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 24th March 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
India May Try to Block .XXX - Government may block access to .xxx. India’s government will block access to the .xxx top level domain name, according to an article in The Economic Times. A senior official at the ministry of IT said that the domain goes against the country’s IT Act and Indian laws. Other countries will certainly block the top level domain name, but this shouldn’t worry adult site operators. After all, many countries currently filter the web sites accessible within their borders. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Former Oversee.net Employee Plans Daily Deals Conference - The “Daily Deals” business is now big enough to have its own conference. You know “daily deals” such as Group are big. But big enough to support an dedicated conference? You bet. Jay Weintraub, who worked at Advertising.com before spending five years at domain industry powerhouse Oversee.net, is holding his first Daily Deal Summit April 6 in New York City. (You can tell he has a background in domain names; in addition to dailydealSummit.com he also owns ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Picks Senegal for Oct Meeting - ICANN heads to western Africa this fall. ICANN’s October 2011 meeting will be held in Dakar, Senegal, the non-profit announced today. Dakar is Senegal’s capital and is home to two million people. The last meeting ICANN held in Africa was poorly attended due to security concerns. However, last year’s Nairobi, Kenya meeting concluded without any public incidents. ICANN has already moved one meeting location this year, moving a planned June meeting in Jordan ... read more ...
Wed 23rd March 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Madness 3 Releases Auction Catalog - Will Domain Madness be as “mad” as last year? Domain Madness has just released the catalog for its third annual domain auction. The auction will start on March 29 with a live auction finale April 5 at 4pm CDT. The auction starts all domains out at their reserve price, with prices ranging from $1,000 to $200,000. Last year’s auction is best known for the sale of CamRoulette.com. The highest priced domain in the catalog is FinancialPlanners.com for $200,000. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Get Out a Vote with .Vote? - Utah company files trademark application for .vote. Will .vote be among the applications for new top level domain names filed later this year? A Utah company filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last Friday for .vote for “Domain name registration services”. [Update: this is a refiling of .vote. The USPTO refused an earlier application by the company.] The applicant is Pack Holdings, LLC, a company that has scarce record on the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tim Gordon Can Keep Gordons.com Despite Jeweler’s Complaint - Jewelry giant goes after guy’s last name. Tim Gordon registered Gordons.com back in 1995. It was an obvious domain name for him given his family’s last name. But in 2011, more than 15 years after he registered the domain name, a Zale Corporation subsidiary that runs Gordon’s Jewelers filed a complaint with National Arbitration Forum to get the domain name. Tim Gordon just won the case. The single person panel ruled that Gordon has rights or legitimate interests ... read more ...
Tue 22nd March 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Sedo Holding Revenue Drops, Value of Domain Portfolio Falls - Company reports preliminary numbers for 2010. Sedo Holding, parent company of domain parking and sales company Sedo, saw its revenue drop significantly in the 2010 financial year. It also took an earnings hit thanks to a devaluation of its own domain portfolio. Revenue fell from EUR 135.3 to EUR 116.1 million in FY 2010. But this drop was expected because of a changed contractual relationship with a large affiliate marketing customer. (Sedo Holding has two main ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Wants Patents for Announcing Domain Registrations on Facebook - Domain name registrar files two patent applications for promoting newly registered domain names. The Go Daddy Group, parent company of domain name registrar GoDaddy, has filed a pair of patent applications related to announcing a new domain registration on social networking sites such as Facebook. The patent applications are 12/561408 for “Social Website Domain Registration Announcement” and 12/561439 for “Social Website Domain Registration Search Engine Feed”. The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
My First Afternic Premium Sale: $6,800 - Take advantage of one of the best domain sales channels. I was quick to jump on the bandwagon when Afternic announced its new instant transfer partners for Premium Promotion last year. With Premium Promotion you can list a domain name that you have at, say Moniker, directly in the sales path at other partner registrars such as eNom. When someone searches for the domain name at eNom they can add it to their shopping cart and buy it instantly. That’s exactly what ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Tuesday Evening Domain Name Thoughts - Domain name news and thoughts. It’s been a busy day, so I’m going to summarize some of the things I haven’t gotten to yet… – There were a lot of UDRP cases published today in which the domain owner won, including Fulltime.com, CanDoBetter.com, and intertekqeshm.com. There was also an interesting case about cult leader Christopher Marc Nemelka, who lost a claim for chrisnemelka.com. This case is interesting because the respondent managed to remain anonymous ... read more ...
Mon 21st March 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Escrow.com Selected as Top Domain Escrow Company - Once again Escrow.com is top rate domain name escrow provider. Escrow.com is the best domain name escrow service according to a survey of over 1,500 domain industry professionals. 46% of respondents in Domain Name Wire’s sixth annual survey said Escrow.com was best. Sedo’s escrow services came in second place with 32%. 1. Escrow.com 46% 2. Sedo 32% 3. Afternic 8% 4. Moniker 7% 5. EscrowDNS 6% Domain name escrow service vary in price and services. Some (including ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
PokerStrategy.com Gets Flushed in Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Case - Poker site nailed for reverse domain name hijacking. PokerStrategy.com operator Anachusa Ltd. has lost a UDRP for five clear typos of PokerStrategy.com. Not only that, but a three person panel also found the company guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. So how does the owner of PokerStrategy.com lose a case for pokersrategy.com; pokerstategy.com; pokerstratgy.com; pokerstrtegy.com and pokrstrategy.com? It attempts to mislead the UDRP panel. Anachusa Ltd. acquired ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.XXX Pre-Registrations Hit 300,000 - Lots of people interested in .xxx domain names. ICM Registry has received over 300,000 pre-registrations for its new .xxx domain names as of this morning. It has received tens of thousands of pre-registrations in just the past few days. Of course, these pre-registrations don’t necessarily mean .XXX will get 300,000 registrations on the first day. There’s no cost to pre-register. There’s also no guarantee that those who express an interest in a name will get ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DomainPeers.com Helps You CrowdSource Web Development - New site brings together basic building blocks of domain development. A new web site seeks to help domain name owners develop their domain names with the power of crowdsourcing. DomainPeers.com brings together logo and template design as well as web hosting for one site a week day. Domain owners can submit their domain for voting by the community. Once the community picks the weekly site, designers and hosting companies go to work. The community then selects the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
72% of .TV Domains in Auction Have Bids - .TV auction is going strong with two days remaining. The .TV auction on SnapNames doesn’t end until Wednesday, but already 72% of the domains have bids. At the time of writing 121 of the 169 .tv domain names have bids. 108 of the domains have met their reserve and will definitely sell by Wednesday. So far the top bid is for MR.tv at $3,600. HI.tv isn’t far behind at $3,200. HI.tv is good because ‘hi’ is a word, but it is also the abbreviation for Hawaii. The ... read more ...
