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 December 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Registrars Defend Domain Name Whois Privacy - by Kevin Murphy Domain registrars are fighting off critics of Whois privacy on multiple fronts at the ICANN meeting in Cartagena, Colombia this week. In the latest example, registrars led by Tucows CEO Elliot Noss today savaged an ICANN draft advisory that would hold affiliated privacy services accountable for cybersquatting customers. In May, ICANN said that as far as it is concerned proxy/privacy services are liable for how customers use their domains, under the ... read more ...
Tue 7th December 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Info Has Banner Year in 2010 - Registered base of .info domain names spikes in 2010. 2010 isn’t over yet, but .info registry Afilias has released its 2010 .Info Annual Report (pdf). (This is likely to coincide with the ICANN meeting in Colombia and media attention around new TLDs.) Afilias bills .info as the first “new TLD”, and it has easily outpaced its rivals in terms of registrations. At the end of September .info had 6.8 million domain name registrations. Compared to recent years, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy’s 2011 Super Bowl Ad Will Promote .Co - by Kevin Murphy Go Daddy’s 2011 Super Bowl ad is going to have one big difference – it will advertise .co domains. The registrar has made a deal with .CO Internet to share the cost of the big-money ad – exact terms have not been disclosed – in what will be the biggest marketing deal for .co to date. The news broke last night at a rooftop party held by the .co registry in Cartagena, Colombia, following the first day of the ICANN public meeting here. Go Daddy ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign Files Trademark Applications for New “V” Logo - .Com and .Net registry may be looking to remake its image. VeriSign has filed a slew of trademark applications for “V” this week. But before you flip out, the company isn’t trying to trademark the letter itself. Instead, it appears the company is giving its stylized “v” logo a new look. The six related trademark applications feature a number of styles, but all feature a stylized letter V with part of the right side missing, creating a diamond shape protruding ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Med and .Give May Become New Top Level Domain Names - Company files trademark applications related to new top level domain names. With the possibility of new top level domain name applications opening up early next year, a New Jersey company appears to be expanding its plans to introduce new TLDs. Dot One, Inc., has filed three trademark applications over the past month for top level domain names. The company has filed applications for “Dot One”, “Dot Med”, and “Dot Give”. I’ve found very little information ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XXX Will Have Three Sunrise Periods - by Kevin Murphy Trademark holders are to get new rights if and when the porn-only .xxx domain launches. ICM Registry, which hopes to get its .xxx application approved by ICANN this week, plans to have not one but three sunrise periods when it opens up next year. The first period would allow owners of porn-related trademarks to claim their .xxx domain names and use them as normal, ICM representatives said here at ICANN’s public meeting in Cartagena, Colombia. But ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Michael Berkens and Howard Neu Team Up to Save Domain Name - Michael Berkens’ Worldwide Media, Inc., has successfully defended its CareFreeHomes.com domain name in a UDRP with the help of attorney Howard Neu. Complainant CareFree Homes II, L.P. doesn’t have a registered trademark for “CareFree Homes”, but it argued common law rights. The argument by the El Paso, Texas home builder was fairly weak. Summarizing the home builder’s failure to show any sort of common law mark, the panel wrote: The evidence offered by ... read more ...
Mon 6th December 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Week Ahead in Domain Names - A look at a busy week in the domain name industry. This is going to be a big week for domain names. Here’s some stuff to keep your eyes on: ICANN is meeting in Cartagena, Colombia. This is going to be a big meeting. On Friday the board will vote on its way forward for new top level domain names. There’s a lot of pressure — including input from the U.S. Department of Commerce — that could slow things down. But there’s also a lot of pressure to go forward. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Telepathy Wins Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Charge Against 3-D Company - Company goes after domain name registered several years before it created its brand. Nat Cohen’s Telepathy, Inc. has successfully won a charge of reverse domain name hijacking against X6D Limited, which owns the XPAND brand of 3-D glasses. X6D filed the complaint over the domain name xpand.com. Telepathy, represented by domain name attorney Ari Goldberger, noted that it’s common to eliminate the ‘e’ in words that start with ‘ex’. The panel agreed, arguing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Sells Color.com for $350,000 - Go Daddy goes big with Color.com. Go Daddy has sold the domain name Color.com for $350,000. The buyer is using a whois proxy to protect their information. The seller appears to be Warning Management Services Inc. of Anaheim, California. This is the second big transaction from Go Daddy that I’ve become aware of in recent weeks. Go Daddy executive accounts manager Brad Larson recently brokered the sale of HomeownersInsurance.com for $570,000. I’ve heard that ... read more ...
Sun 5th December 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why Twitter Singled Out TwitterSearch.com - Owner tried to “extort” Twitter. As Robin Wauters wrote today, Twitter has filed a UDRP against the owner of TwitterSearch.com. With so many domain names out there including “twitter” in them, why has the company singled out this one? I know the answer. It turns out the owner of the domain name has been trying to sell the domain name for some time. Back in August a Domain Name Wire reader caught wind that the owner was trying to sell the domain name and ... read more ...
