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.

Fri 29th April 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Soon You Can Register Your Own .Life - Company files trademark application. Add .life to the potential pool of new top level domain names that may come online next year. Fresnel Web Services, LLC filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for “.life” earlier this week. The company is based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, but I was unable to find any information about it online. The application covers “Registration and management of sponsored domain names on globabl ... read more ...
Wed 27th April 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Real Story Behind a $700,000 RunningShoes.com Sale - The ups, downs, and persistence of acquiring RunningShoes.com. Some domain name purchases are easy. Others are a series of ups and downs and lengthy negotiations. The latter describes Chesterfield, Mo-based Cat5 Commerce’s purchase of RunningShoes.com for $700,000. The company went head to head with a major sports equipment retailer and negotiated for six months before finally completing the deal. The story starts in August 2010. Cat5 Commerce had a number of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
First Tequila.co, Now Vodka.co Sells for Five Figures - Second premium liquor keyword in .co sells in as many weeks. Sedo has brokered the sale of Vodka.com for $10,000 to the same person who bought Tequila.co for $14,500 just a week ago. Of course Vodka.com was one of the most expensive domain names ever sold. Legendary domainer Roy Messer sold it to a Russian vodka company for $3 million. So who’s the mystery buyer snapping up these liquor domains? No, it’s not a liquor company. It’s someone in the Czech ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Doh! Miami Blog Confused by Moniker Privacy Services, Connects it to Child Porn - Blogger doesn’t understand what Moniker Privacy Services is — and suggests the company is profiting off of child porn. I’ve said many times that offering whois privacy or proxy services isn’t free. Here’s another example. A blog post on Miami New Times says that Moniker Privacy Services: has registered at least five porn sites still featuring the video and X-rated screenshots — seven months after a family member left comments on the sites warning: “This ... read more ...
Tue 26th April 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
It’s Time for a Goldilocks Rethink of a Mega Content Hub - Small sites and big sites both have drawbacks for search traffic. It’s been a rough couple months for web publishers with massive content libraries. Google’s “Panda” update put a huge dent in these sites’ traffic metrics. With lost traffic comes lost ad revenue. With that layoffs will follow. And it’s not just the “evil content farms” that got hit. I’ve spoken to many brand name publishers with solid, well-sourced, professionally-written articles ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Congress Preparing to Beat adult ICANN Again - ICANN will be called to task over new top level domain names next week. Next week The U.S. House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet will hold an “ICANN Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) Oversight Hearing”. You can be assured that someone from ICANN will be asked to attend. Hopefully it won’t be the train wreck the non-profit experienced in June 2009. In 2009 the same committee took then ICANN President/CEO Paul Twomey to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Live Current Media Shrinks to 143 Shareholders - Company files statement with SEC. I haven’t seen many SEC filings from Live Current Media in a while, so I went poking around yesterday to figure out what’s going on. That’s when I came across this SEC filing that shows that Live Current Media had only 143 holders of record as of March 21, 2011. Because it has less than 300 holders of record, the company is no longer required to file typical public company reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NameMedia Sued. It’s a Cost of Doing Business. - Company mad about having to pay for domain name. Files a lawsuit instead. NameMedia — the company behind BuyDomains and Afternic — has been sued by a small business that’s upset it needs to pay to get the domain name it wants. New World Solutions, Inc. filed suit (pdf) against NameMedia over the domain name NewWorldSolutions.com. The company claims to own a “copyright” for the “New World Solutions” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It has ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Facebook Deals Launches Sans Domain Name - Facebook gets its deals on, but without FacebookDeals.com. Facebook formally launched its new deals offering today in five test cities (including my hometown of Austin, Texas.) Here’s what I see when I go to Facebook.com/deals: One thing the social networking behemoth doesn’t have is the domain name FacebookDeals.com. That domain was registered way back in 2006 and has been protected by a whois proxy ever since. Not having this domain isn’t a bit loss for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Did Fiverr.com Just Upgrade Its Domain Name to Fiver.com for $70k? - Domain broker sells Fiver.com for $70,000. Fiverr.com — a site where people offer to do a bunch of different things for $5 each — may have just upgraded its domain name for 14,000 $5 bills. The popular site has a cool idea but a bad domain name, Fiverr.com with two ‘r’s. But someone just bought Fiver.com with one ‘r’ through domain broker Sedo for $70,000. The new owner’s information is protected by whois proxy and the domain name is just pulling up ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Panabee Helps Brainstorm Domain Names – But User Beware - Panabee is a good domain name generator but users should beware that some suggestions are bad ideas. There are a lot of domain name and brand name generators on the web but most of them stink. So it was refreshing to come across Panabee.com today. Enter a couple words and it goes to work finding many alternatives, synonyms, and substitutions. I like how it pulls in searches from Twitter, Facebook, and Google as well. With close to 100 million .com domain names ... read more ...