Fri 18th March 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Plans to Vote on Final New TLD Guidebook in June - New TLD approval won’t come until June at the earliest. Today the ICANN Board of Directors provided a timeline for approving the new top level domain applicant guidebook. The new planned date for “board consideration” of the guidebook is June 20 at the Singapore meeting. Here’s the timeline: -Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) feedback is expected by March 25. -The final GAC scorecard for constituency comment is expected by April 15 with a public comment ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Approves New .XXX Top Level Domain - ICANN Board approves new .xxx domain name. Today the ICANN Board of Directors authorized the CEO of ICANN to execute the proposed registry agreement for the .xxx sTLD with ICM Registry. ICANN’s Board of Directors didn’t agree with GAC advice on the issue. It’s unclear if Free Speech Coalition will file a lawsuit in an effort to block the implementation. They mustered only a couple dozen protesters yesterday at the ICANN meeting. At least two board members recused ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Jobs Operator Says ICANN “Publicly Defamed” It - Employ Media says ICANN “publicly defamed” it in breach notice. .Jobs registry Employ Media has struck back at ICANN after the latter sent it a breach notice. In a letter to ICANN, Employ Media Vice‐President General Counsel Brian Johnson wrote: It goes without saying that all of us here at Employ Media, and indeed many in the international human resource management community, are extremely surprised and disappointed with ICANN’s complete reversal of ... read more ...
Thu 17th March 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
French Open Is Latest To Win .Co Domain Name - French Open organizer awarded domain name by arbitration panel. Fedération Française du Tennis (FFT), organizer of the Grand Slam tournament French Internationals of Roland Garros (French Open), is the latest group to win a .co domain name through a UDRP case. This was an easy case for the tennis organization. The registrant of the domain name sent an email to the Federation that read: Bonjour, I own the domain frenchopen.co, which I recently bought when the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
25 Adult Webmasters Protest .XXX during ICANN Meeting - Adult site owners protest at ICANN meeting. About 25 adult webmasters — and one homeless guy who’s been hanging out outside the ICANN meeting all week — joined together to protest the .XXX top level domain name this afternoon in San Francisco. The protest was organized by Free Speech Coalition. Protesters held signs with .XXX inside a ‘no’ symbol and chanted various slogans against the approval of the domain name. Among their complaints: they’ll have to ... read more ...
Wed 16th March 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
For New TLDs, a Last 10% is a Hardest - The home stretch is always a long stretch. It’s been a while since I’ve moved, but in the late 90s/early 00s I moved from dorm to dorm to several apartments. There’s one thing (other than a sore back) that I remember from all of these moves: the last 10% is the hardest. Just when I thought I was 90% done moving my stuff, I’d find that the last 10% remaining in my apartment was actually a lot more than I thought. Maybe I left some of the difficult stuff for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Overheard during ICANN Meeting in San Francisco - Latest rumors and thoughts from ICANN meeting. The third “official” day of the ICANN meeting in San Francisco has hit its midway point. The big show is later this evening as President Bill Clinton takes the stage. Unfortunately the venue won’t accommodate everyone to view the speech, so attendees will need to get there early to see it in person. Here is a bit of what I’m hearing and observing at the conference: 1. I’m hearing whispers that the board may ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Bill Clinton Addresses ICANN Conference - Clinton gets standing ovation after address to ICANN community. I just finished watching Bill Clinton give a keynote address at the ICANN meeting in San Francisco. I’ve never seen him speak in person before, and it was cool to be only 20 feet away. I get the distinct feeling that he could talk gibberish up there and we’d still all be wowed. But a (one of his) messages about the differences between the haves and the have-nots really resonated. It’s something ... read more ...
Tue 15th March 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
I’m Baffled By These Google Domain Registrations - I track domain name registration by Google, and sometimes I catch on to things before they happen. But some recent registrations by Google have me baffled. Take a look and let me know if you have any insight. GoogleAntarctica.com – I suppose if you’re going to be global you have to cater to all seven continents. GoogleEscrow.com – Google to compete with Escrow.com? Doubt it. It was registered by someone else previously so this may have been a trademark grab. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
All.biz Sells for $61,750 - .Biz domain name appears to have sold for big bucks. Yes, I’m scratching my head too. Sedo’s recent domain sales thread shows all.biz selling for a whopping $61,750. I checked the whois history and it appears the domain name just changed ownership, although it’s now protected by a whois proxy service. The buyer appears to be all-biz.info, a directory of “Enterprises, goods and service from whole the world”. I think this might be the highest reported .biz ... read more ...