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 26th April 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
VeriSign is backend for 220 new TLD field and relates for 14 itself - VeriSign releases numbers related to its new TLD plans. VeriSign released earnings today along with numbers related to its new top level domain aspirations. The company said it applied for 14 new top level domain names including 12 transliterations of .com and .net. Although not mentioned in the release, you can expect some of those transliterations are in Japanese, Hangul, Chinese, Cyrillic, Arabic, and Hebrew. I’m very curious what the other two domains are; it’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
3 tip domain registrars charity .com domains for underneath $3 - Major registrars offering special discounts right now. I’ve written before about how Go Daddy, Network Solutions, and Register.com offer discounted registrations in Google ads for the term “domain name”. Both are pushing out special deals via other channels, too. Go Daddy just posted this link to its Twitter account. It’s good for a one domain name in a number of TLDs for just $2.49. Web.com’s two big registrars have similar deals going on right now. Register.com ... read more ...
Wed 25th April 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
New TLD consultantant: a registrar is not your solitary channel - Architelos launches new TLD marketing service. In the past, domain registries generally have looked at their customer at the registrar, e.g. GoDaddy.com. They’ve been careful not to blur the lines as the registrar owns the actual domain registrant relationship, not the registry. Will this continue when hundreds of new top level domains are released in coming years? New top level domain consulting firm Architelos doesn’t think so. It just launched a new TLD marketing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Neustar’s .us marketing: Cash mobs - Neustar continues .us marketing with cash mobs. Earlier this month I wrote about how .us registry Neustar was starting to market .us domains with its “Kickstart America” campaign. Neustar is continuing this effort with a couple new videos titled “cash mobs”. The company sends a bunch of customers to a retail store (that uses a .us domain) all at once. The customers have $500 to spend, and the store owner is surprised by the sudden influx of customers. Then ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MegaUpload.net on auction again, DigitalArchery.com sale falls through - MegaUpload.net up for auction again, and DigitalArchery.com doesn’t have a new owner after all. Here are a couple interesting updates on Sedo domain name auctions. First, MegaUpload.net is on auction at Sedo…again. An auction for the domain closed at $11,099 on April 5. But the whois record for the domain never changed, so I’m not sure if the sale went through. The new auction has a current bid of $2,850, and it seems odd to me that someone who bought the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What domains Charles Schwab Co., Billabong and others bought this past week - 14 end user domain name sales. Here are some notable domain sales to end users over the past week. All sales took place at Afternic unless otherwise noted. Dental imaging company Northwest Radiography, Inc. bought NorthwestImaging.com for $1,495. The owner of themediamerchants.ca bought MediaMerchants.com for $1,400. BBCN Bank, which caters to Korean communities in the United States, bought BBCN.net for $3,688. It’s main web site is BBCNBank.com. The company does ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Beenz.com, domain of fantastic dot.com failure, sells for $20,000 - Beenz.com domain name sells for $20,000. Are we about to see a rebirth of online currency Beenz? A European company, Beenz Europe BV, has purchased the domain name Beenz.com for $20,000 and placed a “coming soon” page on the web site. The domain purchase was made through domain aftermarket Afternic.com. Beenz.com was one of the most spectacular dot.com failures to lose its, um, beenz in the dot.com bust last decade. Beenz rewarded web surfers with a virtual currency ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Man petitions to get Google trademarks canceled after Google files UDRP opposite 763 domain names - A whopping UDRP and a strange reaction. Google has filed a single UDRP case with National Arbitration Forum covering a whopping 763 domains. [Update: it won the case.] The domains names include the word Google followed by common search terms, e.g.: googleiphone4s.com googlevolkswagengroup.com googlescientology.com googlesamsung.com googledusseldorf.com googlesalvador.com googleducks.com googlesaints.com Many of these are “double trademarks” covering a Google trademark ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Nuts! Company that bought Nuts.com takes a large Google hit - Company buys a great domain, but changing domains is hard. The New York Times has an interesting “case study” today about Newark Nut Company. The company recently bought Nuts.com to replace its existing NutsOnline.com domain name. You’ll like the reasons the company decided to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for Nuts.com: people couldn’t remember NutsOnline.com, his company was mentioned on Rachel Ray’s show as just Nuts.com, and he was scared that ... read more ...
