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.

Thu 5th December 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How most will Domainers and Defensive Registrations matter for new TLD operators? - New TLD registries will need to count on domainers and defensive registrations if they hope to amass a large registration base. Every new top level domain name applicant I’ve spoken with will swear they aren’t counting on defensive registrations to build their domain base. Even those whose business model depends on companies wanting to make sure people don’t think they .suck. Many of them also say they don’t want or care about the domain investor’s business. They’re ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ontario association paid $137,500 to buy Sandwich.com from Yahoo! - A small Canadian company bought Sandwich.com in the Yahoo! domain name auction last month. The first three domains that Yahoo! sold in a domain name auction last month have changed hands, including the biggest sale of all: $137,500 for Sandwich.com. The buyer is officially Seyed Ali Mirabolghasemi in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada. Based on the address in whois and Mirabolghasemi’s Google+ profile, it appears he has a company called Future Web Media, Inc. I can’t ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Standard & Poor’s loses domain name dispute - Financial services company and rating agency can’t have “boycott” domain name, panel rules. Standard Poor’s has lost a UDRP against the domain name BoycottStandardandPoors.com at World Intellectual Property Organization. The domain name owner argued that he’s exercising his first amendment rights by owning the “gripe” style domain name. The panel determined that the domain name could be used as a gripe site and be protected, so it denied Standard Poor’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
“Cloud” is not a community, new TLD panelist rules - Group’s definition of “cloud community” is too broad. Cloud Industry Forum Limited has lost its community objections against three applications for the .cloud top level domain name. The objections were filed against the three applicants who planned to keep their .cloud registries closed to registrations: Google, Amazon.com, and Symantec. Panelist Stephen L. Drymer ruled that the community Cloud Industry Forum claimed in the objection is not “clearly delineated.” ... read more ...
Wed 4th December 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A dozen finish user domain name sales - Dun Bradstreet among end user buyers last week at Sedo/Afternic. I’m posting a lot of end user sales reports this week thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday last week. You’ll note that this report for Afternic/GoDaddy from last week has only a dozen sales. I’d like to reiterate that these are just the sales that stood out to me as end user sales; I’m sure there are many more. Despite Afternic and GoDaddy combining their reports post acquisition, I’ve been ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Are 10,000 registrations a picturesque idea for niche new tip turn domains? - So far, most new TLD registries are pricing their domains at a big premium to .com. Will that limit registration numbers? We’re starting to get a better idea of how new top level domain name registries are going to price domain names. It appears many are taking the .TV approach, essentially pricing out any value domainers can get from registering the domains and selling them (if there is much value to capture to begin with). We’re also seeing niche domain priced ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
7 reasons because I’m going to NamesCon - Here’s why I’m going to NamesCon next month. The first ever NamesCon domain name conference takes place January 13-15 in Las Vegas. Here’s why I’m going to the conference: 1. I was already planning on going to a conference in January. DomainSponsor usually holds its Webfest conference at the end of January or early February. If Webfest returns next year, it won’t be so early in the year. I was already planning to attend a conference around this time, so ... read more ...
Tue 3rd December 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Rutgers University and 15 other finish user domain name buyers - Rutgers University buys a .net and other end user domain name sales. I’m now caught up on end user sales reports due to the Thanksgiving holiday. This report is for sales made by GoDaddy/Afternic two weeks ago. You can see previous end user sales reports here. It’s interesting to see three sales of $9,999, suggesting that either the buyers had a four figure price limit or the sellers faced some sort of syndication/listing/escrow limit. AutoLeader.com $1,087 – ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Square Grouper Tiki Bar guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Florida bar filed UDRP despite knowing domain name wasn’t registered in bad faith. Castaways Bar, LLC , owner of Square Grouper Tiki Bar in Jupiter, Florida, has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking by filing a UDRP against SquareGrouper.com. When the company opened its bar in 2003, SquareGrouper.com was already registered. The registrant apparently was working on a screenplay by the name Square Grouper, and had already registered a “treatment” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NameJet reveals tip sales from November - NameJet’s top sales include many a handful of 3 letter .com domain names. Expired domain name site NameJet released a list today of top sales from November. Here are all of the sales of $5,000 or more: ojr.org $19,100 hase.com $17,851 clio.com $17,200 contributor.com $11,199 sellout.com $10,199 fcloud.com $10,000 iqo.com $8,099 duq.com $7,977 bmq.com $7,500 aiyuan.com $6,988 cvcv.com $6,800 coppell.com $6,105 budapestsun.com $6,104 pami.com $5,999 pxc.com $5,600.00 basketballnews.com ... read more ...
