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.

Mon 24th May 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Adsense Discloses Revenue Share: 68% - Google discloses how much it pays its publishers. After many years of complaining from publishers, Google has done an about-face on its stance on not disclosing how much money it passes along to its Adsense publishers. In a blog post this morning, the company disclosed the numbers: -68% of ad revenue paid to Adsense for Content Publishers -51% of ad revenue paid to Adsense for Search Publishers Furthermore, the company confirmed that it has paid out the same percentage ... read more ...
 
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DotAsia Asks for Fee Discount from ICANN - DotAsia joins the sTLD fee reduction bandwagon. DotAsia Organisation Ltd., which operates the .asia top level domain name, has requested that ICANN lower the fees DotAsia pays to ICANN. DotAsia, a non-profit organization, currently pays a variable fee of 75 cents per domain name registered. It is requesting a 33% decrease to 50 cents per domain name. In requesting the fee reduction, DotAsia writes: A lower fee would enable DotAsia to invest further into meaningful ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
If Adsense Rev Share is a Same, Why is My Revenue Changing? - Revenue share will always be different from what lands in your pocket. Earlier today Google announced what percentage it is paying out to its self-service Adsense for Content and Adsense for Search publishers (68% and 51% respectively). It also announced that it hasn’t changed revenue share ever for Content and not since 2005 for Search (when it increased the payout). I immediately heard moans “then why has my revenue been going down?” There are a number of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Atheist Richard Dawkins Wins Domain Name Case - Author and scholar wins domain name case. Well-known atheist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, has won the domain name RichardDawkins.com through an arbitration case at National Arbitration Forum. Dawkins’ main web site is RichardDawkins.net. The owner of RichardDawkins.com claimed that he was using the domain name merely as a fan site for Dawkins. There were affiliate links on the web site that linked to various products related to Dawkins, but the ... read more ...
Sun 23rd May 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
If You’re Going to TRAFFIC, Don’t Forget Your Passport - You’re cutting it close to get a valid passport. Heading to TRAFFIC in Vancouver in a couple weeks? If you’re a U.S. citizen, don’t forget to bring a valid passport. You can get into Canada with other forms of I.D., such as an expired passport along with a valid drivers license. But if you want to fly back to the U.S., you’ll need a valid passport. I thought my passport expired later this year, but it turns out it has already expired. Two weeks notice isn’t ... read more ...
Fri 21st May 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Breaking: Sedo to Sell Sex.com Domain Name - Settlement paves way for Sex.com domain name sale. The managers of Escom, LLC, which owns the Sex.com domain name, have agreed to enter into an agreement with Sedo to sell the domain name. Terms of the brokerage agreement are confidential. The agreement to retain Sedo to sell the domain name comes after a settlement between a number of the creditors to Escom. Originally, creditor DOM Partners pushed the Sex.com domain name into foreclosure and scheduled an auction ... read more ...
 
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Meet a Faces Behind a Top 10 Domain Registrars - VeriSign interviews founders and CEOs of top domain name registrars. Some domain name registrars have boisterous CEOs with their own blogs and video blogs. Others are a bit quieter. As part of its “25 Years of .Com” celebration, VeriSign has captured the stories behind 10 of the top domain name registrars, and it’s a good opportunity to hear from the quieter CEOs in the industry. VeriSigns “Meet the domain pioneers” features the CEOs or founders of ten ... read more ...
 
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MonaLisa.com Domain Name Sells for $200,000 - MonaLisa.com domain name sells for $200,000. The Mona Lisa has been sold! OK, so it’s actually MonaLisa.com. According to Sedo’s market activity report, it has sold the domain name MonaLisa.com for $200,000: The domain name is currently pending transfer and is in Sedo’s brokerage account. The seller is California-based NetCorp. This is a big sale for Sedo, given the dearth of six-figure sales coming out of the brokerage recently. Of course, it is getting ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Internet Brands Inc. Sued Over Acquisition Earnout - Plaintiffs allege company withheld payments from 2008 acquisition. Internet Brands, Inc., which owns Autos.com and Loan.com, has been sued (pdf) by two people who sold the web site ModelMayhem.com to it in 2008. Although Internet Brands has not yet responded to the suit, it’s a reminder of the challenges of selling domain names or web sites with “earnout” or residual terms on future revenue or traffic. Donald and Tyler Waitt sold their popular Model Mayhem ... read more ...
Thu 20th May 2010
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Open Thread: Are You Going to TRAFFIC Vancouver? - Start networking now for next month’s TRAFFIC show. The next T.R.A.F.F.I.C. domain name conference is in 2 1/2 weeks, and this will be the first ever of the franchise to travel to Canada. It will take place June 8-10 at the Renaissance Vancouver Harbourside Hotel. Please submit a comment below if you are making it to the show. This will help everyone network. According to the TRAFFIC site, the admission price has increased to $1295 effective today. However, the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Epik Provides Excuse to Visit Seattle in September - Epik announces developer conference. Rob Monster’s Epik has announced its inaugural Epik Developer Conference to take place in Seattle September 15-17. Although the schedule is very tentative as of now, Monster says the event will include lessons on the entire lifecycle of domain names: acquiring, developing, operating, and selling. He also promises client case studies with specific examples of sites that are profiting from the Epik network. Epik provides a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
dotSPORT Continues the Trademark Frontrunning - Company tries to get leg up in new TLD process with trademarks. I’ve written a couple times about prospective new top level domain applicants trying to trademark the names of their proposed TLD (e.g. .eco). But it appears dotSport LLC, one of the companies going after what will likely be a competition for .sport, is being quite aggressive. According to filings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the company has tried to register DotSport, RegistryDotSport, ... read more ...
 
