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 2nd October 2013
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Meet Steve Banfield, Demand Media’s new SVP and GM of Registrar Services - Banfield to lead eNom and Name.com. Earlier this week Demand Media announced that it hired Steve Banfield to serve as SVP and GM of Registrar Services. Demand Media owns domain name reseller eNom and consumer registrar Name.com, both of which Banfield will help lead. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, that’s because Banfield is new to the domain name industry. His experience with domain names is limited mostly to registering domain names here and there for projects. ... read more ...
 
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Sedo to go private as United Internet buys out co-founders - Sedo will no longer be a separate, publicly traded company. United Internet AG has raised its stake in Sedo Holding to 96.05% after buying out the co-founders’ shares at a price of 2.60 euros per share. United Internet plans to integrate Sedo Holding’s affiliate and domain business into its overall business. The company will initiate a “squeeze-out process” at Sedo over the coming weeks. Tim Schumacher, one of the founders of Sedo, released this statement: This ... read more ...
 
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Domain name attention loses dual open companies in underneath a month - Fewer public companies mean less public information about the domain name industry. The domain name industry has lost two public companies in less than a month. Well, not technically. But it feels that way to me. As someone who has written about the domain name industry for over 8 years, one of the biggest treasure troves of data I use comes from public company filings. Public companies disclose all sorts of details about their businesses in mandatory filings. For ... read more ...
 
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Video: GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving on new TLDs, pre-registrations - GoDaddy CEO explains why new TLDs will be a good thing and hints at company’s pre-registration plans. AZTechBeat has published a video interview (embedded below) with GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving about the forthcoming launch of new top level domain names. In the interview, Irving describes what he sees as the problem with the existing limited number of TLD options. “…there has been what I guess I’ll call a lot of domain name pollution that has happened in the ... read more ...
 
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The Health Insurance Marketplaces are here, and so are a Cybersquatters - Typosquatters were quick to register domain names similar to new health exchanges. Yesterday marked the official start of the health insurance marketplaces under Obamacare. Residents of most states can shop for plans at HealthCare.gov, but 17 states and Washington D.C. have their own websites for their health exchanges. The domain names selected by each state have no similarities. Some use .com, others .org, and still others .gov. Some use state abbreviations, others ... read more ...
 
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GoDaddy acquires invoicing association Ronin - Domain name registrar has made five acquisitions in fifteen months. GoDaddy announced another acquisition today, although the acquisition isn’t actually new. In April the company quietly acquired invoicing company Ronin and has integrated the technology into its GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping product. The online bookkeeping product comes from GoDaddy’s earlier acquisition of Outright. The acquisition furthers GoDaddy’s plan of being a one-stop-shop for small and ... read more ...
Tue 1st October 2013
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ICANN publishes final Rights Protection Mechanisms for new TLDs - Final RPMs create two types of sunrise periods and leave room open for special treatment of geo domain names. ICANN has published the final Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) added to the new top level domain name program. There are a few notable changes from the draft version of the RPMs. One key difference is that registries will be able to choose either a “start-date sunrise” or “end-date sunrise”. A start-date sunrise allows the registry to allocate domain ... read more ...
 
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A Fortune 100 company’s domain name expires in 11 days - Once again, this company has cut it close. In April I wrote about how 15 Fortune 100 companies had domain names that expired this year. It’s now October, and all of the companies have renewed their domains before they expired. Some have cut it close to the wire, and here’s another example. Lockheed Martin’s LockheedMartin.com domain name expires this month. In just 11 days. I believe most of the company uses LMCO.com for email, but this is still a big deal. ... read more ...
 
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GoDaddy Auctions sells 39,071 domain names in September - GoDaddy Auctions’ September was in line with previous months. GoDaddy sold 39,071 domain names through GoDaddy Auctions in September, down slightly from 41,291 in August. The company’s latest Domain Market Report didn’t change much from previous months. “Online” was, once again, the most popular term found in domain names sold through the platform. As usual, Auction and BuyNow inventory each accounted for about half of sales. Only 768 domain names were sold ... read more ...
 