Mon 2nd December 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Top 5 Domain Name Wire stories for November - GoDaddy, Sedo, Frank Schilling’s new TLDs, and a .xxx domain name make the news. Tired of turkey leftovers yet? Here are some domain name leftovers from last month…the top five stories on Domain Name Wire, ranked by order of views. 1. GoDaddy begins accepting pre-registrations for new TLDs for up to $1,200 each – the world’s largest domain name registrar starts accepting paid pre-registrations for .uno, .menu, luxury, and .build domain names. It isn’t cheap, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Amazon.com registers domain names for the delivery-by-drone Prime Air service - Company registers over 40 domains, but can’t get its hands on some key ones. Will your Amazon.com packages be delivered by drone in the future? That’s the vision of Jeff Bezos. And millions have already watched a video (embedded below) of how Amazon envisions it working. Amazon is pretty thorough with defensive domain name registration, and Amazon Prime Air is no exception. I count over forty domain name registrations the company made related to Amazon Prime Air ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
18 finish user domain name sales - An expensive .co purchase is among Sedo’s big end user domain name sales. Sedo sent out its weekly domain name sales report last week, but due to the U.S. holiday I’m a week behind. Here’s the list, with format domain price – buyer. Yumda.com $1,000 – Yumbda.de, a site about the food and beverage industry. TungstenElectrodes.com $750 – WeldingMaterialSales.com tungsten electrodes are used in welding. Mozart.co $21,000 – Needly, Inc., a company owned ... read more ...
Fri 29th November 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Will companies use .BlackFriday domain names? - .BlackFriday domain names will soon be available. Will they be useful? It’s Black Friday in the United States, the day that kicks off the holiday shopping season. Frank Schilling’s Uniregistry applied to run the .blackfriday top level domain name. It’s possible this domain will be available by Black Friday 2014 despite a very poor priority draw number of 1415. This is a unique domain in that it is targeted to a short period of time during the year; perhaps ... read more ...
Wed 27th November 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Grand Theft Domain Name: Take-Two Interactive loses domain name dispute - Grand Theft Auto publisher fails in case to get GTA.tv domain name. Take-Two Interactive, the creator of the wildly successful Grand Theft Auto video game series, has lost a dispute it filed against the domain name GTA.tv. Take-Two has a trademark for GTA, but it was unable to persuade a World Intellectual Property Organization panel that the owner was trying to take advantage of Take-Two’s mark. iCity Corp, which owns GTA.tv, argued that the unused domain stood ... read more ...
Tue 26th November 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
21 village objections have been decided. So distant it’s unpredictable. - It’s difficult to predict the outcome of community objections. As of yesterday the International Chamber of Commerce had published 21 community objection decisions. Objectors have won just four of the cases. Time for new top level domain applicants to rejoice? Hardly. Much like string confusion objections, community objection decisions and how panelists arrive at their decisions are proving to be inconsistent. Community objections are certainly more complicated ... read more ...
