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.

Tue 13th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
OK, so maybe American Airlines hasn’t motionless who to combine with, registers Delta and United domains - AMR to merge with U.S. Airways, United, or Delta? Sunday evening I posted about how American Airlines or U.S. Airways registered a bunch of domain names related to a merger with U.S. Airways. Today I have clarity that the company doing the registering is American Airlines. [Update: Apparently U.S. Airways claims responsibility. I find this interesting given that some of the domains are specific to American, and some of them don’t even if the U.S. Airways brand ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
The state of .tel in 2012 - It’s still there. Really. .Tel has been quiet, at least in the domainer community, for quite some time. There are a couple good reasons for this: you can’t park .tel domains and no one is getting rich trying to resell them for a profit. The company sent out its latest newsletter today and it has some interesting data. The first thing that caught my eye was that you will soon be able to add video to your site. But it can only be done via API. I’ve long thought ... read more ...
Mon 12th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
SXSW 2012: .Co, .Net, new TLDs, and SEO.com - Four connections to domain names at SXSW. SXSW 2012 Interactive kicked off on Thursday in Austin, Texas, with lots of “domain” attractions. .Co – .co was a big sponsor this year, hosting numerous parties and sponsoring panels and giveaways. Friday night it sponsored the “Celebration of American Startups” event at Austin City Limits. Saturday night it sponsored TechCocktail. Steve Case made an appearance (below) at TechCocktail and told everyone in the ... read more ...
Sun 11th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
American Airlines partnership with U.S. Airways is a go, advise domain registrations - Company registers over a dozen domain names for airline merger. [Update: Now domains related to an American Airlines and Delta or United merger have been registered.] U.S. Airways has been rumored as a potential acquirer of American Airlines since the latter went into bankruptcy protection. Over two dozen recent domain registrations suggest that the acquisition is very likely, if not a done deal. On Friday, the same day American parent company AMR asked for an extension ... read more ...
Fri 9th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Unlike UDRP, Nominet doesn’t wish your .uk disputes to go to court - Nominet says court decision validates its dispute resolution service. Nominet is celebrating a decision by the High Court (a senior court in England) upholding a decision reached in its Dispute Resolution Service for the domain Emirates.co.uk. In its opinion, the court ruled: Looking at the scheme as a whole, it was apparently intended to create a self-contained dispute resolution mechanism which is closely regulated, cheap, quick and (apparently) efficient. To add ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UDRP panelist decides box notwithstanding tentative authorised action - Panelist decides to render his opinion even though it will be ignored. Earlier today I wrote about Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service for .uk domain names, and how the registry wants it to be the “final say” on domain disputes for .uk domain names. UDRP, the arbitration mechanism for a number of top level domain names including .com, is different. It’s meant to be a fast way to resolve clear cut cases of cybersquatting. When a domain is ordered transferred, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain Name Wire turns 7 today - Time flies when you’re having fun. Seven years ago today I wrote the first post on Domain Name Wire. When I started Domain Name Wire the domain industry media landscape was very different. The only online publication was Ron Jackson’s DNJournal. Ron focused (and still focuses) on profiles and sales reports rather than breaking news and analysis. Ron will tell you this was a conscious decision he made based on his years in the news business, because breaking and ... read more ...
Thu 8th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Warner Bros registers domains for Journey 3 movie - More proof that a three-peat is in the works. With Journey 2 already grossing $270 million world wide at the box office, rumors have been swirling that the studio is planning Journey 3. Here’s some more evidence that a third installment is in the works: Warner Bros, which owns Journey studio New Line Cinema, has registered a handful of domains for the next sequel: Journey-3.com Journey3Movie.com JourneyMovie3.com JourneyPart3.com JourneyThree.com The studio is ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Elk.com and INW.com strike with UDRPs - Two three letter .com domains have been hit with UDRP filings. Australian fashion accessories company ELK Accessories Pty Ltd. has filed a UDRP case in an effort to get the domain name Elk.com. The company’s web site is elkaccessories.com.au. Since this seems like such a long shot attempt to snag a three letter domain name (that is also a word), I assumed the whois history for this domain would show that perhaps the company used to own it and it was stolen. But ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google files obvious app for organisation buying - Application for “online marketplace” describes group buying system. Long before Groupon took the idea of group buying of services and gift certificates mainstream, many people have tried group buying for physical goods. Remember Mercata, which shut down in the .com bust? Now Google has filed a patent application for an “online marketplace”, which is effectively a group buying marketplace. The application (12/876725) was filed in 2010 but just published by ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN releases checklist for domain seizures - Non-profit releases paper explaining considerations and parties involved with domain seizures. Citing increased domain seizures and take downs due to criminal activity, the ICANN Security Team has released a paper explaining the process and considerations for complainants when trying to take down a domain name. The paper (pdf) is meant as a technical document as opposed to a legal document. It explains that there are various players involved in maintaining a domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Verisign says 225 million domains registered, discusses domain hijacking - Domain name base keeps growing. VeriSign has released its latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief. Here are the latest stats, according to VeriSign and Zooknic: – Last year ended with over 225 million domains registered across all top level domains – Registrations have grown by more than 20.4 million, or 10 percent, since the fourth quarter of 2010 – Country code domains are growing at an even faster clip, with 13.2 percent increase year over year – The ... read more ...