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Heritage Auctions’ initial domain auction is only a month away - Big name auction house hopes to introduce domain name auctions to a wider audience. Will Heritage Auctions be able to bring the concept of domain name auctions beyond just the domain industry? We’re about to find out. The company’s first domain name auction will kick off November 1 online. Bidding will run through the live event taking place in New York City November 21. The auction house’s initiative is being spearheaded by long time domain name investor Aron ... read more ...
 
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Vanity.com settles with Vanity Shop, transfers domain name - Valuable Vanity.com domain name changes hands as a result of lawsuit. The owners of Vanity.com have settled a legal dispute with Vanity Shop of Grand Forks, resulting in a transfer of the domain name to the clothing company. In June 2012, National Arbitration Forum panelist Nelson A. Diaz made a shocking decision in favor of complainant Vanity Shop in a UDRP for the domain name. After the decision was handed down, Vanity.com, Inc. filed a lawsuit to halt the transfer. That ... read more ...
Mon 30th September 2013
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Domain parking association named to bad hosts list, but… - Sedo listed as top for phishing sites, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. HostExploit has released its latest World Hosts Report (which has been renamed from its previous moniker “Bad Hosts”). Domain name parking company Sedo shows up ranked #2 for phishing sites. Now, you may be scratching your head and asking “how does a domain parking service get nailed for phishing?”. It’s most likely due to old data. Parking companies get ensnared in this report because ... read more ...
 
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How did a new Kozmo.com get a aged Kozmo.com’s domain name? - Because Kozmo.com never fully expired, the group trying to relaunch the brand had to go to extraordinary measures to get the domain. Kozmo.com, the delivery service that became a poster child for the dot.com boom and bust, is coming back. Sort of. I first scooped this about a year ago after a Los Angeles company, Yummy Foods, LLC, filed for trademarks for the Kozmo name. Now, just this month, the company put up a splash page at Kozmo.com after acquiring the Kozmo.com ... read more ...
 
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Company lifting adult to $200M in IPO licenses the pivotal domain name - Company that uses Vince.com doesn’t actually own the domain name. Last week Apparel Holding filed its S-1 to go public. The clothing company hopes to raise up to $200 million in its IPO, so it’s no small fry. Which is why I find it amazing that it doesn’t actually own the key domain name it uses, Vince.com. The company will rename itself to Vince Holding Corp. upon going public, as this is the brand consumers actually know it by. It has used Vince.com since ... read more ...
Fri 27th September 2013
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Scooby says new TLDs will be full of scams and a options will stink - Ruh roh! Choice will be limited and scam sites will persist in new top level domains. When I come home from work I like to kick my feet up, crack open a beer and watch a couple episodes of the new Scooby Doo*. Last night while watching the gang solve another mystery, I saw the future of new top level domain names according to Scooby Doo. It wasn’t pretty. Fred’s father bought an amusement park attraction on the site “Haunted Attractions For Sale dot Scare”, ... read more ...
 
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Claiming heading to a tenure “women”, association files UDRP opposite women-asia.com - Sorry guys, you don’t own “women”. An international modeling agency claiming to have trademarks for the term “women” used them to try to wrestle away the domain name women-asia.com in a UDRP. It lost. PEC Intellectual Property Management B.V. of Amsterdam, which is affiliated with modeling agency Women Management, filed the complaint against a domain owner from Thailand. The complainant actually has some stylized trademarks for the term “women” in various ... read more ...
 
