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.

Sun 31st July 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Neustar Announces .Biz Price Increase - .Biz registration and renewal prices increase in six months. Neustar has informed its registrars and ICANN that it will increase its annual prices for .biz domain names effective February 1, 2012. The new price will be $7.85, or 55 cents more than the current $7.30 per year. That’s about 7.5%. This wholesale price does not include ICANN’s 18 cent “tax” per domain year registered. Neustar’s notice to ICANN does not include a reason for the price increase. Price ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Monte Cahn: Acquisition of Moniker Violated Google Contract - Moniker founder says Oversee.net contract with Google violated in Moniker acquisition. Monte Cahn has filed a response (pdf) to Oversee.net’s motion to dismiss certain claims he brought against his former employer. One of the more interesting claims in his response relates to the Moniker acquisition from Seevast and how it may have violated Oversee.net’s contract with ad provider Google: Additionally, since filing the First Amended Complaint, it has come to our ... read more ...
Sat 30th July 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
HP Loses First Round of HP Pre Battle - Company stunningly loses a domain arbitration case over HPPre.com. With the HP Pre 3 getting ready to hit the market, HP filed a domain name dispute with National Arbitration Forum to get the domain name HPPre.com. Here’s what happened: -The day after HP announced its acquisition of Palm (maker of the Pre), the registrant registered the domain name -The registrant created a splog at the domain name that grabbed stories about Palm products from sites such as Engadget -The ... read more ...
Fri 29th July 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Jeff Kupietzky To Leave Oversee.net Next Month - CEO and president to leave one of domain name industry’s biggest companies. Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky will depart the company at the end of the August, the company has announced. He will be moving his family to Israel. Kupietzky has been with the company for five years, with the last 2 1/2 years as CEO and President. Going forward, day-to-day operations will be handled by Co-Presidents Debra Domeyer and Scott Morrow. Kupietzky has had to manage a number of ... read more ...
Thu 28th July 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
How To Create Your Own Whois Privacy Service - A simple process to add privacy to your whois records while retaining full control. If you don’t like your personal contact information being exposed in whois records, you don’t need to pay a lot of money to a whois privacy or whois proxy service to protect your identity. You can do it yourself. Here’s how. 1. Get a post office box. You can get a box at either the U.S. postal service or places like UPS Store. I’m sure there are equivalents in whatever country ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Facebook Files Massive Cybersquatting Lawsuit - Lawsuit goes after typosquatters who redirect to survey offers. As reported on Elliot’s Blog today, Facebook has filed a lawsuit against dozens of people for allegedly typosquatting on its domain names. One of the interesting aspects of this case is what the defendants are allegedly doing with the domain names. Instead of parking them with traditional pay-per-click providers, they are forwarding them to survey sites that mimic Facebook in some way. This type of ... read more ...
Wed 27th July 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Top 5 Tips for New Top-Level Domain Applicants - by Michael Twist Michael Twist is a Top-Level Domain specialist with AusRegistry International. You can read more from AusRegistry about new TLDs at www.beyondcom.info. So, you’ve heard about ICANN’s new Top-Level Domain (TLD) Program and you’re thinking about the best way to get involved so you can gain a slice of the of the $5 billion dollar domain name industry. You might be an entrepreneur out to make your next million, a brand looking to make a statement ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Q2 Market Study in Review - by Heather DelCarpini [Sedo just released its Q2 market study today. In this guest post, Sedo marketing manager Heather DelCarpini explains where the domain name aftermarket is heading.] Sedo’s Market Study for Q2 2011 reveals the strongest quarter in over a year, after excluding the record-breaking sale of sex.com for $13m in Q4 2010. Median prices for all gTLDs increased across the board, with some notable .com sales in the form of datacenter.com ($352,000), consolidation.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google AdWords Now Supports Internationalized Domain Names - Advertisers no longer have to show ASCII URLs in their ads. A couple weeks ago I missed an announcement from Google AdWords that it now supports internationalized domain names (IDN) for display and destination URLs on Google ads. This means advertisers will no longer have to show a non-ASCII ad followed by an ASCII domain name. AdWords clients can enter unicode characters for the URLs and Google will verify that it works correctly in both unicode and punycode. The ... read more ...
