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 January 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
LeadRefs.com helps we find buyers for your domains - Free service finds potential buyers for your domain names. Sure, you can sit on your domain portfolio and wait for the right buyer to come along. But you’ll sell a lot more domains if you actually try to sell them. The big challenge is finding qualified buyers for your domains. That’s a problem that LeadRefs.com is trying to solve. Just plug in a domain name and it searches for potential buyers of your domain name. For example, plug in TradingDerivatives.com and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
VeriSign expected to announce 100M .com miracle today - DomainTools claims milestone reached; VeriSign earnings call on tap for today. At the end of October VeriSign was very, very close to hitting the 100 million .com domain name milestone. Now, according to DomainTools, there are officially 100 million .com domain names registered, not including those going through the redemption process or pending delete. Given that VeriSign has its earnings call today at 4:30 PM EST, I’m betting the company will announce this milestone ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy reveals Super Bowl blurb featuring a Pussycat Dolls - You won’t have to wait until the Super Bowl to see this year’s commercials. It’s likely you’ve already seen GoDaddy’s Super Bowl commercial featuring .co. GoDaddy has linked to it from its home page for about a week. Now the company is releasing its second half commercial on the web, too. The spot, dubbed “CLOUD”, features the new Pussycat Dolls. It also stars Danica Patrick. Patrick has officially been in more Super Bowl ads than any other celebrity, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
2011 was record violation year for .com and .net domain registrations - Over 32 million new domain registrations in .com and .net last year. 2011 set a record for new .com/.net domain registrations with over 32 million registration, VeriSign announced on its investor conference call this afternoon: In the fourth quarter, we added 1.9 million net names to the domain name base, and we processed 7.9 million new registrations, which is about a 4% increase over the same period a year ago. The fourth quarter was our strongest Q4 for new registrations ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
VeriSign skeleton to request for about 12 new tip turn domain names - Company will apply for about a dozen TLDs, mostly transliterations of .com. VeriSign plans to apply for “about 12″ top level domain names this year, Pat Kane, Senior Vice President and General Manager of VeriSign Naming Services, said on VeriSign’s investor conference call this evening. Most of these will be transliterations of .com. In other words, internationalized domain names (IDNs). Although he did not elaborate on what those domains would be, Kane previously ... read more ...
Wed 25th January 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
115 Top turn domain trademarks and their stream status - I’ve made plenty of commotion about companies filing for trademarks on future top level domain names. It always seems that they’re successfully pulling a fast one on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. But after an exhaustive analysis of 115 trademark applications, I’ve actually found that the U.S.P.T.O. is mostly on top of things when it comes to this trademarking game. In almost all cases, the trademark examiner has sent an office action to the applicant ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Best Buy buys PhoneFreedom.com and other finish user domain sales - A big retailer makes a small domain purchase. Electronics retailer Best Buy is the biggest name on this week’s end user domain sales report. The company paid $2,588 for PhoneFreedom.com through Sedo. This domain is intuitive for one of the largest mobile phone sellers. The rest of this week’s end user domain sales took place through Afternic: Skydex, which makes materials to mitigate shock and blasts (think military uses), bought BlastMitigation.com for $2,500. PowerSoak, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is Marchex deliberation offered the domain name portfolio? - Company considering what to do with its domain name portfolio. Marchex is often cited as starting a wave of acquisitions of domain portfolios when it announced the purchase of Ultimate Search from Yun Ye in 2004 for $164 million. Now it is looking at “strategic alternatives” for its domain name portfolio. From a press release issued today announcing preliminary earnings for Q4: Marchex is also announcing that it is evaluating potential strategic alternatives for ... read more ...
Tue 24th January 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
HostExploit says Oversee.net is improving, creation a box study - HostExploit applauds Oversee.net for fixing problems that landed it at top spot at recent “Bad Hosts” list. HostExploit, a group that compiles a list of what it calls “Bad Hosts”, no longer lists Oversee.net as the #1 bad host. In its fourth quarter report, the group says Oversee.net is now ranked as the #12 bad host. Why? It’s kind of hard to tell. Last quarter I reached out to both Oversee.net and HostExploit about the ranking. I heard back from neither ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UK-based Transpact offers domain escrow services - Another option for domain name escrow services. There are lots of options for domain name escrow services. One I just became aware of is Transpact.com based in the UK. Two things make Transpact interesting: its location and low fees. The company (Transpact is actually the trading name for Anpa Forward Ltd) is based in the UK and specializes in pound and euro transactions. It’s fees are also low and not based on a percentage of the transaction. The company charges ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
QE.com hits haven and other Moniker auction insights - Three domains have already hit reserve ahead of auction, and CA lists five domains for sale. Next week DOMAINfest comes to Santa Monica, California. That means it’s time for another Moniker premium domain auction. As it has done recently, the company is holding “pre-bidding” on a number of domains that will be in the auction. Already QE.com has hit its reserve with a $57,500 bid. That means the domain will sell for sure at next week’s auction. A couple other ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Some authorised advice: LegalAdvice.org is generic - Panel rules against company claiming rights to LegalAdvice.org. A company called Capitalism, Inc. didn’t quite get the legal advice it needed in a recent UDRP case. The company asked a National Arbitration Forum panel to give it the domain name LegalAdvice.org. No such luck, the panel ruled. After all, it’s merely a descriptive term. Capitalism, Inc does have a trademark on the term, but not in the class of legal services. The terms of the domain name are common ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Doh! AARP counsel forgets to insert screenshot, loses case - AARP wins two cases for similar domain names but loses third. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) just received determinations in three cases it filed for aarpdiscounts.info, aarpdiscounts.net, aarpdiscount.org, and AARPdiscounts.org. It won rights to all of the domains except AARPdiscounts.info. You may be asking yourself how three different panelists looked at very similar domains, all of which allegedly forward to monetization pages, and one disagreed ... read more ...
