Author Archives: The Domains

About The Domains

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 5K domain names . Michael is also a Director of RightoftheDot.com which is a consultant in the new gTLD space and a broker of super premium domains. Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest this year.

Sat 19th April 2014
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LinkedIn Tops 300 Million Members - LinkedIn reached 300 million members according to a story in USA Today. The company was founded in December 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003, the company is now a publicly traded company and is currently trading at $175 a share, this equates to a market cap of $21.6 billion. From the USA Today article: Professional social network LinkedIn announced that the service topped 300 million members, 100 million of which are based in the U.S. In a statement released Friday, Deep Nishar, the senior vice ... read more ...
Fri 18th April 2014
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Have Your Opinions Changed or Stayed The Same on a New gTLDs ? - Raymond: for many/most of these registrations, that registrant is the only person in the universe who wants it. That doesn’t make it a domain name that has any value as an investment. Let me try to elaborate, as this topic of “domain name liquidity” and its relationship with valuation is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. Domain names (like some other assets, e.g. art) have widely varying privately-held valuations by individuals in the marketplace for their own use. ... read more ...
 
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Tokyo Court Rejects Bankruptcy Protection for Mt.Gox - Yuri Kagema a writer for the AP,  reported that Mt. Gox will not received bankruptcy protection in Japan and will be liquidated.   The Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange in Tokyo is headed for liquidation after a court rejected its bankruptcy protection application. Mt. Gox said Wednesday the Tokyo District Court decided the company, which was a trading platform and storehouse for the bitcoin virtual currency, would not be able to resurrect itself under a business rehabilitation process filed for in February. An ... read more ...
 
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The White House Unveils A New Privacy Policy - Martha Mendoza wrote a piece for the AP on the White House updating their out dated privacy policy. The administration has been criticized from all sides after Edward Snowden exposed sweeping U.S. government surveillance programs. This policy aims to address at least some of those concerns. From the article: “Information you choose to share with the White House (directly and via third party sites) may be treated as public information,” the new policy says. The Obama Administration also promises ... read more ...
 
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Will The NFL try to stamp out adore ? - The domain name GreenBayPackersLovers.com was registered last month, the domain is under privacy. The website is already up and running and actually got a bit of press on Yahoo Sports today. Anwar S. Richardson wrote, It is hard being single and searching for the perfect companion. Your so-called friends try to set you up on dates with people who are only attractive to those with their eyes closed. Speed dating is the easiest way to condense a year of letdowns into an hour-long session. Online ... read more ...
Thu 17th April 2014
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Blockchain Acquires 5 Year Lease for Bitcoin.com - Paul Vigna reported on The Wall StreetJournal that Blockchain has acquired a five year lease for the domain name Bitcoin.com.  as of today, essentially that’s Blockchain. The online wallet company acquired a five-year lease to this rather fancy piece of digital real estate for an undisclosed amount. The first thing you can’t help but notice on the new site is the word “Bitcoin” in large letters right at the top. The company’s name is only at the bottom in very small type. It’s all ... read more ...
 
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Google Glass Is Only The First Step – Next Step Six Million Dollar Man - Google Glass may only be the first step as Google smart contact lenses could turn average human beings into the Six Million Dollar Man.  Adriana Lee on ReadWrite.com just published a story on some patents that Google filed with regard to their smart contact lense technology. From the article: Imagine the Google Glass headgear, which currently makes some camera-shy onlookers nervous, shrinking down to near-invisibility—say, into a super-thin transparent layer that sits on the cornea. Google certainly ... read more ...
Wed 16th April 2014
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Google Reports: Paid Clicks Up 26%, Cost-Per-Click Drops 9%, Stock Down After Hours - Google reported it earnings after the market closed today for the quarter ending ending March 31 Google had $15.4 billion in revenue. Net income was $3.45 billion, which amounted to earnings of $5.04 a share, or $6.27 a share excluding one-time charges. While revenue rose 19% and profit was up 3%, that fell short of Wall Street’s projections. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were expecting, on average, earnings of $5.28 a share or $6.40 a share after excluding one-time charges, on revenue ... read more ...
 