Tue 26th July 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domainer Caught Off Guard After Being Named in Apparel Counterfeiting Lawsuit - Domainer with parked domain name ensnared in lawsuit. Imagine you’re a domain investor, just going along and buying domain names and parking them like everyone else. You know you may get hit with a cease desist every once in a while from an aggressive trademark lawyer. But that’s about it. But then one day you find yourself named in a massive apparel counterfeiting ring. That’s what happened to VL Raymer. Raymer owns the domain name Primp.com and has owned ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Meme Site “Texts From Last Night” Gets Into Domain Name Dispute - Popular site wants typo of its web address. Meme site “Texts From Last Night“, which publishes drunken texts (and texts about drunken nights) has filed a dispute against the owner of a similar domain name. The site, hosted at TextsFromLastNight.com, is asking World Intellectual Property Forum to award it the domain name TextFromLastNight.com (where ‘text’ is singular). Texts From Last Night was founded in 2009 and receives over 400,000 unique visitors per ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ReadItLater Bought Its Domain Name Later - Company started with longer domain name before buying the “right” one. I was reading an article about ReadItLater earlier today when I noticed the article linked to ReadItLaterList.com instead of ReadItLater.com. The popular service offers apps that allow you to save web pages to read later. So “Read It Later” is a great name. Obviously ReadItLaterList.com isn’t a great domain name. But when I typed in ReadItLater.com I found that it forwarded to ReadItLaterList.com. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
End User Domain Purchases Over a Past Week - Here are some end user domain purchases through Afternic over the past week. Acumen Brands, a niche etailer, bought FatChance.com for $26,000. Renewable energy development Community Energy Inc. bought CommunitySolar.com for $10,000 EducationDynamics, which helps colleges and universities recruit students, bought ChristianEducation.com for $8,500. CPI Corp, which provides professional photography services principally in Sears and Wal-Mart stores, bought PhotoOpps.com ... read more ...
Mon 25th July 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Is a Major Tech Company About to Release a “Cloud Nine” Product? - Handful of domain names using “Cloud Nine” brand registered. We’ve seen a lot of cloud products lately adopt the “cloud” name in their brand. Is a major tech company getting ready to launch a “Cloud Nine” brand? A company has just registered a number of domain names using this brand: Cloud9application.com Cloud9browsing.com Cloud9searching.com Cloud9Browser.com CloudNineApplication.com CloudNineBrowser.com CloudNineBrowsing.com CloudNineSearching.com The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What Not To Do with a “Sucks” Domain Name - Here’s a “sucks” UDRP the complainant will easily win. Living Spaces Furniture, LLC recently filed a UDRP against the owner of LivingSpacesSucks.com. Thinking this was perhaps a site created by a disgruntled customer, I typed in the URL and found this: This will be a slam dunk for the furniture company. You can generally own a “sucks” domain name under a couple circumstances: 1. You actually use it to criticize the company 2. You don’t benefit financially ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Joe Higgins Lands during Rook Media - Former Oversee.net employee finds new home at Rook Media. Longtime Domain Sponsor account manager Joe Higgins may have left his employer of the last 6 1/2 years recently, but he didn’t leave the domain name industry. Higgins has joined new domain name parking company Rook Media. Rook Media was formed by former Name Drive senior managers who left after the latter was sold. It was in a private beta with large domainers since February and opened up to the masses ... read more ...
Sun 24th July 2011
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Min.us Is $115,000 Minus.com Buyer - Company upgrades from domain hack to minus.com. Who paid $115,000 for the minus.com domain name? New York City startup min.us officially disclosed that it is the buyer of the domain name. It previously went by the domain name min.us, a “domain hack” using the United States country code domain name. Why move from a domain hack to a good .com domain name? As the company explains on its blog: But as we have grown, it’s become apparent that some of our users find ... read more ...