Mon 25th November 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What domain names Panasonic and 20 other finish users recently bought - Panasonic spends $37,000 on domain name for its ToughPad tablets. GoDaddy and Afternic sold $1.65 million worth of domain names the week before last, including the $37,000 sale of ToughPad.com to Panasonic. Before jumping into the end user sales list, I’ll make a couple observations: 1. It seems lately I’ve been seeing handful of rehab/drug abuse end user sales on the list each week. You might want to look into these types of domain names. 2. BrandLicensing.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Andee Hill leaves Escrow.com to start new domain name escrow company - Familiar face at domain name conferences is starting her own domain name escrow company. Andee Hill has left Escrow.com to start her own domain name escrow service called EscrowHill.com. Hill has been at Escrow.com, the leading escrow service when it comes to domain names, since 1999. Gregg McNair is backing the new venture, and will be Chairman of the new company. This is the second domain name company McNair has backed and been named the chair of in as many weeks. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Gold Coast Tourism Corporation guilty of retreat domain name hijacking - Tourism group guilty of trying to hijack domain name from Digimedia. Gold Coast Tourism Corporation Ltd. has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking in a UDRP over the domain name GoldCoast.com. The case was filed against Digimedia, which was represented by John Berryhill. The complainant, a non-profit that promotes the Gold Cost in Australia, uses the domain name at visitgoldcoast.com. Gold Coast Tourism alleged that Digimedia asked $1 million for the ... read more ...
Fri 22nd November 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domains that were theme to fibre difficulty objections could be on reason for a while… - Board considers if there’s any sort of appeal mechanism to new TLD objections. The results of new TLD string confusion objections handled by International Dispute Resolution Centre were a mess. They were completely unpredictable and results were mostly dependent on who the panelist was, not the merits of the case. As a result, both objectors and applicants have filed reconsideration requests with ICANN’s board. The board governance committee has summarily rejected ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Companies aren’t communities for new TLDs, panelist rules - Is Merck a community? It’s a murky argument. An International Chamber of Commerce panelist has issued his rulings in three cases involving the Merck brand. In doing so, he has ruled that companies don’t qualify as communities, at least for new TLD community objections. The three cases were filed by Merck KGaA against Merck Registry Holdings and MSD Registry Holdings and covered two applications for .merck and one for .merckmsd. If you’re confused, let me clear ... read more ...
Thu 21st November 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Get a hide look of a new ICANN.org website - A beta of the new ICANN.org website is now live. ICANN is finally getting a new website, not just the minor facelifts it has received in recent years. ICANN Labs is working on a new ICANN.org website and hopes to launch it publicly in February. It is currently running the site in parallel to the existing one at new.icann.org. ICANN Labs is the same group working on experimental projects to help with community participation. Its test projects include ICANN Passport, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Animation.com and XZ.com accommodate reserves, will sell in Heritage Auctions domain name auction tonight - Two six figure sales already for domain name auction taking place tonight. The official live auction for Heritage Auctions’ domain name auction, the first ever domain auction by a major auction house, is tonight in New York City. But early internet bidding has already guaranteed a couple notable sales. Animation.com, which I listed on my picks for the auction, has met its reserve with a $95,000 bid. The two letter XZ.com domain name has also met its reserve after ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo gets disdainful understanding with Famous Four Media for new TLDs - Famous Four to handle sunrise, landrush, and premium sales through Sedo. Sedo has announced its second big new top level domain name deal this week. The company has signed an agreement with Famous Four Media, applicant for 57 new top level domain names, to help the company sell its domain names. Sedo tells me this is an exclusive deal for all of Famous Four Media’s top level domains. It will include Sunrise and Landrush Auctions, as well as premium auctions and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Yahoo! sells Sandwich.com for $137,500, and here’s a story behind 9 other domain names it sole during auction today. - Today Yahoo! sold domain names that it picked up by acquiring Broadcast.com, HotJobs.com, Overture, and many others. Yahoo! picked up Sandwich.com and CyberJokes.com with its Broadcast.com acquisition.I have to admit, I’m a sucker for dot.com nostalgia. Watching the Yahoo! domain name auction on Sedo today brought back memories of flipping through The Industry Standard while updating bids on GoTo.com. (Yeah, I know most of these Yahoo! acquisitions happened after ... read more ...