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 30th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Frank Schilling sole WheelsUp.com to Marquis Jet owner for $50k, after $500k offer - Marquis Jet founder bought domain for new investment firm, later shuns $500k offer. Owen Frager and Elliot Silver recently discovered that Marquis Jet was somehow related to the buyer of WheelsUp.com, a domain Frank Schilling sold last year. Now we know the exact relationship. Marquis Jet founder Kenny Dichter bought the domain name for a new investment firm he’s part of, Wheels Up Partners, LLC, he told CNBC in an interview today. Purchase price? $50,000 according ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
I’d buy a lot of domains with my $640 million Mega Millions jackpot - You could buy a lot of great domains with $640 million. If you see me buying a lot of domains at the next domain conference auction, it’s probably because I won the Mega Millions jackpot. That’s what I’d do with a good portion of my winnings. The lottery jackpot is up to $640 million tonight. Of course I wouldn’t get to take that much home. The “cash value” pot is $462 million. Then I assume a couple people will win, so let’s say $231 million. The ... read more ...
 
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Marchex shutting down domain parking program - Marchex to no longer park domains for customers. Marchex is officially shutting down its domain parking program for clients. Wait. What’s that, you say? They have a parking platform? Yes, but they’ve been in the process of scaling it back since at least 2008. In the first half of 2008 it grossed $5 million in revenues from its parking platform called SiteBox. It anticipated revenues of only $500,000 for the fourth quarter of 2008. I’m not aware of anyone who ... read more ...
Thu 29th March 2012
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What domains Disney and 12 other finish users bought final week - Disney buys a domain on Sedo and other end user domain buys. Disney was among 13 end user domain buyers in this week’s report. All of these sales took place at Afternic unless otherwise noted. Tech Instrumentation, Inc., which owns TechInstrument.com, bought the plural version TechInstruments.com for $2,000. Academy Fire Protection bought ExtinguisherService.com for $1,388. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center bought LivingLegend.org for $1,353.50. The company behind Textbook ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Commercial Connect relates for .shop trademarks - Company vying for .shop files dead-on-arrival applications with USPTO. Commercial Connect, LLC, one of the companies planning to apply for the .shop top level domain, has filed two trademark applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The two applications are for “.shop” and “DotShop”, and were filed on March 23. Both applications were filed on an intent-to-use basis, although the “Good and Services” description claims some prior use: C 045. ... read more ...
 
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Bankrate buys InsuranceAgents.com - Company acquires another insurance lead gen site Bankrate has added to its stable of lead gen web sites with great domain names by acquiring InsuranceAgents.com. The news was reported today by Columbus Business First. The sales price was not disclosed, although we may see it in an upcoming BankRate SEC filing. InsuranceAgents.com helps people find exactly what you’d think it would — local insurance agents. It also has quote comparison tools. I think the Columbus ... read more ...
Wed 28th March 2012
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How is Flippa for shopping and offered domains? - Have you used Flippa for buying or selling domain names? I got a note from Flippa today reminding that their site isn’t just for buying and selling web sites. They have a number of domain auctions, too. Two they highlighted were Better.com — currently at $75,000 — and Links.com — currently at $60,000. The catch is that neither of these domains has hit their reserve. And Flippa doesn’t disclose a reserve range. So it could be that everyone is wasting their ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Some people make me sick. - How could someone try to make a buck of the death of teenager Trayvon Martin? The most tasteless: Itrayvonmartin.com for sale on eBay. I have the domain name for Itrayvonmartin.com This auction is for the domain name . Also have the domain name for travonmartin.org contact if you want that one. These registrations and sites related to Trayvon Martin aren’t any better: TrayVonMartinMurderTrial.com – listed for sale on GoDaddy Auctions for $300 TrayvonMartinSkittles.com ... read more ...
 