Wed 7th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Co goes large during SXSW - .Co will be in your face at SXSW interactive. Say what you will about .co (and I know a lot of you will), but you have to give the TLD credit for doing more than anyone else to create a brand around a TLD. It’s a model for anyone who wants to launch a new top level domain next year. Case in point: the company’s presence at SXSW later this week. SXSW Interactive is the perfect venue for a company trying to court startups, entrepreneurs, and tech companies. And ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Paul Keating gets solitary win in Auto-Owners cases - Panel rules that AutoOwner.com registrant can keep domain name. In January I wrote about how Auto-Owners Insurance filed four UDRP cases against owners of domain names it said infringed its mark. The first two decided cases went in favor of the insurance company, but domain attorney Paul Keating has reversed that trend. Keating successfully defended the registrant of AutoOwner.com. The panel found that the insurance company didn’t show registration and use in bad ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
16 good finish user domain sales, including WebmasterWorld - From WebmasterWorld to (RED), here are some end user domain sales from the past week. Here’s a look at 16 end user domain sales from the past week. All sales took place at Afternic unless otherwise noted. Health Partners of Philadelphia bought ActiveHealthPartners.com for $3,088. AquaWaterEau Corporation paid $X for WebAqua.com for $1,150. (RED), an organization trying to eliminate AIDS, paid $X for RedRush.com for $2,000. Senior care company Great Lakes Caring ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company behind ProTrada releases web site growth apparatus DevName.com - DevName helps domainers develop their domain names. Winged Media, the company behind domain auction and expired domain tool ProTrada, has released a new domain development system called DevName.com. Like many auto-web site developers, DevName takes the theme of your domain name and pulls in related content to create a web site. The company claims to have a superior semantic engine to better target this content. [Update: DevName tells me that, while automatic technology ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
iPad series names are unexpected value less - iPad3.com will still get a lot of traffic, but Apple just threw out that naming convention. Apple was supposed to announce the iPad 3 today. But it didn’t. Instead, it launched the “new iPad”. No number after it. No other designation, like iPad HD. What people will end up calling it is still up in the air, but the value of the domain iPad3.com just went down. So did the other iPad#.com domain names. One year ago today I wrote about how squatters had picked ... read more ...
Tue 6th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DomainTools is “most valuable” apparatus for investigate and domain management - Survey respondents vote for best domain tools…and choose the aptly named DomainTools. DomainTools is the most valuable tool in the domain business for research and management, according to a survey of over 1,000 people in this year’s Domain Name Wire survey. Survey takers were asked “Which software or hosted application is most valuable to your domain name business for research and management?” 28% of respondents selected DomainTools. That’s more than double ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What was your biggest domain niche mistake? - Have you flushed money down the toilet on themed domain registrations? Yesterday I wrote about how there’s still a sliver of hope for the prefab domain names I registered many years ago. I thought the registrations would pay off, but now I realize it’s going to be a long time (if ever). I’ve made other mistakes with things I thought would be hot but they didn’t pan out. I bought a bunch of Wimax.com domains, only to see Wimax lose out to LTE as a standard. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
UDRP cybersquatting complaints fall, rate during all time low - Number of cybersquatting arbitration cases fall in 2011. Earlier today Kevin Murphy opined about WIPO’s arbitration numbers from last year, basically saying that the data don’t prove an increase in cybersquatting. In fact, it turns out anyone who wants to use UDRP numbers to talk about cybersquatting needs to say that they show the practice is waning. That’s for a couple reasons. The big one is that in absolute numbers the number of UDRP cases fell last year. ... read more ...
Mon 5th March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain investors bullish on domain values - 66% think values will rise in 2012. 66% of domain name investors think values will increase in 2012 compared to 2011, according to Domain Name Wire’s 7th annual industry survey. That’s the highest percentage since 2008, when 75% were bullish. This year, 25% think values will be roughly the same as last year while 9% think they will fall. What domainers think isn’t necessary a good predictor, however. Much like the stock market, it seems that investor sentiment ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO creates critical and argumentative preference on acronym domains - Majority of panel rules that CEAT.com should be transferred to tire company. A three person World Intellectual Property Organization panel has handed down a decision over CEAT.com, and it is sure to be controversial. The complainant is a tire company in India, and the respondent was Kevin Ham’s Vertical Axis. As one of the larger domain portfolio holders, Vertical axis registers many two, three, and four character domain names. And although a simple search for “CEAT” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Prefab domain investments competence compensate off someday - So you’re saying there’s a chance… In numerous interviews I’ve discussed my investment in domain names related to prefab housing. I’m not talking about cheap prefab; instead I’ve gone long on modern prefab housing. But the housing boom hurt the modern prefab industry pretty hard. Financing a prefab home can prove challenging and alternative financing got hit hard in the mortgage crises. Another drawback is that prefab housing still generally costs a lot ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
VeriSign compelling .net domain names - Refreshed web site promotes .net to small businesses. VeriSign has owned the domain name GetYour.net for a while, but today is the first time I saw an online ad promoting the site. I saw the ad (pictured) on the BizJournals.com web site. It’s a video ad promoting businesses to register .net domain names and sends them to GetYour.net. Screenshots.com shows that GetYour.net has been refreshed in the past couple months. The site includes links to .net accredited domain ... read more ...
Fri 2nd March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Here’s what a domain attention thinks will occur to .com when new TLDs launch - Most .com domains will either retain their value or increase with the launch of new TLDs. What will happen to values of .com domain names when new top level domains arrive next year? They’ll go up or stay the same. That’s according to the majority of over 1,000 people that answered the question on the 7th annual Domain Name Wire survey. 39% think .com values will increase while 45% say new TLDs will have no effect on .com prices. Only 16% think it will cause .com ... read more ...