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Neustar Reports Lower than approaching gain – Stock off 4% in After Hours Trading - Neustar is down in after hours trading as the company reported lower than expected earnings. The stock is off close to 4 % in after hours trading at $27.15. Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR), a trusted, neutral provider of real-time information services and analytics, today announced results for the quarter ended March 31, 2014, and affirmed its revenue and adjusted net income guidance for 2014. Results for First Quarter 2014 Compared to First Quarter 2013 Revenue increased 6% to $229.9 million Revenue ... read more ...
 
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Facebook Getting into a e-Money Business in Europe - Victoria Wagner Ross wrote a piece on  Examiner.com about Facebook getting into the money transfer business. One analyst stated that they see this as a potential boost to Bitcoin and crpyto currency in general down the line. Facebook is advancing its reach to provide a money transfer service in Europe from a base in Ireland. The Guardian announced on Monday that Facebook was seeking the e-money commerce status to issue digital credits for conversion into cash for its customers. Storing the money ... read more ...
 
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Calvin Klein Loses UDRP To a Take F*ckCalvinKlein.com Away From “Fat, bald” Domain Owner - Calvin Klein just lost a UDRP In Attempt To a gain control of the domain name FuckCalvinKlein.com with the domain owner using a pretty unique argument to keep control of the domain name that was parked. The Domain holder responded to the UDRP arguing that he” does not believe any consumer could reasonably believe that the best route to finding Complainant’s goods on the Internet is by entering fuckcalvinklein.com into a web browser”. “Respondent registered the domain name to be used in the ... read more ...
 
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123-Reg.co.uk Alerts Customers to Fraudulent Email - 123 Reg – co.uk alerts customers to fraudulent emails. Please be aware these are NOT genuine emails from 123-reg so no action is required if you receive such an email. We advise you to not click on the links and to delete the email immediately. Emails such as this attempt to fraudulently get your account details allowing unauthorised access to your account. These emails are known as phishing emails and are a serious threat to the security of your account. Please note, this email is 100% unrelated ... read more ...
 
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After 50 ICANN Meetings, Its Amazing ICANN Never Held A Meeting In These 10 Places - ICANN is about to hold its 50th meeting in London from June 21st. June 25, 2014. Looking back at the previous 49 ICANN general meetings and where they have been held.  I figured I would point out 10 spots around the globe that its pretty hard to believe ICANN has not held a meeting in. None of these cities have ever been the host of an ICANN meeting: 1. New York City In my opinion still the greatest city on earth and certainly in everyone’s book one of the most influential. If you were going to ... read more ...
 
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Yahoo Beats Estimates and Stock Pops After Hours - Yahoo was up after hours as the company showed growth for the first time in a year. Yahoo posted earnings of $0.38 per share on revenue of $1.09 billion in the first quarter, just beating Wall Street estimates for earnings of $0.37 a share on revenue of $1.08 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported: For the first time in more than a year, Yahoo is growing. Yahoo reported its revenue, minus commissions paid to partners for Web traffic, rose 1% in the first quarter after four straight quarters without ... read more ...
 
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Mr.Berkens Regs The First Uniregistry Domain of a Day on What Was A Busy Day - It was a busy day today for Frank Schilling and his company Uniregistry, as five uncontested strings went live at around 12 noon Eastern time. The strings that went live today were the following: .Pics, .Photo, .Gift, .Link and .Guitars. Out the gate at 12:03 Frank tweeted: .photo past 1000 — Frank Schilling (@Frank_Schilling) April 15, 2014 Pretty quickly there were 2000 regs between Link, Pics and Photo. Frank tweeted his thoughts later in the day with regard to .Link and received a differing ... read more ...
Tue 15th April 2014
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Hershey’s Files UDRP On 16 Year Old ChocolateWorld.com; 17 Year aged NewBody.com Also Hit - A couple of interesting UDRP filings today Hershey’s filed a UDRP on the domain name ChocolateWorld.com The domain name was registered in back in 1997 however it is going to a blank page and according to Screenshots.com the domain may never have resolved to any type of site or page, not even a parked page. Hershey does have a trademark on the term Chocolate World going back to 2005 as well as HERSHEY’S CHOCOLATE WORLD which was registered in 2011/2012 Another UDRP filed today is against another ... read more ...
 
