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.

Tue 2nd December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Name Collision domain names – is there event for domainers? - The release of blocked second level strings is good for the domain name industry. Is there opportunity for domainers to profit from it? Today, .XYZ will release 18,000 second level domain name options that previously could not be registered. They join hundreds of thousands of other second level domains under new TLDs that have “dropped” in recent weeks, and will do so going forward as well. These domains were blocked because of “name collisions”. Basically, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Top Clicks and Domain Name News Stories from November - A look back at November in the domain name business. November was a super-busy month here on Domain Name Wire. The DNW Podcast had a bunch of great shows, one of my stories hit the mainstream press, and we learned that a big domain name company exchanged hands for $44.9 million. Every month, I run down the top five posts from the past month. This month I’m going to add a bit to it by looking at the most clicked links within Domain Name Wire stories. 5 of the 6 top ... read more ...
 
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Cyber Monday propels .Rocks to 17% daily gain - Rightside markets .rocks heavily as it finds an audience. It’s interesting watching for anomalies in new top level domain name registrations. Consider yesterday, when the zone for Rightside’s .rocks top level domain grew by almost 17% (3,817 new domains in the zone, per DomainIncite). That’s a lot of new domains, even when you consider Rightside registry as a whole. Here’s a chart from nTLDstats showing Rightside’s daily registration volume across all of ... read more ...
Mon 1st December 2014
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“Trademark King” wants Apple.com, YouTube.com, Target.com, Google.com, Elton John trademarks - Guy files trademarks matching names of celebrities, major brands and their domain names. A couple weeks ago I wrote about Trademark King, Inc. The Indiana company had filed a trademark on Trademarking.com, a domain name owned by domain investor Rick Schwartz. When I reached out to Douglas Lehocky, the person listed on the trademark applications, he told me it didn’t matter if someone else owned the domain name Trademarking.com. If he got the trademark first, he ... read more ...
 
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Lawsuit alleges 3 series domain names stolen - Lawsuit says three three-number domain names were stolen from an eNom account. A federal lawsuit alleges that the domain names 224.com, 605.com and 452.com have been stolen. Ian Andrew of Traffic Names, Ltd filed an in rem action (pdf) against the domain names in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Traffic Names alleges that it is the rightful owner of the domain names and that they were stolen from its eNom domain name registrar account. According ... read more ...
 
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Domain Name Parking with Michael Gilmour – DNW Podcast #9 - Why are you making less from domain name parking? Can you do anything about it? If you’ve been in the domain name industry for any length of time, odds are you’re making less from domain name parking now than you did many years ago. In this episode, Michael Gilmour of ParkLogic explains why domain name parking revenue is down, and if there’s anything you can do about it. Also: my thoughts on the Top Ten new top level domain names. You can subscribe via iTunes ... read more ...
 
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23 finish user domain name sales adult to $35,000 - Two Heineken breweries among end user domain name buyers. I was too busy eating turkey last week to do the end user sales report, so I’m publishing this a week late. Sedo closed $1.2 million worth of domain name transactions the week-before-last, including a number of end user domain name sales. Two breweries in Africa that have been acquired by Heineken bought domain names. Also note the sales of .host and .club domains. Here’s the list of some of the week’s ... read more ...
 
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New TLDs this week: .Paris, .Moscow, .LTDA and more - Four geo domains among those releasing this week. It’s a fairly busy week for new top level domain names, especially for those watching geographic top level domain names. Monday .МОСКВА and .Moscow launched today, and they will be very interesting to watch given the initial interest in Russian IDNs. The domains are cheap, both 101domain and DomainDiscount24 have prices around $10 or less. .集团, Chinese for “conglomerate”, appears to have also launched ... read more ...
Fri 28th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain Name Stocks walloped so distant in 2014 - Most publicly traded domain name companies have had their stocks hit hard in 2014. The broader markets are up big time this year, but there’s not much cheer at domain name companies that are publicly listed. With about a month left in the year, some publicly traded domain name companies will need a healthy rebound to end the year where they started. In fact, I count only three companies that are up this year, compared to 6 that are down (big time). Here’s a look ... read more ...
 