Mon 23rd January 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Which domain forum is best? - Take this five minute survey. There’s been a bit of news in the domain name forum world recently, with NamePros selling to the owner of Bodis.com. Will that shake up the “ranking” of domain forums? You tell me… You have the opportunity to vote for the best domain name forum on the 7th annual Domain Name Wire Survey. Click here to take the survey. The survey has already received hundreds of responses, but I want to know your opinion. In addition to selecting ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
CIT gets control of nasty John Thain domain names - Domains transferred to Thain’s latest employer. There are a lot of people out there who don’t care for John Thain, current chairman and CEO of CIT. He was, after all, at the helm of Merrill Lynch during the banking meltdown…and apparently spent $1 million renovating a couple offices while on the government dole. When his new employer CIT hired him, apparently a slew of protective domain names came along with him. CIT was just unmasked this month as the owner ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Mail Boxes Etc. in Spain gets Mailboxes.org in dispute - UDRP panel hands over Mailboxes.org domain name. MBE Spain 2000, S.L., which manages franchises of Mail Boxes Etc. in Spain, has been awarded the domain name Mailboxes.org by a World Intellectual Property Organization panel. The domain name was owned by a franchisee of MBE Spain. After the case was filed the franchisee forwarded the domain name to a new web site. The decision is in Spanish, so I can’t quite understand if the previous page it resolved to used the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
USPTO wising adult to new TLD frontrunning - Cancels two approvals, more to come? The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is finally catching on to a game I’ve reported about many times: trying to sneak through a trademark on a top level domain name. The USPTO has a policy of not issuing trademarks for top level domain names. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying to get one, which may give them some negotiating or legal power for TLDs. One common trick is to use a Wild West Domains domain reseller account ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New domain hunt to find accessible domains…fast - Lean Domain Search finds available domain names that include your search term. A couple years ago I wrote about domain finding tool Domain Pigeon. Creator Matt Mazur is back with a new tool to identify available domain names that include a specific keyword. Just type in a keyword and Lean Domain Search matches it with 1,000 words commonly used in domains. It then tells you which ones are available. I tried out multiple searches on the site and was impressed with ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Buy.XXX: a box investigate of consumer recognition of TLDs - The general public doesn’t know that domains can end something other than .com. On November 22 I wrote an article about ICM Registry’s TV ad campaign. The ad campaign invited viewers to visit www.buy.xxx to learn more about the new .xxx domain extension. The campaign reached a lot of eyeballs judging by the flood of traffic Domain Name Wire received from search engines. But did people understand that Buy.xxx was a domain name, just like Buy.com is? Some did, but ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SOPA goes to Ireland - Ireland may enact a SOPA-like law without much debate. The Stop Online Piracy Act in America may be “dead” for now, but the United States isn’t the only country that wants to fiddle with the internet. Net heads in Ireland are revolting against a proposal from Sean Sherlock, Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation in Ireland. His proposed law would curtail access to websites in Ireland by forcing ISPs to block sites that are reported to link to infringing ... read more ...
Fri 20th January 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A demeanour during Escrow.com’s $1 billion miracle and new attorney tool - Escrow.com completes $1 billion in transactions and will soon release a tool for brokers. Escrow.com just hit a major milestone: $1 billion in completed transactions. I reached out to Escrow.com president Brandon Abbey to understand the path the company took to reach this milestone and the makeup of its current business. Abbey told me that Escrow.com started out with small transactions when it opened its doors in 1999. An actual example: 10 Garnet Ovals at $1.99 a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bob Parsons credits Super Bowl ads for $1 billion in sales - GoDaddy.com founder says $70 million investment has driven $1 billion in business. GoDaddy.com founder Bob Parsons says he’s generated $1 billion in business from running Super Bowl ads. In a USA Today article about the sexing up of Super Bowl ads (which of course features GoDaddy prominently), Parsons says his company has spent $70 million to produce and air these ads. But the ROI has been good. Although it’s not easy to track long term results from ads like ... read more ...
Thu 19th January 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Monte Cahn and Oversee.net go to hearing subsequent week - Court to decide two aspects of dispute between Moniker founder Monte Cahn and his former employer. Monte Cahn and Oversee.net will square off in court on January 24, but it will be a limited non-jury trial over just a couple aspects of Cahn’s breach of contract claim. The trial will seek to address two issues: 1. Oversee’s treatment of the Oversee EBITDA performance goal under Cahn’s bonus plan 2. Who counts as “TrafficClub customers” for determining if ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
National Association of Realtors goes after GayRealtor.com - Association files arbitration case targeting gay real estate referral site. The National Association of Realtors has filed a complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization over the domain name GayRealtor.com. [Update 3/8/12: The NAR won the case] The domain name is owned by gay real estate agent Jeff Hammerberg. Hammerberg runs the web site GayRealEstate.com, which helps connect home buyers and sellers with gay real estate agents. GayRealtor.com appears to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SOPA and PIPA web site protests memorialized on Screenshots.com - Screenshots.com captures yesterday’s web site blackouts. Screenshots.com has forever captured many of the web site “blackouts” put in place yesterday in opposition to the SOPA and PIPA bills. On one page you can see over 50 screenshots of protests. It includes sites you probably saw (Wikipedia) and ones you probably didn’t (PopCultureMadness.com). You can also click on each screenshot to see how the site looked before the protest. Screenshots.com is a standalone ... read more ...