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.

Fri 5th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Clearwater Systems Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Case contradicts prior rulings involving the same complainant, but the panelist in the other cases probably got it wrong. Clearwater Systems of Akron, Ohio, has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. It’s a decision that might make the company scratch its head in light of two recent victories using UDRP. The present case is for ClearWaterSystems.net, a domain name owned by a water softener and bottled water company in Indiana. Panelist Richard G. Lyon ... read more ...
 
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Kellie Peterson promoted to President of DNC Holdings - Peterson promoted from CSO role. A familiar face at domain name conferences has been named president of DNC Holdings. DNC Holdings, which you more likely know by its registrar name Directnic, has promoted Kellie Peterson from the Chief Strategy Officer role. Peterson will be responsible for DNC’s registrar services, aftermarket, monetization and publishing units. Before joining DNC Holdings, Peterson ran the Domain Business Unit at Endurance International. Endurance, ... read more ...
Thu 4th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Top 5 Domain Name Wire stories from August: 4chan, Google and more - August was a busy month in the domain name industry. Business usually grinds to a halt in August. Families head out on vacation and kids enjoy their last weeks of freedom before heading back to school. But it wasn’t a slow month in the domain name business. New top level domain names continued to roll out en masse. A three letter domain name sold for $1 million. Popular bulletin board 4chan lost a domain dispute. And Google started inviting more people to try its ... read more ...
 
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Next month: a biggest domain name discussion ever - The biggest conference in the history of the domain name industry is taking place next month. This summer’s ICANN meeting in London set an all-time record for a domain name related conference with 3,115 people in attendance. The record is likely to last only one more month, as ICANN’s next meeting in Los Angeles is just a month away. ICANN meetings have grown in size for a couple reasons. First, the release of new top level domain names has increased interest. ... read more ...
 
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Expired domain report: Mangos, Drones and more - Over 200 expired domain auction prices in this week’s Expired Domain Report. In a parallel universe, I would be typing this article from a Mango computer rather than a breed of Apple. Still, mangos have proliferated on this planet beyond Darwin’s definition of success. “Mango” trademarks abound for products / services as diverse as beauty salons, audio recordings, fertilizers, lead generation, secured access cards, language instruction, and baby strollers. ... read more ...
 
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.Hotel field doubt CPE row decision - Companies question result of panel decision that eliminated them from competition for .hotel domain name. Six companies that saw their bids for the .hotel domain name die as a result of a Community Priority Evaluation decision in favor of HOTEL Top-Level-Domain S.a.r.l have asked ICANN for information regarding the decision. The applicants filed a Document Information Disclosure Policy Request (DIDP) with ICANN on August 4. The DIDP requests resumes for people that ... read more ...
Wed 3rd September 2014
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This domain name business switched to a new TLD - A domain name business adopts a .domains domain name. New top level domain name registries have been looking for examples of companies adopting their domain names. They don’t have to look too far: a domain name software company is among those that has adopted a new TLD. Softnik, maker of the Watch My Domains software for domain management, has moved its software sales site from DomainPunch.com to WatchMy.domains. The company will continue to use DomainPunch.com, ... read more ...
 
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Was Daimler a reason for RideScout’s $80k domain name purchase? - A subsidiary of Daimler has acquired RideScout, a company that just paid 60,000 euros for a domain name. Last week I wrote about how RideScout, a company that helps map out the best transportation options for a route, purchased the domain name RideScout.com for 60,000 euros ($80,000 USD) at Sedo. The company has been using the longer domain RideScoutApp.com for its web address. The timing and price tag make a lot of sense with news out today: A subsidiary of German ... read more ...
 
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Grand Funk Railroad wins box for GrandFunk.com - Popular band from the 70s catches up to the 2010’s after winning domain name case. Rock bank Grand Funk Railroad, which was very popular back in the 70s, has won rights to the domain name GrandFunk.com through a UDRP. Even if you’re too young (like me) to remember the 70s, there’s no doubt you’ve heard some of their songs. “We’re an American Band” is one of the group’s most famous songs. The domain name was registered 15 years ago, but the panelist ... read more ...
 