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TrendyHair.es owners guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - WIPO panel finds GIGS United S.L. guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. GIGS United S.L., the Barcelona company that owns TrendyHair.es, has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name TrendyHair.com. The case was filed against SIE MANTIC, but it’s a little unclear as to who actually owns the domain and who responded to the case. According to the complainant, it negotiated to buy the domain name from the respondent for 2,500 EUR on ... read more ...
Wed 26th November 2014
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What we consider about Donuts’ confidant 80% renovation forecast - Last Friday, Donuts CEO Paul Stahura posted on CircleID an argument for strong renewal rates in new top level domain names. He even put a number on it: “…we conservatively predict an initial renewal rate of greater than 80% for Donuts gTLDs.” First of all, kuddos to Donuts for sticking its neck out there with a prediction. It might have its own motivations for doing so, but a lot of TLD registries are backing off of public predictions of any kind after their ... read more ...
 
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.Click’s 3,800 domains: Good or bad? - @Jim …. yes, well said, … small world indeed. im happy you do understand my point, for instance, .club held back the IDN release ( even though they had the ability implemented, but they made a big mistake on only including spanish characters, from their RFC, it is easy to see so [and later, touching the water on releasing a ‘premium IDN, which is listed as top premium right now at sedo as ‘registry exclusive … ] .. and the consequence i$snt good, for example, excluding ç means ... read more ...
Tue 25th November 2014
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HomeAdvisor’s dear name change is profitable off - HomeAdvisor spent a lot of money on its rebrand, and saw a sharp drop in traffic initially, but it has paid off. A couple weeks ago Quebec announced a decision to opt-out of switching its web presence over to the new .quebec domain name, citing a price tag north of $10 million. Just how much work goes into changing to a new brand and domain name? One large company has gone through a domain change, and it provides a good case study for the costs — both in upfront ... read more ...
 
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Headliners combined to NamesCon: Atallah, Alexander - Akram Atallah and Fiona Alexander have been added to the NamesCon agenda. NamesCon, taking place in Las Vegas January 11-14, has added a couple big names to its agenda for the first full day of the conference. On Monday, January 12, I will have a fireside chat with the president of ICANN’s Global Domains Division, Akram Atallah (pictured). Atallah is in charge of generic domain operations, domain name industry engagement and web services at ICANN. This includes ... read more ...
Mon 24th November 2014
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This week’s new TLDs: 5 from Frank Schilling - Schilling’s company releases another five top level domain names. Apparently only one company thought it wise to release new top level domain names during the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday week: Frank Schilling’s Uniregistry. Uniregistry is releasing five top level domain names in general availability on Tuesday: .hosting, .property, .diet, .help and .click. .Hosting and .Property are the most expensive, with retail prices ranging from $28-$40. .Diet and .Help have ... read more ...
 
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Crazy Country Code Domains with Daniel Greenberg – DNW Podcast #8 - Learn about domain name registries that charge $4,000+ per domain or require hand delivered registration applications. Can you imagine having to send a Western Union payment in order to register a domain name? How about hand delivering an application for a domain name? Or spending $4,000+ per year for registration? Daniel Greenberg of Lexsynergy has seen it all, and on this podcast he’ll share some stories about registering country code top level domain names. ... read more ...
 
