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.

Wed 8th June 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Atlas Shrugged Movie Producers Win 1, Lose 1 - Same panelist. Similar domains. Different result, even on confusing similarity. The producers of the new Atlas Shrugged Movie filed two UDRP cases with World Intellectual Property Forum for essentially the same domains: AtlasShruggedMovie.com and AtlasShruggedMovies.com. They lost the first one and won the second one. Oh, and the same panelist (Richard G. Lyon) heard both cases. And decided them within a day of each other. The facts in the cases differed slightly ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Responds to U.S. Government Questions About New Top Level Domains - Kurt Pritz responds to Congress. ICANN Senior Vice President Kurt Pritz has responded (pdf) to a written question and expanded on his answers to questioning from U.S. representatives during a hearing about new TLDs on May 4. Representative Howard Coble submitted a written question asking if ICANN was going to make special arrangements for “brand” top level domain names should a brand owner decide to wind down operation of the new top level domain name. At the ... read more ...
Tue 7th June 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Surveying a Domain Parking CPA Landscape - There are a number of options for CPA on parked pages, but we’re still trying to figure out what works best. Last week TheParkingPlace.com, which had been in beta for a while, opened its doors. The sample sites I’ve seen on its parking platform primarily use CPA offers to monetize traffic. But my headline for the launch — “New Service Brings CPA To Domain Parking” — may have suggested that this was the first attempt to bring CPA to domain parking. This ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Breaking: Salesforce.com Buys Data.com Domain Name - Salesforce.com pays seven figure sum for Data.com domain name before it can be auctioned off. Salesforce.com has purchased the domain name Data.com from publicly traded media company UBM plc for an undisclosed price. The domain name was listed in this week’s Moniker auction with a reserve range between $1 million to $5 million. Usually when a domain name is taken out of auction early the buyer agrees to pay a premium above whatever the reserve price was. I think ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Rick Latona Disses Domains and Focuses on “Cash Flow Assets” - Latona skeptical about domain market recovery and relaunches Latonas.com as web asset sales site. Rick Latona has relaunched Latonas.com as a marketplace for cash flowing digital assets. The site will offer any type of web asset with a cash flow for sale, such as web sites, email lists, and twitter accounts. Commenting on the current state of the domain name aftermarket, Latona wrote in a blog post today: It is our opinion that the market won’t recover any time ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Asks Court to Dismiss Women.com Lawsuit on Jurisdiction Claims - Domain broker says lawsuit should not be heard in California. Done! Ventures has fought and won a jurisdiction battle in its lawsuit over Women.com already. Now it has to gear up for another fight. Sedo, which was recently added to the lawsuit originally filed against GE/NBC Universal for a failed transaction to purchase Women.com and Women.net, has asked the court to dismiss the case on jurisdiction grounds (pdf). According to Sedo’s court filing, Done! Ventures ... read more ...
Mon 6th June 2011
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O, .Co! Overstock.com Goes with O.co Coliseum - Big Stadium gets a .Co brand. When the .co registry announced last week that it had broken through the one million domains registered barrier, Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) said it had another big .co related announcement on tap for today. And here it is: the company will name the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (where the Oakland Raiders and Oakland Athletics play) the O.co Coliseum. The company bought six year naming rights in April. Big props to Elliot Silver ... read more ...
 
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Kinect Disneyland May Be Just a Beginning – DisneyWorld Too? - Microsoft registers domain names for more Kinect games based on Disney theme parks. There’s a lot of buzz in the video gaming world about a new XBox Kinect “experience” called Disneyland Adventures. It will let people walk through the Disneyland park in Anaheim and go on mini adventures in some of the rides. Pretty cool idea. But Disneyland may be just the beginning. If it’s successful you can expect many related Disney theme park games soon. Microsoft ... read more ...
 
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Chad Folkening’s eCorp Beats Tribune Company in Domain Dispute - Panel refuses to give Tribune Media the ChannelGuide.com domain name. Chad Folkening’s eCorp has beaten Goliath in a UDRP decision. Folkening, who recently teamed up with John Ferber for Domain Holdings, is the registrant of over 1,000 “channel” domain names including ChannelGuide.com. Tribune Company publishes a number of newspapers and web sites, including Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times. It also operates a service called Channel Guide. Channel Guide’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is ETF.com Worth $9.5 Million? - A big market but a big price tag. From a Covestor today comes this sales pitch for ETF.com. Asking price: $9.5 million. The domain is being brokered by a Seattle outfit called Broadmoor Associates. I’ve never heard of them before, and they don’t list any names on their web site, but apparently they’ve been the exclusive broker of some good names (and some rather poor names) in the past. A Reuters blogger takes issue with the valuation methodology in the ... read more ...
Sat 4th June 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Warner Bros Registers Hangover 3 Domain Names - Studio registers domain names in case another sequel comes to fruition. With Hangover 2 grossing $200 million in its first five days and the director saying he’s planning a third installment of the comedy film, Warner Brothers has registered a number of domain names related to “Hangover 3″. The company registered Hangover3movie.com, HangoverMovie3.com, Hangover-3.com, the-hangover-3.com, and theHangoverMovie3.com. Unfortunately for Warner Bros, Hangover3.com ... read more ...
Fri 3rd June 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Will Microsoft App Your Web Site? - Company registers intriguing domain names. Is Microsoft working on a way to quickly turn your web site into an app? On June 1 the company registered the domain name AppYourSites.com, along with at least 6 other top level domain names of the same name. After a bit of searching (on Google, but also Bing to be fair to Microsoft) I can’t find any information about what Microsoft plans to do with this domain name. However, there’s an existing company at AppYourSite.com ... read more ...
 