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Juilliard successful in take down try of fraud web site - Juilliard.me to be transferred to performing arts school. The famous Juilliard School for performing arts in New York City has used World Intellectual Property Organization to take down a web site that it says was falsely accepting donations. The action was filed against Juilliard.me, which is registered to a Cambridge, Massachusetts man. If you look at the site now, you’ll see this: But according to Juilliard’s complaint, the site previously offered “Google ... read more ...
 
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Transpact drops escrow fees on U.S. dollar exchange (and it’s unequivocally cheap) - Escrow company’s already low fees drop for customers transacting in U.S. dollars. I know a couple things about Transpact: a handful of readers have used it for domain name escrow and its services are ridiculously inexpensive. Today I got an email from the company about a pricing change for U.S. dollar transactions. Transactions up to $2,500 are now $9.99 per party per transaction with a $15 payment fee for any U.S. dollar disbursement over $100. So basically any ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Wow: 839 entities sealed adult for ICANN’s new tip turn domain system - Latest update shows 839 registered users for new top level domain application system. ICANN just updated the stats for the number of registered users in its online TLD Application System (TAS). As of March 25 there were a whopping 839 registered users. Each registered user can apply for up to 50 domains, although most of these users probably intend to apply for just one. Since most applications will come in the final days, and March 29th (tomorrow) is the deadline, ... read more ...
Tue 27th March 2012
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Two Texas universities win .xxx domain disputes - Triple-X domains to be transferred to Texas universities in two separate arbitration proceedings. Two Texas universities have won arbitration disputes over the new .xxx domain names. The University of Texas System won a case for UTsystem.xxx and Baylor University won a case for BaylorGirls.xxx. Both organizations filed their complaints with the National Arbitration Forum. UTSystem.xxx got the attention of The University in part thanks to the domain owner forwarding ... read more ...
 
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Apple files censure over iTunes.net - Company requests transfer of domain name. [Update: Apple won the case.] Apple has filed a complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization over the iTunes.net domain name. The domain has long been a parked domain name with links related to downloading music, so it’s not clear to me why the company is suddenly making a move for the domain name. The current parked page has links exclusively about MP3, iPhones, iPod, and downloading music. The current registration ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo updates stats and issues credit from DDOS - Domain parking company resolves stats issues. Domain parking company Sedo was hit with a DDOS attack on March 9. This caused a few hours of downtime, and then some difficulties with monetizing “related links” on its parking pages. Today the company announced that it has fully resolved the problems and compensated publishers. Customer parking daily statistics from for March 9th-19th have been updated. Customers have also been compensated for the three hours of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Austin.com domain name sold - Austin.com domain name sold and will be relaunched. The domain name Austin.com has been purchased by iEstates, LLC for an undisclosed price. As an Austinite, I’ve paid close attention to Austin.com over the years. Previous attempts to develop it have fallen flat, and I feel that’s mostly because the previous owners took the wrong approach to developing and marketing it. I asked iEstates, LLC owner David Wieland for the scoop on why he bought the domain and what ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Kevin Ham’s NameView domain registrar now a parked page purebred during Moniker - NameView.com transferred to Moniker and forwards to a parked page. A reader notified me of something peculiar the other day. NameView.com, the ICANN accredited domain registrar that Kevin Ham was (is?) involved with, now leads to a parked page. I’ve noticed over the past year that Ham’s companies have transferred most of their domains out. The domains I’ve read about in UDRP proceedings recently have been registered at Fabulous. And as of last November, NameView ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Wholesale cost for .com domains could strike $10.29 by 2016 - Why should registry costs increase 7% a year? ICANN has published a proposed agreement to renew the .com contract with VeriSign. As expected, the agreement allows VeriSign to hike prices 7% in four of the next six years. This is similar to the current contract. Under the terms of the proposed contract, VeriSign’s take for each .com registration in 2012 is $7.85 per year. That doesn’t include ICANN’s current “tax” of 18 cents per year. The company can increase ... read more ...
Mon 26th March 2012
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Hot.net is hot! Gets $75,000 bid during Sedo - Hot.net gets a nice bid at Sedo and is now up for auction. The domain name Hot.net has landed a 56,700 EUR bid at Sedo — or about $75,000 USD at today’s exchange rates. The owner of the domain has pushed it to auction with this starting price. According to the listing page for the domain on Sedo, it gets more than 6,000 visits per month. It is currently parked with an adult lander. As best I can tell using the Wayback Machine, the domain name has never been developed. ... read more ...
Sun 25th March 2012
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“Really cool” guys during Digimedia sole Box.com for about $1 million - Box.com sold for about $1 million. Last year file sharing service Box.net bought the Box.com domain name from Scott Day at Digimedia. The purchase price was not disclosed. But now it has — just shy of a million bucks. CNET writer Rafe Needleman discussed the domain name with Box CEO Aaron Levie. The net-net: the company bought the domain for between $900,000 and $999,000. About the negotiations with Digimedia, Levie said the Digimedia guys were “really cool”. ... read more ...
Fri 23rd March 2012
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Even .com registry Verisign has to buy an aftermarket domain each once in a while (end user sales report) - VeriSign among domain buyers this week. I’m a bit behind on getting the end user sales report out this week, but there are some good ones in here. One notable purchase is by .com registry VeriSign, which bought a .org domain to match one of its existing .com’s. All of the sales on this list took place at Afternic except for SharedValue.org, which sold at Sedo… New York cleaners Fine Line Cleaners found a short domain name with FLC.co for $1,088. Non-profit ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Microsoft’s latest ad campaign? Find your 25th hour. - Microsoft registers domains that could be used in marketing next major software release. Don’t we all wish we had an extra hour in a day? That might be the idea behind a possible new marketing campaign from Microsoft. Earlier this week it registered the domain name FindYour25thHour.com, according to whois records. I think this is a great slogan for a campaign about improving efficiency. It could be used for the next Microsoft Office or Microsoft Windows release. The ... read more ...
 