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GoDaddy announces Super Bowl ad plans - Danica Patrick to once again star in GoDaddy Super Bowl commercial. GoDaddy announced plans today for its 11th consecutive appearance in the Super Bowl. GoDaddy’s 2015 Super Bowl ad is called “Journey Home”, and will focus on GoDaddy’s small business offerings. Patrick, who already holds the record for most Super Bowl appearances by a celebrity, will star alongside a puppy. Apparently, the commercial will appear to be a Hallmark-style commercial, and then ... read more ...
Fri 21st November 2014
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Wow: Nissan sells Z.com domain name to GMO for $6.8 million - GMO to use Z.com domain name to fuel global expansion. GMO Internet, operator of Japan’s largest domain name registrar, has acquired the one letter domain name Z.com for JPY800 million ($6.8 million), the company announced today. Japanese car manufacturer Nissa sold the domain name, which it previously used to promote its Nissan Z car. GMO says it’s going to use the domain name, one of only three single letter .com domains available, to accelerate its global market ... read more ...
 
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Interview: .Cloud tip turn domain leader Aruba - Aruba, which defeated Google and Amazon to win the .cloud top level domain name, discusses why it applied for the domain name and what it plans to do with it. .Cloud was one of the most applied-for top level domain names, with big names like Amazon.com and Google throwing their hats in the ring. Which is why many were surprised to see that the winner of the private auction for the domain name was a company they might not have heard of: Aruba S.p.A. Although nowhere ... read more ...
Thu 20th November 2014
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HuaGao.com during $20k and other lapsed domain name sales - Joseph Peterson summarizes weekly expired domain name sales Once again, China tops our list of last week’s expired domain auctions. This time it’s GoDaddy with HuaGao.com ($20.3k), meaning … you tell me! Various working professionals share that name. (There’s a certified public accountant using HuaGaoCPA.com, for instance.) Yet I suspect that coupling “Hua” (transform or blossom) + “Gao” (tall or above average) conveys some other meaning in Chinese. ... read more ...
 
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Nirvana gets domain names from Australian male who demanded $1.5 million - Panels say it Smells Like B.S. Nirvana LLC — the company that owns the intellectual property from the late grunge band Nirvana — has won control of five domain names registered by an Australian man. The company filed UDRP and aUDRP disputes against Darren Wilcox (Willcox) for the domain names nirvanadrums.com.au, nirvanadrums.net.au, nirvanadrums.com, nirvanadrumsfilm.com and nirvanadrums.net. Wilcox argued that he registered the domain names because of the concept ... read more ...
 
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Rightside shares strike new low - Domain name company isn’t getting much love from Wall Street. Shares of domain name company Rightside have dropped 15% this week, and hit an all time low of $8.33 in trading yesterday. Rightside (NASDAQ: NAME) is trading for $8.55 per share this afternoon. It’s unclear what caused the sharp drop this week. Rightside reported earnings after the bell on November 6, and shares climbed the next day. The company filed its 10-Q with the SEC last Friday. I could not ... read more ...
 
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Frank Schilling changes plan for .Click launch - NothingHeldBack.click. 5 more Uniregistry domain names go into general availability next week. And for one of them, .click, Frank Schilling is taking a different strategy when it comes to holding back domain names. In previous launches, Schilling’s companies have registered thousands — even tens out thousands — of names ahead of general availability launch. That left frustrated domainers searching through the scraps. This was especially notable because Shilling ... read more ...
Wed 19th November 2014
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GoDaddy’s DomainFinder App advances domain name selection - App makes it easier to narrow in on the best domain name. GoDaddy recently released an iOS app for finding and registering domain names called GoDaddy DomainFinder. Many of its features are similar to what you find on GoDaddy.com and other registrar sites. For example, the app lets you filter by price, TLD, and length. Yet some features are new and different, mostly when it comes to whittling down the large list of results you receive. You can easily “favorite” ... read more ...
 
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17 finish user domain name sales, including a large .Me - An antiquated technology term in .me sells for five figures. Sedo sold $1 million worth of domain names last week. While this week’s list doesn’t include as many end user buyers as the last one (at least publicly), a lot of smaller businesses bought domain names. One of the most amusing ones is Telegram.me at $10,000. Now, be honest — if someone told you they registered a domain name with telegram in it, you’d laugh at him. Right? The New Zealand man who ... read more ...