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ISIS chooses Softcard over Willow and Zoma for new brand - Domain name registrations suggested ISIS considered several new names before settling on Softcard. If you watch the news lately, you think of ISIS as a terrorist group. That’s unfortunate for the global mobile payments service ISIS. So ISIS (the payments company) decided over the summer that it needed to rebrand. In August I noticed a number of payment related domain names were registered at Mark Monitor, such as willowmobilewallet.com, PaywithWillow.com and Tapwithzoma.com. As ... read more ...
Tue 2nd September 2014
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New TLDs this week: Schilling launches .hiphop, Donuts charges your .creditcard - Frank Schilling’s Uniregistry joins Donuts with new TLD releases this week. Shortened holiday week be damned: new TLD operators are launching a bunch of domain names this week. And by this week, I really mean this Wednesday. Frank Schilling’s Uniregistry and Donuts all get in on the action on September 3. Uniregistry Uniregistry launches .hiphop, .audio and .juegos (games in Spanish) in general availability this week. The company is sticking to its low price ... read more ...
 
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Uniregistry releases domain tracker to Hoover adult domain names - System shows you which of your domains are about to expire and lets you transfer them to Uniregistry. Uniregistry (the registrar, not registry) has launched a new dashboard called “Domain Tracker”. It’s the first integration between Frank Schilling’s registrar and his domain sales/parking platform DomainNameSales.com. The dashboard pulls in all the domains you have listed on DomainNameSales.com and shows their nameservers, expiration dates and registrar. Uniregistry’s ... read more ...
 
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Lawsuit filed over .email domain names - Yoyo.email files lawsuit after barrage of URS and UDRP complaints. Last month I wrote about Yoyo.email Ltd, a company that has found itself in legal hot water after registering over 4,000 .email domain names. Many of the domain names match well known brands, such as 7eleven.email, Geico.email and Budlight.email. As a result, Yoyo has already been on the receiving end of at least 34 URS (Uniform Rapid Suspension) and UDRP cases. Yoyo.email is fighting back. Last Friday ... read more ...
Fri 29th August 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Expired Domain Report: Carol.com, Pranksters.com and more - Deck the halls! Carol.com, which GoDaddy sold for $20.8k this past week, may be one of the best brand names for the Christmas season. Either that or some woman named Carol ought to be immensely flattered! Another dictionary-word .COM, Pranksters.com reached $7.1k. It’s not hard to imagine a “Pranksters” show based on the premise of pulling pranks proving pretty popular.  Plenty have. That clip I just linked to is also something of a comment on the price paid ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Club initial new TLD to strech 100,000 paid registrations - Marketing efforts pay off as .Club crosses milestone. .Club sent out a press release this morning touting that it has now sold 100,000 domain name registrations — the first new TLD to reach this milestone. .XYZ and .Berlin have more registrations, but most of their registrations were given away for free. What was .club’s secret to getting to 100,000 registrations? Pick a good domain and then add money. The company has certainly outspent all of its rivals on ... read more ...
 
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SC Johnson plays tricks to extent consequences of Off! Botanicals recall - Information about recall is on a non-descript domain with a restricted robots.txt file. SC Johnson, maker of Off! bug sprays, is recalling certain 4 oz bottles of its OFF! Botanicals Insect Repellent. It’s undertaking some website and search engine tricks to limit the long term consequences. Although SC Johnson is publicizing the recall, it is taking some precautions to limit long term consequences in search engines. Yesterday it registered a number of domain names ... read more ...
Thu 28th August 2014
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This week’s new TLDs supplement between 50 and 10,000 domains on initial day - One domain is off to a quick start, the others not so much. Seven new top level domain names launched this week. By far, .Hamburg for the city of Hamburg was the most registered domain name. (Ironically, this is the one new TLD launch this week that I missed in my weekly preview.) There are approximately 13,800 .hamburg domain names in the zone file, up about 10,000 on the first day. On Tuesday, .black added about 100 names to end the day with about 150. I never ... read more ...
 