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As new domains like .nyc get announced, watch out for fraudulent web sites like this one - Be careful about sites for new TLDs. Yesterday Information Week reported that Neustar will be running the .nyc domain name when it launches. As definitive news about new top level domains starts hitting the web, people should be careful about misleading web sites promoting the domains. Here’s one example: NYCDomain.org. The domain, owned by a Utah man, is all about the .nyc domain name. And that’s fine. What’s misleading is the description tag — the thing ... read more ...
Thu 22nd March 2012
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Facebook registers a garland of domains though a plan creates no sense - Company appears to be registering previously expired domains, but isn’t picking up some obvious domains. Facebook registered at least 22 domain names yesterday, many of them typos of Facebook. But the strategy is perplexing. Here’s the list: betafacebook.info facboox.com facebocke.com facebof.com facebokcasino.com facebookcredets.com facebookkcredits.com facebooklinker.com facebookpeople.info facebooksight.com facebooon.com facebooor.com faceebot.com faicbooc.com faseboox.com faxcebool.com faxehook.com feook.com photosonfacebook.info wwwfaceboil.com wwwfacebppk.com wwwfeibook.com So ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
New TLD registrations now adult to during slightest 329 - 329 people have registered for ICANN’s new TLD system. ICANN has updated its new top level domain program statistics to show that it has 329 registrants for its TLD Application System (TAS). Each registrant can apply for up to 50 top level domains. So in theory, you could be looking at 16,450 new top level domains. However, most of these registrants are likely just for one or two top level domains. And not everyone who has registered will end up seeing their top ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain remoteness isn’t free, Thursday edition - Responding to lawsuits is expensive. I keep preaching about how providing whois privacy services isn’t free for domain registrars, and here’s another example. Timothy Sykes has just sued Moniker (pdf) in federal district court to find out the identity of the owner of PennyStockAlerts.com, which is protected by whois privacy. Skyes is only after the identify of the owner, not Moniker itself. But the company will have to respond. That costs money. Skyes wants ... read more ...