Tue 24th April 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
As .eco field squabble, .green might be a large winner - Legal challenges could result in .eco delays. The new top level domain application window hasn’t even closed, but possible applicants for .eco have already been fighting for years. Now three potential applicants are tied up court, as explained in this cancellation proceeding at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This may provide an opening for .green. Personally, I think .green is a better choice than .eco to begin with. And, if the most vocal .green applicant ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cybersquatting lawsuit filed opposite KnowMore.com - It will be interesting to “know more” about this lawsuit. A Florida broadcast video company has filed a lawsuit (pdf) against the owner of KnowMore.com claiming trademark infringement and cybersquatting. NewsProNet, Inc. has a registered trademark for “Know More” for “Entertainment services in the nature of the production and distribution of recurring television news programs, reports and features in the field of consumer issues, health and medicine, family, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Forget 3D TVs, it’s all about 3D printing - When you think 3D, don’t think TVs and funny glasses. Two years ago Michael Berkens wrote a post about how he missed the boat on the “next big thing” — 3D — when it comes to domain names. That post along probably spurred thousands of 3D related domain registrations. (Seriously, look at the comments.) To me the thinking of 3D in terms of movies and TV isn’t really interesting. That’s been around for a while, but the technology is getting better. We’re ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Are domain names mostly irrelevant? - Your age and tech savvy color how you look at the web. 19-year-old Henry Cooke, who blogs for Stuff.co.nz, says they are. At least generic ones like Sport.com I won’t go through his laundry list of reasons that have already been beaten to death by countless others. Or that fact that he refers to a press release on WSJ as endorsement of WSJ of how you can make money with domains. What I will do is focus on his age again. Not because being 19 means you don’t have ... read more ...
Mon 23rd April 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How NOT to foster your domains for sale around email - @Andrew You may be right, and it is possible that I’m mistaken about a domainer reporting me as a spammer to Flippa. But that impression of mine is hard to shake. Often I run into a culture among domainers where person A gloats in person B’s misfortunes or criticizes person B publicly without ever trying to communicate with person B directly. I’m accustomed to camaraderie in professional settings, but many–thankfully, not all–domainers are isolated and impatient people who ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Thursday is deadline to criticism on VeriSign .com renewal - Time running out to comment on .com contract. Thursday, April 26 is the last day to comment to ICANN about its proposed contract renewal with VeriSign. The terms of the agreement are very similar to ICANN’s last .com contract. It allows VeriSign to raise the wholesale price of .com domains by 7% for four of the six years in the contract. That means the wholesale price of .com domains could hit $10.29 by 2016. That doesn’t include ICANN’s per-domain tax. You ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Amazon unveils AmazonSupply.com, that we wrote about final month - Domain registrations hinted at Amazon’s plans. Today Amazon.com officially unveiled AmazonSupply.com, billed as “the hardware store for researchers and developers”. Last month I caught wind of this new shop from an inside connection called whois. Here are some of the related domains Amazon registered that tipped me off that the e-commerce giant was up to something new: amazon-supplies.com amazon-supply.com amazonequipmentsupplies.com amazonequipmentsupply.com amazonindustrialsupplies.com amazonlabsupplies.com amazonlabsupply.com amazonscientificsupplies.com amazonscientificsupply.com amazonsupplies.net amazonsupply-smallparts.com amazonsupply.net amazonsupplyitems.com amazonsupplypart.com amazonsupplyparts.com amazonsupplysmallparts.com smallparts-amazonsupply.com smallpartsamazonsupply.com suppliesamazon.com supplyamazon.com I ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Paris still using divided from retreat domain hijacking claim - Paris’ motto in domain disputes: fire an attack, then run away. The city of Paris — officially Ville de Paris — apparently likes to lob attacks and then run away when it has to defend itself. Back in 2009 the city filed a UDRP against Parvi.org. In another ridiculous decision handed down by panelist Andrew F. Christie, Paris won the UDRP despite the domain not likely being registered in bad faith. So Parvi.org owner Jeffrey Walter sued Paris in Texas Court. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Co expands series of accredited registrars - Instra among most recent registrars to become accredited for .co. Most of the time you see top level domains operators try to get as many registrars as possible to carry their domains as possible. But .co took a different tack, launching with just 10 accredited registrars. These registrars (and their resellers) were the only ones who offered the domain at launch. A couple weeks ago I saw a press release about Instra becoming accredited, which led me to check out .co’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Another .music heading focus and an engaging one for .pay - .Music trademark application dead on arrival and merchant service company applies for .pay mark. A California sole proprietor is the latest person to waste money trying to trademark .music. Joseph Walker, through is company ExtraWeb Ent., filed the application on April 12. Walker claims he’s using .music in commerce since April 10. Here’s his proof: I tried to view that URL to see if it’s live on the internet, but I must not have been able to read it correctly. The ... read more ...