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Forget .Me, How About .Ego? - Entrepreneur kicks around idea for .ego top level domain name. Got a big ego? You might be able to pick up YourName.ego once new top level domain names are released. A Florida man has filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for “.ego” for “Extension of domain names for identification of personal users on a global computer network”. I contacted David Ways today to see what his plans are for the domain name. “.Ego encompasses ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DOMAINfest Extended Auction Bombs - Extended auction fails to live up to success of live auction. Last week DOMAINfest had a successful live domain name auction. Unfortunately, the extended auction didn’t perform too well. Only 8 out of 797 domain names sold, or a sell through rate of only 1%. It’s disappointing, but I’m not terribly surprised. I only came up with five domain names to mention in my preview post a couple days ago. (Mind you, none of the five I chose sold. But it goes to show ... read more ...
Wed 19th May 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Understanding a Value of VeriSign’s Monopoly - The definition of a cash cow. Just how valuable is VeriSign’s monopoly on .com and .net domain name registrations? With rumors that the company is seeking a buyer for its security group, leaving it basically with just registry services, the monopoly is being thrust back into the spotlight. At latest count there are roughly 87 million .com domains registered and 13 million .net domains. As of July 1, the price VeriSign charges on .com will be $7.34 and .net to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DNW Picks for Tomorrow’s DOMAINfest Extended Auction - Domains to watch in tomorrow’s auction. The extended auction for last week’s DOMAINfest Global power networking day in Fort Lauderdale ends tomorrow at 3:15 EDT. After looking through the list I came up with 5 extended domain auctions I think are worth a look. There were plenty of good domain names, but many of the ones I got excited about had reserves that I think are too high for investors. CharterPlanes.com $11,770 – I’m not quite sure on this because ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign Withdraws Request for “Domain Name Exchange” Service - Registry nixes domain trade-in plans — for now. Last month VeriSign submitted an evaluation request to ICANN for a so-called “Domain Name Exchange”. VeriSign has withdrawn the request according to the evaluation status on ICANN’s web site. The service would basically allow domain name registrars to return unused domain names in exchange for others. This would be ideal for companies that sell web packages for less than a year at a time. For example, a web ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eNom Announces .Com Price Increases - Here come the price increase notices. It’s that time of year again, when domain name registrars send out notices to their customers about .com price increases. We actually got a reprieve last year as VeriSign didn’t increase prices. But they’re back this year, to the extent allowed: 7% for .com and 10% for .net at the wholesale level. eNom sent a notice to its customers today with .com increases of 55 cents across the board effective July 1: Tier / OLD Tier ... read more ...
Tue 18th May 2010
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ccTLD Most Important Factor in Google Location Determination - Targeted a specific country? Get your ccTLD. It’s no secret that Google uses several factors to determine where a web site is “located” and thus determine its relevance to each individual searcher. But there has been a lot of debate about which factors are most important. The two I hear mostly commonly are if the domain has a particular country code domain name and where the web host is. Now Google search-spam czar Matt Cutts has laid it out on the table. ... read more ...
 
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How ICANN Plans to Spend $60 Million of Your Money This Year - New TLDs are top budget item — but also the only line item to decrease. If you’re reading this blog, you are probably one of the many people that funds ICANN’s operations. You pay the registrar, which in turn pays ICANN and the registry. The registry also pays ICANN. In short, without domain registrants, ICANN has very little money. So how ICANN spends its money should be important to you. The non-profit has released its draft proposed 2011 financial year ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
You Real.ly Need to Stop This URL Hacki.ng - Why in the world would you handicap your company like this? So I’m reading this story about ShopSocial.ly today and I’m scratching my head. The new social shopping web site is branding itself as ShopSocial.ly rather than ShopSocially. Thankfully, the company has the domain name ShopSocially.com, which it then forwards to ShopSocial.ly. But this is still a big mistake. The company is relying on the Libyan country code to base its entire business. All of the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Frank Schilling to Auction Off…Watches? - Frank Schilling to sell at an auction, but not his domain names. Auction house Christie’s is getting set to auction off some of Frank Schilling’s gems. 31 of them, to be exact. But these aren’t domain names. They’re watches. According to a profile on Christie’s web site: In the world of watches, it is the ultimate luxury: not one or two watches, but an entire collection of timepieces. In the world of collector Frank Schilling, this luxury is a reality. ... read more ...
 
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Diapers.com Parent Ready to Launch Soap.com - Quidsi acquired Soap.com earlier this year; set to launch new site. Earlier this year Quidsi, the parent company of Daipers.com, acquired the domain name Soap.com. It looks like it’s getting ready to launch a new site or brand and is sending out a teaser to the press. Given the success Diapers.com has had with its flagship web site, it makes sense that the company would pick another great category-killer domain for its next brand. Of course, it could just be a ... read more ...
 
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Jaegermeister Bombs Shot Cup Seller - Company shuts down web site of specialized “shot cup” seller. You can say goodbye to Jager Bomb Shot Cups. Well, at least you’ll no longer be able to buy them at Jager-Bomb.com. Mast-Jaegermeister AG, known for its strong liqueur, filed a complaint against the owner of Jager-Bomb.com with National Arbitration Forum. As it turns out, Jaegermesiter has trademarks for the term “Jager Bomb”. As early as 2002, consumers began to mix a cocktail drink called ... read more ...
Mon 17th May 2010
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Domain Names, Not Apps, Rule on a iPad - Is the iPad changing how we consume web content? In January I wrote a post about the iPad and how it could be bad for domainers. Devices such as the iPad seek to replace traditional web browsing with apps, thereby rendering the URL useless for accessing content. Domain Name Wire reader Gavin sent over an interesting view from Jason Fry writing for Nieman Journalism Lab. After using the iPad for a couple weeks, Fry says that web browsing still rules on the iPad; ... read more ...