Mon 25th April 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
For American Eagle, SeventySeven (.com) is an Unlucky Number - Popular clothing outlet finds Seventy-seven to be an unlucky number. A National Arbitration Forum panel has found that clothing retailer American Eagle is not entitled to the domain name SeventySeven.com, despite the domain owner showing clothing pay-per-click links on the domain name. Retail Royalty Company’s American Eagle stores have a clothing line with the 77 mark. The decision came down to whether or not the domain name owner should have known about American ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Morgan Stanley Sues Cybersquatters and Phishers - Bank sues alleged cybersquatters and phishers. Morgan Stanley already has the domain names — but it wants more than that. The bank has filed a lawsuit against the owners of five domain names that it says were used for cybersquatting and phishing. The company already has possession of four of the five domain names thanks to proceedings at National Arbitration Forum last year. Through UDRP it picked up ms-ae-fund.com, morganstanleyae.us, morganstanleyae.com, and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Google Panda Estimates Are All Over a Board, and None Are Accurate - Reports of traffic changes aren’t very accurate. I’ve seen a number of reports estimating the damage to major content sites from Google’s so-called Panda updates. I’ve come to one conclusion: none of them are more than directionally accurate. Yes, we know that a lot of content sites have taken a beating, but by how much? Early reports focused on the number of search terms the sites ranked for. This doesn’t have as much correlation to actual traffic ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DOMAINfest Barcelona: Wine Tasting, FC Barcelona, and More - Morning wine tasting, tapas classes, and backstage tour where FC Barcelona plays are on the agenda for DOMAINfest Barcelona. I made the mistake of bringing my wife to DOMAINfest Prague last year. Why was it a mistake? Because the second day of the conference was just fun networking events such as target shooting and go-carting. Now she thinks all domain conferences are like this and she cuts me less slack when I have to “go network at a domain conference”. That ... read more ...
Sun 24th April 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Absolut Vodka Can Now Get Into a Marijuana Business - New York photographer must give up domain name with spoof Absolut Vodka ad. A joint with your Absolut Vodka? VS Vin Sprit Aktiebolag, the company behind Absolut Vodka and its iconic advertising campaigns, has won the transfer of the domain name AbsolutCannabis.com from a New York photographer. Brantley Carroll registered the domain name and published a mock Absolut ad on the site for Absolut Cannabis. He apparently offered copies of the mock ad for sale through the ... read more ...
Fri 22nd April 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
World’s Shortest UDRP Decision? - This UDRP decision is missing a few details. I was curious about a recent National Arbitration Forum case for boston-opera-house.org and clicked over to read the opinion granting the domain name to Boston Opera House Ventures, L.L.C. The decision is exactly 185 words (about the size of my typical blog post) and seems to cut out everything between the parties to the last sentence or two of bad faith. A cut and paste job gone awry? Someone hit the delete key? I dunno, ... read more ...
Thu 21st April 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
[Updated] ICANN Sends Breach Notice to EuroDNS Over Facebook UDRP - ICANN threatens EuroDNS if it fails to transfer domain name to Facebook. ICANN has sent a Notice of Breach (pdf) to popular European domain name registrar EuroDNS for its failure to transfer a client domain name after an adverse UDRP decision. In September 2010 a EuroDNS client lost a UDRP for Facebok.com (with one ‘o’), which is certainly a common typo for the popular social network. As of today the domain name is still in the client’s hands. It forwards ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Porsche Wins Rights to Cyrillic Script Internationalized Domain Name - Porsche wins dispute over IDN. Porsche has won a UDRP for the domain name порше.com, which is xn--e1arcf4b.com in punycode. The company claims that the internationalized domain name translates as “Porsche”. This case created some challenges for the panel. There have been numerous UDRP cases involving IDNs, but each panel needs to grapple with an arbitration system created before the use of IDNs. Facing this issue, the panel wrote: In this case, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Righthaven Gets Punked By Invalid Whois - “Copyright Troll” domain name suspended due to invalid whois information. Copyright enforcer Righthaven LLC has been punked thanks to allegedly invalid whois information. The company’s web site Righthaven.com currently shows an invalid whois notice from Go Daddy. Anyone can make a complaint about invalid whois information. In Go Daddy’s case, the company sends a notice to the customer and gives them time to respond (assuming the email doesn’t bounce right ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Jobs Foes Question ICANN Commitment to Contract Compliance - Group questions if ICANN’s compliance operations are up to the task with new TLDs on the horizon. JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition, made up mostly of job board operators, is calling into question ICANN’s commitment to contract compliance after ICANN gave a short reprieve to .jobs operator Employ Media. ICANN sent a breach notice to Employ Media in February, giving it 30 days to cure two major breaches. The first was what ICANN calls lax rules for registering ... read more ...
Wed 20th April 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Warner Bros Picks Up WizardofOzMovie.com Ahead of Remake - Movie studio gets key domain name for future Wizard of Oz remake. Turner Entertainment, owned by Warner Bros, has picked up the domain name WizardofOzMovie.com ahead of a planned remake of the 1939 classic Wizard of Oz. The domain name was owned by a Canadian man who had noted “this domain is for sale” in the whois record and listed it for $500 on Sedo. But Warner Bros didn’t end up paying the owner directly for the domain name name. It filed a UDRP at National ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars Web Sites Are Coming Back - Poker domain names to be restored and open for business. Internet users will soon be able to access and play poker at popular poker sites FullTiltPoker.com and PokerStars.com soon. Last week the U.S. government had seized the domain names in response to alleged financial crimes by the companies to get around U.S. laws for receiving payments for gambling. The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the deal today (pdf), and said it would ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
22 Pre-Release Domains to Backorder Now - Some domain names to add to your backorder list. It’s been a while since I’ve published a list of dropping domain names I think are worth backordering. So here’s a list of 22 domain names currently in pre-release at NameJet that I think you should consider. Please note that I haven’t reviewed any of these for trademarks, so you should do your own due diligence. Worshipped.com Marketingprofessionals.com readingclubs.com studentprograms.com AtlantaAgents.com ... read more ...
Tue 19th April 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Decide, Which Bought Domain Decide.com for $175,000, Raises Series B - Decide banks $6 million in series B. Stealth start up Decide has closed on a $6 million series B round led by Maveron, Madrona Venture Group, Google founding board member Ram Shriram, and former Expedia CEO Erik Blachford, TechCrunch reports. The company bought Decide.com for $175,000 through domain broker Afternic last December. At the time it bought the domain, I wrote: The buyer appears to be someone associated with Seattle based PriceYeti. PriceYeti launched ... read more ...