Sun 22nd April 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Sunday dusk domain reading - A ridiculous lawsuit, company naming, ICANN, and more. I was going to write an entire snarky post about this lawsuit (pdf) against GoDaddy. It’s alternately hilarious and, and the end of the day, sad. Basically this former employee sued with a bunch of off-the-wall allegations, such as suffering anxiety and mental anguish because he didn’t know which company employees had stock options in the company. He even said the company promotes violence. His proof: some ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Site covering Bo Xilai liaison led to Name.com DDoS, eNom rejects domain as well - Name.com and eNom play hot potato with domain name. Name.com got hit with a massive distributed denial of service attack at the end of last week, and it appears this is because a site covering the downfall of Chinese Communist Party official Bo Xilai was registered with its service. The domain registrar had received an anonymous email saying it needed to drop Boxun.com, reports The Washington Post. Shortly thereafter it was hit with a DDoS. Name.com then received ... read more ...
Sat 21st April 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Perhaps ICANN should have supposed new TLD applications around FedEx - Another delay in reopening TAS. Last night ICANN provided an update on when it plans to reopen TAS, the tool that new top level domain name applicants use to submit applications. The update basically says it will be another week before there’s an update. This is certainly turning ugly for ICANN. In the grand scheme of things a couple week delay is nothing. After all, many new TLD applicants thought they were going to be able to apply a couple years ago. (Kind of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
CNET editor Paul Sloan profiles Mike Mann - Sloan profiles a colorful character in the domain industry. CNET executive editor Paul Sloan has a history of writing about the domain industry. His Business 2.0 cover story about Kevin Ham back in 2007 is still talked about in the industry. More recently he wrote about .co. Today he published an article about Mike Mann. For many domainers Mann needs no introduction. He’s one of those domainers that’s not afraid to speak his mind (not that there’s any lack ... read more ...
Fri 20th April 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Fascinating: tip domain prefixes and suffixes - Oh My, a lot of people use these words to get online. Lean Domain Search has analyzed the top prefixes and suffixes to domain names. Using a methodology that covered over 50 million domain names, the site compiled a list of the top 5,000 prefixes and suffixes. Here are the top five prefixes: 1. My 2. The 3. Web 4. Go 5. Super And the top five suffixes: 1. Online 2. Web 3. Media 4. World 5. Net I’m sure you’d come up different ones using a different methodology, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
My possess small chronicle of “Best of DomainTools” support - Guy mistakenly thinks I’m associated with expired domain spam. DomainTools has an occasional feature on its blog about people mistakenly thinking the company is associated with other web sites. Someone searches for a company, finds the whois record on DomainTools’ site, and thinks DomainTools is the company they were searching for. So it sends a support email to Domain Tools asking for support from that company. I had my own little case of mistaken identity a ... read more ...