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 16th August 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UDRP Cyberbullying Hits a New Low - German company goes after three letter domain 16 years after it’s registered. I’ve seen a lot of egregious UDRP cases over the years. This one may take the cake. Imagine the year is 1995. You register the domain name GEA.com because your personal initials are GEA and you have a business called G.E.A. Design. Then 14 years later, in 2009, a German company starts complaining that its acronym is GEA and you should sell it the domain name for a nominal amount so it ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.XXX Plans to Spend $15 Million in First Year Promoting New Domain to Web Users - Registry has ambitious plans for letting web surfers know it exists. With the first .xxx domain names from the “Founder’s” program coming online and the trademark sunrise period soon to get underway, .XXX backer ICM Registry has some very ambitious marketing plans. I caught up with ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley today to understand the latest on .xxx and the company’s marketing plans. Ambitious Marketing One of the striking differences between .xxx and new ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A Quick Way to Slash Your Go Daddy Premium Commissions By 33% - Reduce your commission rate by changing your price. Last week I sold a domain through GoDaddy Premium Listings for $1,750. I’m happy with the sale, although is stings to pay a $525 commission. A couple weeks ago Adam Strong noted that GoDaddy reduced its fee on Premium Listings sales from 30% to 20%, but only on listings created in August. He suggested deleting and re-adding domains to take advantage of the lower commission rate. For the domain I just sold it would ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Rod Beckstrom To Leave ICANN After End of Term - CEO to step down at end of three year tenure. ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom will step down at the end of his three year term, the non-profit announced this afternoon. He has been at the helm of the company since July 2009 and will finish his three year contract at the end of June 2012. It’s been an interesting couple years since he joined the organization. Shortly after he started ICANN gained some independence from the U.S. government. But the relationship ... read more ...
Mon 15th August 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
PIR Confirms Continued .Org Domain Name Registration Growth - Total .org domains registered hits 9.2 million at end of June. Public Interest Registry, which operates .org, today confirmed continued strong registration growth of .org domain names. Total domains under management eclipsed 9 million on March 2 and ended at 9.2 million at the end of the first half of the year. The company’s .Org “Dashboard Report” shows a 10.1% increase in domains under management for the first half of the year. That compares to 9.7% growth ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Masala.xxx Didn’t Get a Memo About India and .XXX Domain Names - Users might have a hard time reaching Indian .xxx site. I was caught a bit off guard when reading Elliot’s story today about Masala.xxx launching. This is apparently an adult site aimed at India. Although I don’t believe anything is done yet, India is high up on list of countries that will try to block .xxx domain names from resolving. It seems odd that you’d launch a .xxx site aimed squarely and India in the face of it being hard for your target visitors to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Google Toolbar Doesn’t Recognize .XXX Yet - Toolbar treats .xxx domains as search queries rather than web site addresses. When you type a domain name into the Google Toolbar — e.g. DNW.com — it takes you directly to the URL rather than Google’s search page. The same thing happens when you type in most top level domain names, save for a few examples such as .cat. But for now, .xxx is in the same category as .cat. If you type in casting.xxx, the toolbar brings you to Google’s search results page for ... read more ...
 
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Kohler Files Cybersquatting Lawsuit Against Repeat Offenders - After paying off cybersquatters, Kohler says it got burned. Plumbing fixtures giant Kohler has filed an anticybersquatting lawsuit against a company that it had already paid to stop registering its trademarks as domain names. The federal district suit was filed against DomainJet, Inc, Jack Sun, and one or more of the company’s employees. According to Kohler, it approached the defendants after it noticed they registered Kohlerco.in. The defendants demanded $1,000 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Free Speech Coalition Provides Template Trademark Protection Letter to Adult Sites - “The money generated should come from legitimate adult and explicit content users.” If I am a legitimate registrant, why should I have to pay a “trademark tax” to protect the interests of people who ate perfectly capable of taking care of themselves? “ICANN can create a gang of six” And who pays them? Some other group of people who should pay to protect someone else’s property rights? If you want to keep people out of your yard, do you make everyone else buy you a fence? ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Will a 2 Letter Domain Help a Daily Deals Aggregator Stand Out in a Crowd? - DX.com may give site a leg up against the competition. There are dozens — perhaps hundreds — of daily deals sites on the web a la Groupon and LivingSocial. As consumers struggle to find the best deals amongst them, a number of daily deals aggregator sites have popped up as well. The aggregators collate deals from all of the daily deals sites into an easy-to-consume format. With so many of these sites coming online, how do you stand out? Andrew Rosener, who you ... read more ...
Sun 14th August 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Confusing State of ICANN’s Web Site - ICANN’s web site gets a minor face lift, but there’s a long way to go. It’s not a big change, and it’s welcome, but why can’t there be a reasonably usable ICANN web site? ICANN has refreshed the color scheme on its ICANN.org web site so it no longer looks like it was created in 1994. The new design as a more pleasing white color scheme rather than the dark blue one we had become accustomed to. Here’s the old design: And here’s the new one: The social ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Trader Joe’s Sues Grocery Delivery Web Site - Trader Joe’s unhappy with food delivery service. Fast growing and trendy grocery store chain Trader Joe’s has sued the owner of TJsDeliveryService.com for trademark infringement. The web site technically stands for “Traffic Jam’s” delivery service, but the site is forward about what it does: delivers groceries from Trader Joe’s directly to your home: After taking requests from family and friends to bring these products with us when visiting, we realized ... read more ...
Thu 11th August 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Are Domain Names Less Important? - Domain names are now competing for space. I received a catalog from Bissinger’s last week and thoroughly inspected the mailer (it’s great chocolate). What caught my attention was the back of the catalog. Take a look: What do you notice? 15 years ago this catalog would have probably just had a phone number. A few years later it would have a phone number and domain name. Now both of these are relegated to the side. In fact, I didn’t even notice them at first. Instead ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DOMAINfest Sets Dates for 2012 Show - The big show returns, but I bet the final party will have a new location. Mark your calendars, folks. Next year’s DOMAINfest Global conference will take place January 31 to February 2. The event will again take place at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, California. Registration begins in September for a discounted rate of $995. Rates jump October 1. If you think you might go, I recommend reserving a hotel room soon as they always sell out early. DOMAINfest ... read more ...
Wed 10th August 2011
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What Domains Starwood Hotels and Other End Users Bought This Week - Hotel chain among end user domain name buyers this week. As I do every week, here’s a look at end user domain purchases from Afternic for the past week. First let’s start with the big name: Starwood Hotels and Resorts. The company paid $1,188 for OnlyInHawaii.com. Specifically, it looks like the buyer was the Sheraton Waikiki. Electronic Cigarettes, Inc. bought eLiquids.com for $2,588. Electronic cigarettes are filled with liquid nicotine. The rest of the purchases ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN CEO Snaps Back during ANA Over New TLDs - Beckstrom responds to advertising group with strongly worded letter. ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom has responded (pdf) to a letter (pdf) from Association of National Advertisers (ANA) that had demanded ICANN suspend its plans for the new top level domain name program. Beckstrom informs IANA that “The assertions in your letter are either incorrect or problematic in several respects.” He stresses that the program is the culmination of work with every stakeholder in the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Aftermarket.com Offers Private Domain Name Brokerage - Company officially moves into domain brokerage services. Aftermarket.com is now officially offering private domain name brokerage services. The company has recently sent solicitations about domains including WorldTradeCenter.com. But today the group sent out an email announcing its private brokerage services. It includes a list of some of the domains it has recently gotten under exclusive contract to sell. Some of the domains include UrgentCare.com, Proposition.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Facebook? It’s Highly Likely. - Facebook will likely apply for .facebook. Will Facebook apply for the new top level domain name Facebook? Most likely. This popped up on my radar today when Facebook changed the nameservers for the domain name dotFacebook.com to its main servers. I researched the domain and found that Facebook acquired it after it expired in 2010. Now, given that this domain was previously owned by someone else, I wouldn’t assume that it is an indication of the company’s plans ... read more ...
 
