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 10th May 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Let’s Bring Some Domain Apps to Android - Android rocks. Let’s bring some domain apps to it. At least one research firm is saying that the Android mobile operating system passed the iPhone in sales this past quarter. This really shouldn’t come as any surprise. We’re repeating history. Apple brings out a product but tightly controls distribution (ATT only) and what software can be used on the product (ask anyone who has had their app rejected). Android, on the other hand, is available on a number ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Where to Get Best Prices for .Co Sunrise and Landrush Domain Names - Here’s a guide to getting .co at the lowest price. I have a feeling .co is going to be hot. It will have one of the best country code “relaunches” we’ve ever seen. .CO Internet has undertaken one of the most impressive “new TLD” pre-marketing campaigns that I can think of, and the buzz is mounting. I’ve had several non-domainer friends email me inquiring about the domain. The global sunrise period for trademark holders is going on until June 10, followed ... read more ...
Sun 9th May 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
My 12 Picks for Thursday’s DOMAINfest Auction - Here are a dozen domains worth watching at Thursday’s domain auction. DomainSponsor’s first DOMAINfest Power Networking day is this Thursday in Fort Lauderdale. The day concludes with a live domain name auction featuring 120 domain names. Several of the domains in the auction are tied to Rob Monster’s Domain Strategies. Karate.com, a partnership between Domain Strategies and Live Current Media, is on the block for $500,000-$750,000. Wifi.com, an early partnership ... read more ...
Fri 7th May 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
IDN Top Level Domain Names in a Nutshell - A simple primer to IDN top level domains, courtesy of ICANN. One of the reasons many people are “turned off” by internationalized domain names is that they don’t understand how they work. Admittedly, much of the information about IDNs to date has been described in a technical matter, turning people off even more. So I was delighted to see a blog post from ICANN’s Tina Dam titled “IDN Usability“. I highly recommend reading it, as is clearly explains IDN ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Another UDRP Panelist Considers Domain Valuation in Decision - UDRP panelists consider asking prices in decisions. In a highly publicized domain dispute for Hayward.com, a UDRP panelist decided he was an expert at domain valuation and that the price the domain owner wanted for the domain was too high for a city .com., indicating that he must have been targeting the complainant. Now we have another case where a panelist uses the respondent’s asking price in considering the case. Thankfully, the panelist still denied the transfer. In ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Register.com IDN Sale Nets $5k in an Hour - IDN Newsletter gets strong start with Register.com domains. Register.com recently did a deal with IDN Newsletter to sell its portfolio of company-owned internationalized domains names. IDN Newsletter is similar to other domain sales newsletters except, well, it only includes IDNs. IDN Newsletter informs us that it sold over $5,000 worth of Register.com’s IDN names today within the first hour of its Register.com mailing. Top sales include: 整体.com $2,000 Body ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Religious Group: Pray for Rod Beckstrom, Kill Porn Domain - Comment period for .xxx is getting out of control At first it was silly. Then it got annoying. Now it’s ridiculous. The comment period for what ICANN should do about an independent review board’s finding in favor of ICM Registry to operate .xxx has become a mockery. You can mostly thank conservative organizations for creating robo forms for their constituents to send mindless comments. If you see a comment like this: I support Option #3 of the March 26, 2010 ... read more ...
