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 24th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
I don’t know this new TLD ad - Google ad for new TLDs just links to an end user website using a new TLD. I came across this contextual Google ad today: The ad text itself seems like something a new TLD seller would use. And marina.equipment is certainly a new TLD. But what do marinas have to do with new TLDs? Curious, I clicked the ad. This is what I saw: The answer: it has nothing to do with new TLDs. This site is about marina management software. It makes sense with the domain marina.equipment, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SEO’s contend lapsed domains are being targeted by Google - Some people think Google is using expired domain info to track down so-called “Private Blog Networks”. About ten years ago I made a mint from expired domains. These weren’t good expired domains. They were just domains that had been used before, had lots of incoming links and nice Google juice. I’d slap up a site full of pretty crappy content and wait for the search engines to come slurp it up. The ad clicks tallied up to over $1,000 a day for a short while. ... read more ...
Tue 23rd September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLD rollout to delayed down as Donuts runs low on domains - Boxes of uncontested Donuts running low. The number of new top level domain names hitting the market each week is about to slow down. Every week since the beginning of February, Donuts has released at least one top level domain name. Most weeks it has released at least three domains. That’s about to come to an end. According to the company’s launch calendar, just ten more domain names are currently scheduled to launch in Early Access the rest of this year. There ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CentralNic: Early new TLD direct next attention expectations - Company says its registry operations are showing steady growth despite delays and low demand for new TLDs. CentralNic (AIM: CNIC) issued its interim financial report for the first half of 2014 today. The company, which is the backend registry operator for a number of top level domains, said it’s realizing steady growth in the registry “against a background of delays in new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) and early demand levels across the industry falling short of industry ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Latest domain name fraud spoofs ICANN, worse than domain renovation scam - Scammer sends fake renewal notices with goal of getting your credit card information. ICANN may have shut down Domain Registry of America for now, but new scams pop up just about every day. Joseph Peterson sent one example to me today that I haven’t seen before. He received an email with the subject line “something.com EXPIRATION!”, in which something.com matched one of his domains. Although his domain doesn’t expire until next year, the email claims it expires ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sun City Casino Gambles On UDRP And Loses - A confusing set of circumstances, but panel rules it certainly isn’t cybersquatting. Sun International Limited, operator of hotels and casinos in Africa and Latin America, has lost a UDRP for SunBet.com. The company failed to prove that the respondent, Sun Ventures Development Limited, lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain name and didn’t prove it was registered in bad faith. This is a case in which the panelists earned their keep; there’s a confusing ... read more ...
Mon 22nd September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CentralNic invests in .Tickets TLD winner, valuing it during $13.5 million - Registry pumps money into .tickets auction victor. Domain name registry CentralNic (AIM: CNIC) has invested $1.62 million in Accent Media Ltd, which the latter used to help acquired the .Tickets TLD in a private auction. Accent Media Ltd beat Donuts, Famous Four Media, Tickets TLD LLC and Shubert Internet in the auction. CentralNic’s investment will give it a 12% equity stake in Accent Media. As best I can tell, Accent was set up to get the .tickets TLD, which ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A most slower week forward for new TLDs - A slower week, but still a lot of TLDs will hit the market. After an incredibly busy week with 16 new TLD launches last week, this week slows down quite a bit. Scotland didn’t vote to break off from the United Kingdom, but it does launch its .scot domain name on Tuesday. So ‘yes’ voters can at least feel a bit of national pride. On Wednesday, Donuts launches .direct and .place in regular price general availability, and .deals enters EAP. Also on Wednesday, both ... read more ...
Sat 20th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
iOS 8 and iPhone 6 work with new TLDs - New operating system (that comes pre-installed on iPhone 6) makes it easier to access websites using new top level domains. One of the big challenges with new top level domain names is getting them to work with various devices and software programs. This took a big leap forward on the mobile side with Apple’s release of iOS 8 this week. Before, it wasn’t always easy to get a new TLD to work on an iPhone. You had to type in http:// most of the time for it to be ... read more ...
Fri 19th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
My .website results: Hexonet wins a day - Hexonet did remarkably well with my .website pre-orders. On Wednesday, I wrote about the challenges I had pre-registering domain names at various registrars. I was specifically trying to pre-register .website domains. .Website was supposed to launch Wednesday, but was delayed a day for technical reasons. This gave me another 24 hours to go after the domains I wanted. Originally, I found 23 domains that didn’t have premium prices and pre-ordered them at GoDaddy. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Expired Domain Report: 4 minute domain sells for $31.5k - Chinese container shipping — which is to say global freight —  must account for last week’s $22.6k sale of QianWan.com. The Qingdao Qianwan Container Terminal Co., Ltd. manages one of the world’s busiest ports. Namejet’s top expired auction, on the other hand, isn’t so easy to I.D.: IDAI.com for $31.5k. Is it Irish? Then it’s “The Interior Design Academy of Ireland”, offering diplomas by correspondence. Is it Japanese? Then it’s a railway ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Verisign would like to remind we that copiousness of .com’s are still available - …but it paints availability in the best possible light. Ever since new top level domains started rolling out, Verisign has been pushing the idea that plenty of high quality .com domain names are still available. It’s sort of right. Take a look at this infographic the company just put out. The company has some interesting stats. Did you know that 7 out of 10 .com domains looked up are available? Or that 23 million times a day, a .com domain name availability check ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Susan Lawrence joins Minds + Machines - Former Oversee.net and Above employee to work for registry. Ron Jackson’s job placement service has just placed a new candidate. Susan Lawrence, who has worked at several domain name companies, has joined Minds + Machines as Senior Director of Affiliate Marketing. Most people in the domain industry know Lawrence from when she worked at Oversee.net from 2004-2010. She then worked for Above.com before joining Nami Media. Nami Media shut down last month, at which point ... read more ...