Fri 22nd July 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Victor Pitts Returns to Host Domain Masters Radio Show - Domain Masters radio show returns with Victor Pitts back as host. It’s baaaack. WebmasterRadio.fm’s Domain Masters radio show is coming back with a familiar face as host. Victor Pitts will return to host the program that has been online since 2004 and produced 243 episodes. It was originally hosted by Moniker founder Monte Cahn, who handed over much of the hosting responsibilities to Victor Pitts until Pitts left the company. Pitts was then replaced by “Chef” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Craigslist Sues Sellers of Phone Verified Accounts, Fights Posting Spam - Classifieds site goes after company selling “phone verified accounts” and helping people auto-post to Craiglist.org. Craigslist has sued a Colorado man and associated businesses for helping people circumvent tools created to block spam on its site. The online classifieds site claims the defendants offer services that make it easier for people to submit automated postings to Craiglist, against the sites terms of service. It alleges that the defendants sell “phone ... read more ...
Thu 21st July 2011
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Irony Alert: Jillian Michaels Protests Treatment of Elephants - No joke: Go Daddy girl to protest alongside PETA in defense of circus elephants. How’s this for irony: fitness guru and GoDaddy Girl Jillian Michaels is joining with PETA to protest Ringling Bros. circus and its treatment of elephants. I’m not kidding. In case you aren’t familiar with the story, GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons shot an elephant in Africa this year. It’s not the first time he’s done it, but the story went viral this time and a number of people ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lawyers Fight Over Monte Cahn’s Laptop - Court denies temporary restraining order for Monte Cahn’s laptop. The latest legal battle in Monte Cahn v. Oversee.net et al is over a laptop. Lawyers for the defendants want to get their hands on the Moniker founder’s laptop, which they say is Oversee.net company property. They claim the laptop may include confidential emails and other information about both this case and other legal matters. The defendants filed for a temporary restraining order to get the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
What’s .Next? - A frequent DNW reader sets in motion plans for a new TLD. In my daily perusal of U.S. trademark applications I came across another potential top level domain today: .Next (Not to be confused with the .nxt conference). More interestingly, I recognized the name of the applicant: Mansour Elseify. Elseify is a frequent reader and commenter on Domain Name Wire and owner of DomainsNext.com, a Tucows reseller that has been in business for 10 years. So I reached out to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
R.J. Reynolds Sues eCigarette Web Sites - Tobacco company claims sites sell liquid nicotine products using their famous cigarette brands. The intellectual property holding company for R.J. Reynolds has filed two trademark lawsuits in North Carolina against online retailers selling liquid nicotine products. The suits allege that the web sites sell products bearing the images of their famous Camel and Winston marks, such as in the image to the right. The first suit is against YourECigarette.com and its owner. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Warner Bros Fighting for Hangover 3 Domain Names - Movie studio goes after most obvious domain names for its next Hangover movie. Last month I wrote about how Warner Bros had registered five domain names related to the next installment in its popular Hangover series, including Hangover3movie.com, HangoverMovie3.com, Hangover-3.com, the-hangover-3.com, and theHangoverMovie3.com. I also noted that someone already owned Hangover3.com, and that I didn’t expect the company to shell out big bucks to buy the domain name. I ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Walmart Challenges Non-Profit Over OurWalmart.org Domain Name - Company files dispute to get OURWalmart.com domain name. [UPDATE: The original story said the case was against OURWalmart.com. It was actually against OurWalmart.org, which is indeed owned by the non-profit. Additionally, WIPO has handed down a decision in favor of Wal-Mart. The story has been corrected.] Walmart has started a fight with non-profit OUR Walmart over the domain name OurWalmart.org. OUR Walmart, which stands for “Organization United for Respect at ... read more ...