Thu 6th May 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nelson Brady Will Speak, But What Will He Say? - Expect to hear his side of the story within 30 days. By filing suit against former employee Nelson Brady this week, Oversee.net and Snapnames hope to accomplish a couple things. Yes, it wants to get some of its money back. But more importantly, it wants to clear its name. Ever since the scandal broke last year, conspiracy theorists have suggested that the company was complicit in what happened and that’s why it wasn’t going after Brady. In reality, it was ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lessons from Bido - A look back at two years of Bido. Now that I’ve had a couple days to mentally process the closing of Bido, it has given me time to reflect on what went wrong. To be clear, I commend both Sahar and Jarred for creating Bido. They put their heart and money into it, and should be proud of the innovation they brought to the marketplace. I also think we’ll see the platform live on in some incarnation as they are currently liquidating the assets. So here are my main ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
How a Euro Crisis Will Affect Domain Sales - I’ve written a number of times about how currency exchange rates play a role in domain name buying patterns. Thanks to a strong Euro over the past 5 years, a number of European domainers have been able to buy domains from weaker currency nations (e.g. U.S.) at what seemed like “discounted prices”. This is quickly changing. With troubles in Greece mounting and fear of its debt troubles spreading to other Euro nations, the Euro has fallen nearly 12% to the U.S. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
WhyPark Charity Swag Bag Auction Ends Friday - Charity auction full of domain and tech goodies concludes Friday. The WhyPark Ultimate Swag Bag auction ends Friday at 1 PM CDT (2 PM EDT). This is a great opportunity to help out a charity and pick up some great swag valued at over $600. The swag bag includes: – Flip SlideHD customized by WhyPark – 1-Year Managed WhyPark Account ($300 value) – Two WhyPark T-Shirts – WhyPark Bottle Opener – 2 GB WhyPark USB stick Full bidding instructions are here. As ... read more ...
 
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Marchex Sells Another $1.3 Million in Domain Names - Marchex beats analyst expectations for Q1 and sells more domain names. Local marketing company Marchex sold $1.3 million worth of non-strategic domain names during the first quarter of 2010. This is in line with previous quarters. In an earnings press release, the company continued to note that “There is still significant demand for high quality domains and Marchex believes that will remain the case for the foreseeable future”. Marchex is known for only responding ... read more ...
Wed 5th May 2010
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VMOps Buys Cloud.com from Meetup Co-Founder - VMOps invests in great domain name; rebrands. Cloud computing company VMOps has purchased the domain name Cloud.com from Meetup co-founder Scott Heiferman and is rebranding its company as cloud.com. Heiferman put the domain name up for auction at various cloud computing conferences early last year. According to historical whois records, Heiferman transferred the domain name to VMOps around February 17, 2010, at which point the whois record changed to a private registration. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Registrar Moniker’s Site Goes Down - Top ten domain name registrar web site goes down. Moniker.com is currently going through a prolonged outtage. A notice has been posted on Moniker.com: So far the company hasn’t sent any communication to its customers. I reached out to the company this morning for comment and will update this story as I learn more. An outtage like this can certainly affect customers, from the inability to change nameservers to transferring and renewing domain names. But this ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Rachael Ray Wants to Fry Some Typosquatters - Celebrity chef files claims to get two typo domain names. Celebrity chef Rachael Ray has filed two separate domain name disputes with National Arbitration Forum for typos of her domain name. Rachelray.com, which omits the second ‘a’ in her first name, and Rachealray.com, which transposes the ‘e’ and ‘a’, both redirect to freegifster.com. Visitors to the landing page at freegifster.com are offered a “free” 14 piece cookset. The landing page also shows ... read more ...
 
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Bloomberg Features Directi’s Divyank Turakhia - Bloomberg dedicates a half hour to telling the Directi story. Bloomberg UTV has dedicated an entire 30 minute segment to profiling domain name company Directi and its founder Divyank Turakhia. The segment features Turakhia and how he started Directi in his teens. The company went on to build some recognizable brands in the domain space, from registrar accreditation consulting company Logic Boxes to domain parking business Skenzo, not to mention one of the ten biggest ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
An Historic Day: First IDN Top Level Domain Names Go Live - First IDN top level domains hit the web. Today was a historic day for domain names and internationalized domain names, as the first three non-Latin script top level domain names went live. All three are country code top level domains under the IDN ccTLD fast track program. ICANN has provided an example of an already functioning site using an IDN ccTLD: وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر If you’re like me, when going to that ... read more ...