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Apple drops .com symbol in iOS7 - Shortcut to .com websites not as prominent in latest operating system. The only device my daughter has used to visit a website is the iPad. So when I let her use my laptop one day, she looked at the keyboard with a puzzled look. “Where’s the dot com key, daddy?” she asked. A lot of people are now asking that same question as Apple has ditched the button in the new iOS7 operating system update. That’s a pretty big deal for the domain name industry. .Com is ... read more ...
Thu 26th September 2013
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CentralNic buys Mex.com. Yourname.Mex.com entrance soon? - Domain name company picks up Mex.com at auction and will likely use it to sell subdomains. Last month I wrote about an auction at Sedo for Mex.com. The auction closed for 29,111 EUR. The domain has changed hands and the buyer is domain name company CentralNic. CentralNic, which went public earlier this month, is known for selling third level domain name registrations at domain registrars the same way second level domain registrations are sold. Most of the third level ... read more ...
 
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15 finish user domain name sales from Sedo - An organic food company, bowling alley, and baby photo site bought domain names via Sedo last week. Sedo sold $1.4M worth of domain names last week. Here are fifteen domain name sales to end users. BabyVote Limited, which holds baby picture contests at BabyVote.co.uk, bought BabyVote.com for $2,550. Secretary Plus Management Support in Brussels bought AssistantPlus.com for $2,095. A company called ThunderCloud UK bought ThunderCloud.co.uk for 1,550 GBP. Conservatoire ... read more ...
Wed 25th September 2013
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CentralNic reports results: income adult 16% - CentralNic profit spikes in first half of year. Domain name registry CentralNic (AIM: CNIC), which went public last month, has released interim results for the first half of 2013. For the first half of 2013, the company pulled in £1,735 million in revenue, a 16% jump from the same period in 2012. Its profit before tax almost doubled, up 98% to £0.636 million. The company credits a broader base of domain name registrars distributing its domain names as well as the ... read more ...
 
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Superyacht association rebrands as Y.CO - YCO Yacht rebrands its business to Y.CO. A superyacht brokerage and management company has changed its brand to Y.CO, and announced the change in conjunction with the Monaco Yacht Show going on now. The company’s previous brand was YCO Yacht, so the Y.CO domain name fit perfectly for it. This is a case where the full domain name, including the extension, matched the existing brand. The company previously used the domain YCOYacht.com. YCO probably paid dearly for ... read more ...
 
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Wow, United Domains is all in with New TLDs - Want to register a .com at United Domains? You’ll need to poke around the site a bit. We know that new top level domains are a growth opportunity for domain name registrars. But should domain name registrars forgo current registrations in favor of promoting future registrations of new domains like order.pizza and play.games? That’s what United Domains, part of the same family of companies that runs 11 (which is running TV commercials promoting new TLD “pre-reservations”), ... read more ...
 
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Authentic Web wants to make .brand domains easier for corporations - Company will act as domain name registrar and offer the workflows necessary for a corporate environment. Most large companies have a process in place for registering new domain names. This may get more complex when brands secure their own top level domains, such as .ford and .deloitte. Enter Authentic Web. The new company wants to help businesses running closed registries manage the process, including corporate controls, IT, and overall workflow. When employees want ... read more ...
 
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Block your heading on 200+ tip turn domains for $600 a year - Donuts’ service is not cheap, but it’s much easier and cheaper than the alternative. Donuts, applicant for over 300 top level domain names, has launched its “Domains Protected Marks List” offering to trademark holders. The service allows trademark holders to block the registration of second level domains that contain their mark across all of Donuts’ domains. In order to qualify, the trademark must be registered with the Trademark Clearinghouse. Companies ... read more ...
 
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What domain names Coke, Dreamworks, Shell and 40 others bought final week - Big names and small businesses bought domain names through Afternic last week. Afternic’s weekly sales lists usually only include sales of $1,000 or more. This week the company included lower priced domains on its list, and it’s rather eye-opening. Many of the domains that sold for only a few hundred dollars look similar to ones that sold for over $1,000. Some big name buyers, such as Coca-Cola, bought domains for the low prices, too. Here’s the list: Working ... read more ...