club is taking to selling its two character domain names: 1. Hoping to take advantage of Chinese ... read more ...
Wed 7th October 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What domains Genentech and 20 other finish users bought final week - Genentech, Roche, and Booking.com bought domain names last week. Sedo had a great last week, handling 689 transactions for $1.5 million. The volume was driven by 100 four letter .com domain name sales, but its end user sales also had strong prices. The 64,000 dollar question this week is, “Who paid $64,000 for PassItOn.com at Sedo?” The domain is still being transferred, and the current holding page for a company in stealth mode is left over from the seller. Perhaps we’ll find out next week ... read more ...
 
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Here are reward domain names .Club sole final month - Soho.club sells for $5k, leading .Club’s premium sales last month. The .Club domain name registry continues to release details of its premium domain name sales. It’s also including data on expired domain name sales from its unique relationship with SnapNames. Last month the company sold $53,742 of domain names through the registrar/premium channel. It also sold $10,682 of domain names through SnapNames auctions, and another 84 domains at $69 each through individual backorders at Snapnames. The ... read more ...
 
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As we predicted, National Car Rental fixing rights are for St. Louis stadium - City hopes to keep NFL Rams in the city with new stadium. On Saturday I wrote about National Car Rental registering domain names related to naming rights for a sports stadium. I predicted that it was for St. Louis. St. Louis is working on a plan for a stadium to try to keep the National Football League Rams in town, and National Car Rental is based in St. Louis. Turns out I was right. The company is pledging $158 million for National Car Rental Field, a proposed stadium on the Mississippi riverfront ... read more ...