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DONE! Ventures Reaches Settlement with NBC and Sedo Over Women.com - Settlement reached over failed seven figure domain name sale. DONE! Ventures has reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit it brought against NBC Universal and Sedo. The lawsuit was over a failed purchase for Women.com and Women.net. DONE! says that NBC accepted its offer of $1 million for the two domain names. But then-NBC Universal Chairman and CEO Jeff Zucker allegedly quashed the deal. DONE! originally sued just NBC Universal to get it to go through with the ... read more ...
Tue 9th August 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
HostingCon Kicks Off in San Diego - Conference for the web hosting industry invades San Diego. HostingCon kicked off yesterday in San Diego, bringing together the web hosting industry and its many related service providers. I arrived late in the morning and caught the last ten minutes of a talk from OpenSRS’ Adam Eisner titled “What do New TLDs Mean for your Hosting Business”. Some members of the audience wondered if their clients would want them to acquire their brand names for all the new TLDs, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nintendo 1-Ups for Popular SuperMario.com Web Site - Nintendo wants to lay claim to high traffic web site. Decades after bringing the iconic video game character Mario and the Super Mario series to millions of gamers, Nintendo has decided it wants the domain name SuperMario.com. The company just filed a complaint with World Intellectual Property Forum to get the domain name. Nintendo may be concerned about the content of the site, which is a collection of online Super Mario games. The site gets a whopping 200,000 visits ... read more ...
 
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Sedo’s Jeremiah Johnston Steps Down, Will Open Private Practice - Long time domain industry exec steps down. Sedo has just confirmed a rumor that started percolating recently: COO Jeremiah Johnston is leaving the company. Johnston will remain General Counsel to the company as he opens his own private practice. Honestly, with Johnston’s involvement with all of the company’s legal business I had kind of forgotten that he was also COO. He was instrumental in bringing resources and money to Internet Commerce Association, and he ... read more ...
 
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Demand Media Renews Ad Deal With Google - Demand Media renews advertising deal with Google as loss widens. Demand Media released earnings this afternoon for the second quarter. Some of the GAAP financial highlights include: -Revenue up 32% compared to Q2 2010 -Net loss increased to $2.4 million -Traffic acquisition costs (the amount shared with partners) decreased from $3.1 million in Q2 2010 to $2.8 million this year But also buried in the press release is an announcement that the company renewed its advertising ... read more ...
Mon 8th August 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Alibaba Strikes Out In Domain Name Dispute - Alibaba loses domain name arbitration case. Global internet giant Alibaba has lost a domain name dispute for the domain Alibaba.info because of insufficient evidence that the domain was registered in bad faith. One member of the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre panel dissented. The majority of the panel took issue with Alibaba’s evidence that the domain name was registered in bad faith. Alibaba presented evidence that the domain name was used in bad ... read more ...
 
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Product Expansion? Toys ‘R’ Us Gets Tattoos ‘R’ Us Domain Name - Company gets a bunch of unusable domain names in arbitration case. Is it the right strategy? Before long, Toys ‘R’ Us might be able to get into the credit card, insurance, legal, and even tattoos businesses. OK, so it doesn’t really plan to, but it just won a domain name arbitration case for 21 domain names including ‘rus’ that it can probably never use. The case was filed against “The R Us Group” and includes domain names such as TattoosRUs.info, homebusinessopportunityrus.com, ... read more ...