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The subsequent 50 days will be critical for new TLDs - Big launches make the next 50 days a key period for new top level domain names. A lot of new top level domain names have come to market already. Some have flown out of the gate, others are growing modestly, and some have stalled. In my opinion, the next 50 days will be an important period for new TLDs due to the number of high profile launches and the companies involved. You can argue that a slow launch doesn’t kill a TLD. But new TLDs have a chance to get some ... read more ...
Wed 27th August 2014
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App builder spends $80k to dump “app” from domain name - Ridescout pays big bucks for shorter domain name and other end user domain name purchases. The .app domain name is coming. Until then, many app makers have plugged “app” onto the end of their domain names when they can’t get the .com domain that matches their app name. Does the domain name still matter for app makers? Yes, judging by RideScout’s 60,000 euro purchase of RideScout.com last week. The Austin maker of the RideScout app for finding the best transportation ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Walmart’s controversial domains, eBay gets Flooke, Google’s shawl bin and CHiPs, a movie? - Some interesting domain name registrations from Walmart, eBay and Google. A handful of companies have made some interesting domain name registrations lately, potentially tipping off plans. First, let’s start with a couple domain registrations that seem more defensive than anything else. Walmart is frequently criticized for killing mom and pop shops through competition. You can hardly expect it to go on a campaign to save mom and pop stores, so why did it register ... read more ...
 
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Christine Jones’ gubernatorial bid ends in primaries - Former GoDaddy exec places third in Republican primary. Christine Jones, former general counsel for GoDaddy, lost her bid to become the next governor of Arizona in the Republican primary yesterday. Doug Ducey, current Arizona treasurer and former CEO of ice cream franchise Cold Stone Creamery, took 37% of the vote in the primary. Jones finished third with 16.7% of the vote. GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons contributed over $1 million to fund attack ads against Ducey. ... read more ...
 
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UDRP: Girls Do Porn, though association Doesn’t Do Trademarks well - Company runs site that is rather descriptive of its services. BLL Media Holdings has lost a UDRP it filed against Infinitoria Ltd over the domain name GirlDoPorn.com (in which “girl” in singular). The complainant purports to run the site GirlsDoPorn.com (in which “girls” is plural). BLL failed to show the World Intellectual Property Organization panelist that the domain name was confusingly similar to a mark in which it had rights. The domain name GirlsDoPorn.com ... read more ...
Tue 26th August 2014
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Why your new TLDs won’t work good with domain parking (yet) - Domain parking ads don’t consider the full meaning of a domain name that spans the dot. A couple weeks ago Donuts launched the .cash top level domain name. This got me thinking about domain parking. I’ve owned a few .com domain names with the term “cash” in them. When they got clicks, they were high dollar clicks. There are lots of expensive Adwords terms related to cash. So would traffic to something.cash monetize well? No, not on the basis of the top level ... read more ...
 
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Quickly find a tip websites built on new TLDs - Two tools show you which sites built on new TLDs are gaining traction. A key for the long run success of each new top level domain name is usage. Which TLDs are getting traction with actual end users? Two tools based on Alexa data can help you find out. Softnik, creator of Watch My Domains Pro, has created a free tool that makes it easy to sort the Alexa 1 Million list by TLD. Just type in a TLD, hit enter and you’ll quickly see a list of domains on that TLD that ... read more ...
 
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How 22 finish users are (or aren’t!) regulating domain names they bought this year - Each week I write at least one post about which end users bought domain names over the past week. What do end users do with these domain names they buy on the aftermarket? I was curious, so I went back to one of the weekly end user reports I published about six months ago. The report included 22 sales ranging from $1,000 to $25,000. Six months later, here’s a breakdown of how the buyers are using the sites: 4 of 22 are used as the domain name for a website 8 of ... read more ...