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Afternic/GoDaddy Sells $2.06 Million In Domain Names - Afternic/GoDaddy released its sales report for the week of 4/7/14 – 4/13/14. All sales for the week totalled $2,065,279. The top .com sale was lead by NGSN.com for $20,000 followed by AnyView.com for $17,000. The top non-com sale lead by Flavour.ca for $17,650. Below is the complete report: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Transactions Total $1.3 Million Led By Gab.com For $200K - Sedo just reported that 620 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.3 Million dollars for the week. 46% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales are: - Top .coms: gab.com at 200,002 USD - Top ccTLD: mobile.com.co at 15,000 USD - Top “other” TLD: ibj.net at 9,800 USD Here are the reportable sales: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Can New gTLDs Save Demand Media ? - Scott Hopkins wrote a piece on Seeking Alpha today stating that the new gtlds were the last chance for Demand Media. Demand Media has been languishing in the stock market for awhile now. The stock is down 25 % this year and is down 46 % over a one year time period. Demand Media owns Name.com and Enom and that is where Hopkins believes the magic has to happen. He is not a believer in the Demand Media web properties such as eHow and LiveStrong.com.  He refers to these sites as digital sharecropping, ... read more ...
 
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.Buzz May Have The Strangest List Of 100 Reserved Domains Of All New gTLD’s - .Buzz goes live today and like all new gTLD registries they are entitled to keep 100 domains for their own use for marketing and other purposes, but going through the list of .Buzz reserved domains it maybe the strangest list of 100 (actually 85 by my count) that I have seen for any registry. Bill Doshier who owns the DotStrategy the company which applied to operate the .Buzz registry is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet, but having reviewed a bunch of these 100 domain registry reserved lists, ... read more ...
 
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Go Daddy Going To Court in India over Copyright/Trademark Infringement - Go Daddy is going to have to go to court in India regarding a claim by the National Stock Exchange and their online trading platform. It is hard to see how Go Daddy has liability in this case as they are not profiting from the sales of software, but I am not a lawyer and I am not well versed in Indian law. LiveMint reported: ... read more ...
 
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Y8.net Lost in UDRP - Web Entertainment, LLC of Las Vegas, Nevada, just won a UDRP on the domain name y8.net The Respondent did not reply to the UDRP The complainant has a trademark on the term Y8 that was filed in 2012 and has a gambling website at Y8.com The domain name Y8.net was first registered in 1998 but the current owner acquired it in May 2012. The panel found “although the Domain Name was first registered in 1998,  for the purposes of finding bad faith, May 2012 or later, is when the Respondent first acquired ... read more ...
 
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Google Explains How It Reads Your Email - Google has changed its terms of service when it comes to Gmail. Reuters is out with the news, (Reuters) – Google Inc updated its terms of service on Monday, informing users that their incoming and outgoing emails are automatically analyzed by software to create targeted ads. The revisions more explicitly spell out the manner in which Google software scans users’ emails, both when messages are stored on Google’s servers and when they are in transit, a controversial practice that has been at ... read more ...
 
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25 Plaintiffs Filed Federal Suit Over 231 Domains; 26 of Which Are No Longer Registered - A federal lawsuit was filed last week in the New Jersey District Court for trademark infringement against the owners of  231 domain names some of which are pretty generic and 26 of which are no longer registered. Besides the 26 that are no longer registered,  16 domain names named as defendants in the lawsuit are in redemption period and are lightly to be deleted as well. Meaning that about 20% of the domain names in the lawsuit are basically not serving up anything that would infringe on the Plaintiff’s ... read more ...
 
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The Sale of .Co To Neustar Closed Today; Offices To Stay In Miami - Although it was announced a few weeks ago, the sale of the  .CO Internet S.A.S to Neustar for $109 million dollars actually just closed today. According to the MiamiHerald.com, the “Champagne popped and bonuses flowed after .CO Internet closed its chapter as an independent company and became part of the publicly traded Neustar on Monday afternoon.” “In his first comments to the press about the transaction, Juan Diego Calle, co-founder and former CEO of .CO, said “The timing was right for ... read more ...