Tue 4th May 2010
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Sedo Sells Record Number of Domains in Q1 - Online domain marketplace sets new bar with Q1 sales. Domain name marketplace Sedo sold a record number of domain names in Q1. The company sold 11,942 domains in the quarter compared to 10,070 domains in the fourth quarter of last year, and growth of 29% compared to Q1 2009. The company also saw a shift in how its domain names are sold. 21% of domain names were sold at a fixed price, compared to just 12% last quarter. Company representatives have told me that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
12 Domain Names to Bid on in Today’s Geo Domain Auction - A dozen picks for today’s auction. GeoDomain Expo’s online domain name auction held in conjunction with SnapNames ends today at 3:15 pm EDT. There are 805 domain names in the auction and so far 10 domains have met their reserves. The highest bid is $5,590 for BusinessTravelers.com. I have filtered the list and found 12 domain names that seem like values within their reserve ranges. On some of them they’re probably only values at the low end of the reserve ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Auction Site Bido Closing Down - Domain name auction site Bido is closing down. Domain name auction site Bido is closing. The company announced the move on twitter moments ago: Bido is ceasing operation as of May 5, 2010. All transactions and accounts will be gracefully finalized and closed. I confirmed the closure with the company. Although representatives would not speak specifically to why they are shutting down the platform, the company must have been losing substantial money. It had been ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SnapNames and Oversee.net Sue Nelson Brady aka Halvarez - Here are some of the ones he won – themexp $534.00 halvarez 7/25/2009 yotutube $2.000.00 halvarez 7/19/2009 yountube $279.00 halvarez 7/19/2009 footcomfort $801.00 halvarez 7/16/2009 huffingpost $425.00 halvarez 7/15/2009 torrentlocomotive $302.00 halvarez 7/14/2009 arcadevault $585.00 halvarez 7/12/2009 commonlawvenue $279.00 halvarez 6/12/2009 catchclub $425.00 halvarez 6/10/2009 proactivsolutions $2.000.00 halvarez 6/1/2009 everydadsnightmare $927.00 halvarez 5/26/2009 winantispyware ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Inside Oversee.net v. Howard Nelson Brady, Jr. - Lawsuit sheds more light on bidding scandal. Earlier today SnapNames and parent company Oversee.net filed a lawsuit against former employee Howard Nelson Brady, Jr. for his alleged scheme of shill bidding and embezzlement. Much has already been disclosed about Brady’s alleged conduct, but the lawsuit (pdf) provides more details of his alleged deceit. The suit cites a number of examples of how he tried to dupe other SnapNames employees into thinking that Hank Alvarez ... read more ...
Mon 3rd May 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
FreshDrop Shows How to Handle a Site Outtage - Company communicates well during database restoration. It’s never fun when a subscription-based web service goes down. But FreshDrop should be applauded for how it handled a data problem last week. Other companies should take note. Last Thursday Freshdrop President CEO Tan Tran sent an email to customers stating that there was a database problem and data wasn’t being updated. The email stated: 1. What happened 2. What is being done to fix the problem 3. When ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Class Action News is Actually Good for a Company - Case isn’t new, just moved closer to Go Daddy headquarters. CourthouseNews.com is reporting that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Go Daddy for showing pay-per-click ads on registrant’s “coming soon” pages. This actually isn’t a new case and the latest development actually represents a win for Go Daddy. The case was filed back in 2007 in Arkansas by Barry Crabb and Matthew McBride. The two Texas residents had used computers in Arkansas to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
French Fashion House Loses Case for Guy’s Nickname Domain Name - Designer can’t have Sandro.com domain name. I’m so angry about losing this case! French apparel designer Sandro Andy has lost a domain name dispute to get the domain name Sandro.com. The company will have to stick with its current Sandro-Paris.com domain name. The company the complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization against Alessandro Balzarin of Frankentahl, Germany. Balzarin registered the domain name way back in 1997 because Sandro is a common ... read more ...