Fri 3rd December 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WikiLeaks Domain Not Shut Down, Just DNS - Domain name not seized or shut down; DNS provider takes action. A story on Guardian.co.uk screams “WikiLeaks fights to stay online after US company withdraws domain name”. This headline is misleading and suggests that the WikiLeaks.org domain name has been shut down. This is incorrect. When you actually read the story, it says that Everydns took the site down. Everydns was only providing DNS services to Wikileaks. The WikiLeaks.org domain name is registered ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bible Group Sins with UDRP, Loses Case for BSF.org - Time to go ask for forgiveness. A non-profit called Bible Study Fellowship based in San Antonio has lost a UDRP to get the domain name BSF.org. Maybe it didn’t pray hard enough, but now it will probably need to ask for forgiveness for some sins, too. In this case the panel declined to find reverse domain name hijacking, but also wrote: In the case at hand, the Panel finds that Complainant’s allegations have not been substantiated by relevant evidence and also ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google Adsense For Domains Now Makes Parking Easier - Company changes parking procedures for Adsense for Domains. Ever since Google released its direct-to-publisher Google Adsense for Domains program, one of the big complaints has been how difficult it is to point your domains to Google’s parking servers. You had to make a change to your A records and create CNAME records. Compare this to the typical parking service that lets you just change your name servers or forward the domain. Google has responded to the feedback. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Releases Another Economic Study on New TLDs - New study finds little chance for competition to .com, but some benefits from new TLDs. Just a day after the U.S. Department of Commerce chastised ICANN for not undertaking a full economic study of the costs and benefits of new top level domains, ICANN has released phase two of its latest study (pdf). A summary of the findings: “…we find that additional generic, unrestricted TLDs using the Latin alphabet would be unlikely to provide significant additional competition ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DynaDot Facing Pressure on WikiLeaks.org Domain Name - U.S.-based registrar has taken no action against WikiLeaks.org domain name, but is facing pressure from both sides. Amazon booted Wikileaks from its cloud hosting services. Everydns kicked out the site thanks to distributed denial of service attacks. But the domain name WikiLeaks.org remains in the hands of the underground organization as domain name registrar DynaDot has not taken any action on the domain. Earlier today I reached out to DynaDot founder and president ... read more ...
Thu 2nd December 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Brilliant: Bob Parsons to Keynote DOMAINfest - Go Daddy founder to give keynote presentation at DOMAINfest. I didn’t see this coming, but it’s brilliant: Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons will keynote February’s DOMAINfest Global conference in Santa Monica. DOMAINfest is run by Oversee.net, which owns Moniker. Go Daddy is certainly its #1 competitor for domain registration. Go Daddy is the biggest domain name registrar and manages perhaps 20 times as many domains as Moniker. But DOMAINfest is an industry ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Soccer Hero Pele Gets Pele.com Domain Name - Pele’s licensing group wins Pele.com at arbitration. A group that manages licensing for Edison “Edson” Arantes do Nascimento, aka Pele, has won rights to the domain name Pele.com. Montag Divulgaçao Ltda filed a complaint with World Intellectual Property Forum. It argued that the respondent registered the domain name in bad faith because the coming soon page at Pele.com read “website for sale” and redirected to valuate.com, an online domain name valuation ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
U.S. Government Calls for Delay to New Top Level Domain Names - Department of Commerce says ICANN board should not approve guidebook next week. In a scathing letter published today on ICANN’s web site, The United States Department of Commerce asked ICANN to not approve the launch of new TLDs during its meeting in Cartagena next week. The letter, signed by Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information Lawrence Strickling, says that ICANN is not living up to its agreements in the Affirmation of Commitments. Strickling ... read more ...
Wed 1st December 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Top 5 Domain Name News Stories of Nov 2010 - .Co and FB.com top stories for November. Here’s a look back at the top five stories on Domain Name Wire for November based on total page views. 1. GoDaddy Replaces .Com with .Co, Now Default Choice – there are some posts I write that I know are going to get a lot of traffic. There are others that I assume will just get a bit of traffic and then die. I thought this post was one of the latter, but it turned into the former. Apparently GoDaddy’s .co test caught ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Um, ICANN Had Nothing to Do with Torrent Domain Seizures - You can blame ICANN, but not for this one. I was just looking at ICANN’s page for next week’s meeting in Colombia and noticed they show a twitter feed picking up comments on ICANN. Today it’s flooded with this tweet: @brokep: Hello all #isp of the world. We’re going to add a new competing root-server since we’re tired of #ICANN. Please contact me to help. This discussion stems from the U.S. government seizure of a number of domain names last week that were ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Oversee.net Launches CreditCards.org Web Site - Company launches another developed web site. Oversee.net continues to expand its network of lead generation and CPA portals, this time with CreditCards.org. The site includes information about using credit wisely and consumer news, but the main idea is to get people to apply for credit cards. There are a number of similar credit card comparison sites on the web, most notably CreditCards.com. Operators of credit card comparison sites typically earn money with each ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Gains $4.3M on Investments, War Chest Tops $60 Million - ICANN’s war chest continues to grow. ICANN released details of its FY 2010 financial year (which ran through June 2010) today. The non-profit had revenues of $65.8 million and expenses of $58.6 million. Revenues were up 9.2% from FY 2009 and expenses grew 14.3%. The revenue source is fairly evenly split between registrar and registry fees, although the registry fees are ultimately passed on from the registrant through both the registrar and registry. ICANN also ... read more ...
Tue 30th November 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Top Level Domain Holdings Raises $7.5 Million - TLDH raises cash stockpile ahead of new top level domain name releases. Top Level Domain Holdings, which owns Minds + Machines, has conditionally raised about $7.5 million through the sale of stock. According to a release this morning: The Company intends to use the Placing proceeds to provide additional working capital and in particular, to develop the business ahead of the expected formal commencement by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Morgan Stanley Gets “Screwed By” Trademark Dispute - Company loses challenge over derogatory domain names. Morgan Stanley has lost a challenge at National Arbitration Forum for the domain names screwedbymorganstanleysmithbarney.com and screwedbymorganstanley.com. On the surface this seems like a classic case of a gripe site. In general, you are allowed to use domain names that include trademarks if the person going to the URL will clearly know the domain name isn’t owned by the trademark holder based on the URL alone ... read more ...