Thu 18th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs find their religion: .Church wins a day - .Church was the top TLD launch yesterday. Going into yesterday, I bet that .guide would be Donuts’ top domain name launch of the week. It’s a fairly generic domain that works with a number of second level domains, similar to .tips (which now has 30,000 registrations). I should have known that word travels fast in the religious community. .Church was the top domain yesterday, gaining 3,409 registrations in the zone file to end with 4,044. .Guide wasn’t too far ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Igloo acquires Aftermarket.com - Domain broker acquires domain name marketplace. Igloo, a fast growing domain name broker, has acquired domain name marketplace Aftermarket.com from Thought Convergence. The move makes sense for Igloo. While its focus in the past has been on larger, high touch transactions, it is now handling the sale of the old DomainSponsor portfolio that was acquired by Rook Media earlier this year. Aftermarket.com will give it a good platform to sell these domain names (and others). “With ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Buzz discovers that a registrants suffer a high life - New TLD .Buzz found a customer base it wasn’t targeting. When Bill Doshier decided to apply for the .buzz top level domain name, he had a vision for how it would be used: entertainment, social media, fashion…you get the idea. Once the domain name went live, he noticed an entirely different customer segment registering domain names. “Early on after our April launch, I noticed some cannabis-themed domain registrations coming out of Colorado, specifically Boulder,” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts wants to obvious Domain Protected Marks List - Registry files patent application for brand protection tool. Donuts wants to patent the Domain Protected Marks List (DPML), a service that helps brand owners prevent their trademarks from being registered across multiple top level domains. The company filed U.S. patent application 13/804919 (pdf) in March 2013 for “Domain Protected Marks List Based Techniques For Managing Domain Name Registrations”. The application was published today. DPML allows brand owners ... read more ...
Wed 17th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Vegas launches with clever support from internal businesses - .Vegas off to solid start with lots of locals registering domain name. The .Vegas domain name launched on Monday and generated about 3,000 domain name registrations in the first hours of availability, plus another 1,400 registrations on Tuesday. .Vegas is somewhat unique because it represents both a U.S. city and a global brand synonymous with entertainment and gambling. EVP and co-founder of Dot Vegas Bart Mackay describes the domain as “dual purpose”, and his ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hey domain registrars, get your sh*t together! - Pre-ordering new TLDs is (still) a complete mess. This morning I tried to give my money to a handful of domain name registrars. I tried really hard. Some of them refused to take it unless I jumped through a bunch of hoops. Mind-numbing, hair-pulling hoops. Someone pass the Propecia, because I’m going to need some to replace all the hair I just pulled out. The simple exercise I was trying to complete: pre-registering .website domain names. Let me tell you, it’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Should this UDRP complainant have cold the case? - The response made it clear it would not win its case. The group that owns the the French wine estate Chateau Ausone filed a UDRP against the owner of Ausone.com. On the face of it, I can understand why they filed the complaint. At the time they filed, visitors to Ausone.com saw a parked page that included links to wine. If they looked at the whois for Ausone.com, it didn’t indicate any connection to an “Ausone” brand”, other than the registrant being located ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Radix delays new TLD launches until tomorrow - Pricing configuration issue delays launch of three top level domain names. New top level domain name applicant Radix has delayed the launch of its first three domain names until tomorrow. .Website, .Press and .Host will all launch tomorrow at noon EDT. They were scheduled to release at the same time today. Sandeep Ramchandani, business head for Radix, told Domain Name Wire that there was a pricing configuration issue that some registrars ran into. Although the TLDs ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CoolMath.com files cybersquatting fit opposite leased domain name - Company wants control of CoolMathGames.com, which Vertical Axis might have leased to another party. If you’ve ever stumbled upon a site in the CoolMath.com network of websites, you probably thought you had taken a trip back to the 1990s. With black backgrounds and neon graphics, all that’s missing are spinning logos. But the network is big. Really big. Coolmath-Games.com alone had 677 million visits between June 2013 and June 2014. Now CoolMath.com, LLC is suing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WWE accepts a challenge, fights for WWE.org - Domain name owner makes preemptive defense against UDRP. A UDRP for WWE.org was just filed with National Arbitration Forum. You’ll see a curious message when you visit the domain name: Disclaimer: wwe.org (Western Women Entrepreneurs) is not associated with wwe.com (World Wrestling Entertainment) nor we have any intention to represent, sell or promote ANY wrestling goods. wwe.org is a solo organization represents Western Women Entrepreneurs. we hold no trademark ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Wow: Amazon.com buys .Buy for $4.6 million, .Tech sells for $6.8 million - Amazon.com paid $4.6 million to win rights to .buy top level domain name, but that wasn’t the most expensive TLD auction on Wednesday. You might think new top level domain names aren’t meeting early expectations, but applicants still apparently value the opportunity very high. ICANN held its second “auction of last resort” for new top level domain names today. Three contention sets were resolved at multi-million dollar prices. Here are the results: .Tech ... read more ...
Tue 16th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Minds + Machines’ new domain names off to delayed start - Demand appears to have been low at launch. Minds + Machines launched its first six owned and operated top level domain names yesterday. The results can only be described as weak, at least based on overnight zone file numbers. Here’s the activity in the zone files: .Vodka 421 to 469 .Cooking 378 to 439 .Fishing 350 to 388 .Horse 287 to 327 .Country 182 to 220 .Rodeo 76 to 107 It’s possible that the zone files, which would have captured the first (busy) hours of ... read more ...