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Bob Parsons to PETA: Look in a Mirror - Parsons tweets about PETA hypocrisy. After Go Daddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons killed an elephant in Zimbabwe, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was quick to pounce on him. The company moved its domain names from Go Daddy to a rival domain name registrar. But Parsons won’t let PETA get away that easy. Today he tweeted the following to his 34,000 followers: The first link is to a PETA story about “Deadly Destinations“, which blasts places like Disney’s ... read more ...
 
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UDRP Awards Octopus.com to Online Travel Company - Travel company gets a nice domain name upgrade through UDRP in a strange case. A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has determined that the domain name Octopus.com should be transferred to Octopustravel Group Limited. The company’s current web site is OctopusTravel.com. Before you scream about this injustice you should read the facts. In fact, back in March I wrote about this case with the headline “1986 Domain Name Octopus.com Could Be Lost in UDRP“. All ... read more ...
Thu 2nd June 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Co Hits 1 Million Domains and More News Coming from Overstock - .Co makes a big announcement and Overstock says it will announce more .co news on June 6. .Co announced this morning that it has crossed the one million domain registrations mark. And I expect more “momentum news” to come. For example, Overstock.com president Jonathan Johnson said, “We have completely changed to O.co internationally. Look for another big O.co announcement domestically on June 6.” Hmmm. What could that be? If they’ve completely changed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Trademarkia Gets Into Domain Names - Trademarkia adds domain name searching to its lineup. Trademark search engine and online service Trademarkia has entered the domain name business with a unique service. The service allows you to search for domain names and then use the site’s trademark searching tools to find out if there are existing trademarks on the same terms. (Oddly, these don’t seem to be connected. If I search for VerizonWireless and start to register one of the available VerizonWireless.tld ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lawsuits.com Goes Up For Sale - Premium legal domain name now for sale. Andrew Miller, well known in the domain name community for his role at Internet Real Estate Group, is brokering the sale of Lawsuits.com through his company ATM Holdings, Inc. The asking price seems reasonable at $275,000. The domain name is owned by a New Jersey man. Lawsuit.com (singular) is already a lead generation site for lawyers. In this case I’m not sure if the singular or plural is better. I’ve been keeping my ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nationnal.com and Natiional.com – One is a Trademark Typo, a Other Isn’t - Two different panels come to different conclusions in essentially the same case. I’m frequently perplexed by UDRP decisions for similar domain names. Here’s another example. National Arbitration Forum has handed down decisions for nationnal.com and natiional.com literally within days of each other. Both domains are typos of “National”, and both are parked at HitFarm. The cases were brought by Vanguard Trademark Holdings, which owns the National Car Rental ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
USDA Gets Domain Names Half Right with “MyPlate” - Government agency registers .com domain, but still brands program with a domain name it doesn’t own. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) just launched a new campaign to replace the old food pyramid. At first glance I thought the USDA did a great job getting relevant domain names for the campaign. Even though the campaign’s URL is prominently displayed as ChooseMyPlate.GOV, they also hand registered ChooseMyPlate.COM. That’s a smart move as a lot of people ... read more ...
 
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Demand Media Gets Into a Other Side of UDRP - Company files complaint to get eHow domain name. Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) has been on the receiving end of plenty of UDRP cases for domain names. In fact, it may be barred from applying for new top level domain names because of its many losses (technically). But the company also finds itself on the other side of the table and just filed a case for eHowTravel.com. The web site appears to be a splog of travel information. Apparently Demand Media has registered ... read more ...
Wed 1st June 2011
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Tucows Wins UDRP for Surname Domain Hinkley.com - Registrar defends domain name from attack by lighting company. Domain name registrar Tucows has successfully defended the domain name hinkley.com, which is part of its expansive portfolio of surnames, from lighting company Hinkley Lighting, Inc in a UDRP. The domain name was registered in 1996 and came as part of Tucows’ acquisition of NetIdentity. The panel ruled that Hinkley Lighting failed to show that Tucows lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DOMAINfest Gets Ready to Return to Its Roots - Five years later, DOMAINfest returns to Barcelona. DOMAINfest returns to Barcelona next week, the home of its first ever conference in 2006. But the conference running June 7-9 will look very different from five years ago. After a series of successful conferences and a return to Europe last summer, DOMAINfest has grown into the most attended conference on the domain circuit. Its main event in L.A. each year draws 600-700 attendees. The European shows are a smaller, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ballot Stuffing Ahead: Google Introduces +1 Button - New button lets site visitors vote for content. Google has introduced a +1 Button (plus one button) that web publishers can add to their web sites. It’s an extension of the search giant’s +1 feature for search results that let’s people vote for search results and share that with their connections. As Google points out, the +1 button solves a big problem with the original underlying idea: why would you vote for a search result before you actually visit the site ... read more ...
 
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Viking Office Products Tries to Take Sentimental Domain Name from Altavista Inventor’s Widow - Company goes after Viking.org in arbitration only to find out the real reason the owner didn’t want to sell it. Viking Office Products, Inc., an affiliate of Office Depot, has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking in a bizarre case involving Viking.org. The office products company filed for arbitration with National Arbitration Forum to get the domain name, and painted registrant Natasha Flaherty as a cybersquatter who would only consider selling the ... read more ...
 
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New Service Brings CPA To Domain Parking - Service from Media Breakaway seeks to monetize under performing domain traffic. A new domain name parking service says it will help domain owners monetize their high traffic but low revenue domain names better than traditional PPC parking. TheParkingPlace.com is a new service from Media Breakaway that monetizes domain names with CPA, CPC, CPV, and exit pop ups. The few examples I viewed (GasPrices.com, 032.com, Fork.com) offer surveys and giveaways to capture visitor ... read more ...