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.

Sun 30th March 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
After 10 Days Frank Schilling Registrar, Uniregistry Has 108 New gTLD Registrations -   Frank Schillings Registrar Uniregistry launched 10 days ago and we reviewed it in a detailed post. To date Uniregistry, has only managed to get 108 domain registration for new gTLD’s which gives it a market share of the new gTLD registrar market of 0.03% according to ntldstats.com Uniregistry is currently ranked as the 74th registrar in terms of numbers of new gTLD registrations according to the site. According to RegistrarStats.com Uniregistry has a total of 390 domain name registrations including ... read more ...
Sat 29th March 2014
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Oil.Center 11,000 GBP Bid on Sedo - Oil.Center was registered by a gentleman in Kuala Lumpur on 3/16/14 and is now on Sedo auctions with a day and a half left at 11,000 GBP.  There is only one bid which looks like the owner received the bid and pushed it to auction on 3/24/14. If its a legit bid, its kind of a ballsy move to send to auction, I personally would want to get that deal closed asap. I think if you have a legitimate buyer interested in something brand new like .center, you don’t want to allow time for buyer’s remorse ... read more ...
 
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Marchex Sold $60M In Additional Stock This Week -   Marchex (MCHX) sold and additional  5,714,000 shares of Class B stock at $10.50 a share. About half of the shares were sold by the company and the other half were sold by shareholders. As for the $30 Million that Marchex is keeping it “intends to use the net proceeds of the offering for general corporate purposes, which may include acquisitions or licenses of, or investments in, products, services, technologies or other businesses.” “Marchex will not receive any of the proceeds from the ... read more ...
Fri 28th March 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
Kim Dot Com Forms Political Party in New Zealand - According to begeek.fr, Kim Dotcom , has launched a political party in New Zealand  in time for  New Zealand’s general election in September. The name of the party is The Internet Party.Arrested in January 2012 after a massive raid by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI, Kim Dotcom is currently on bail in New Zealand .Kim Dot Com whose real name is Kim Shmitz according to the story Kim Dot Com,  formed the party to “fight for the freedom of the internet and technology , respect for ... read more ...
 
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Wow That Was Quick; As .CEO Launches Today 1st URS Filed Mittal.ceo - The 1st Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) was filed on a .CEO domain name, on the same day the new gTLD .CEO went live for General Availability . The domain name is Mittal.ceo Mittal is a popular surname in India and Wikipedia.org, even has an post  on it. Although the Complainant is not yet listed, we should note that there is  large steel company by the name of, Mittal Steel Company now part of ArcelorMittal which is a publicly traded company (NYSE: MT) headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands The ... read more ...
 
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.CEO Registry Releases 42K Domains Held Back At Landrush Here Are Our Picks - The dotCEO Registry has just released 42,000 .CEO Premium Names, which were listed as “taken” during the dotCEO Landrush phase so they are now available for the 1st time, on a first come basis as general registration just opened for .CEO We went through the list pretty quickly and these are or favorites Each of these domains carry a premium renewal rate as indicated in most cases below, with the suggested retail price, however each registrar is allowed to set their own retail price which could ... read more ...
 
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.CEO General Availability Starts during Noon EST Today - PeopleBrowsr, owner of the registry operator for new Top Level Domain dotCEO, has announced General Availability for the new gTLD  . CEO domain addresses and identities will be available for purchase at Noon (EST) Today Friday, March 28th . dotCEO  is positioned as the only TLD to convey authority and power. Over the last few weeks 100 of the Fortune 500 registered their dotCEO domains. 3,000 individual CEOs are on the wait list. More than 45,000 premium dotCEO domains will be released. Jodee ... read more ...
Thu 27th March 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
1st URS Filed On a .UNO Domain, Aeropostale.uno Leads The Weekly URS Report - The first URS has been filed on a .Uno domain name . .Uno just launched this week. The clothing maker Aeropostale filed a URS against the domain name Aeropostale.Uno which was just registered on the 21st of March We figured we might as well scheuldue every Friday afternoon a URS weekly report So A few other URS were filed or decided over the last few days including bbva.careers and bbva.ventures which are both now suspended after A URS was filed by Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. The domain ... read more ...
 
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Well At Least Microsoft Is Happy About The US Giving Up Oversight of ICANN - In a statement issued by Microsoft today they “applaud The  US NTIA’s transition of key Internet domain name functions” The statement was made on behalf of Microsoft by David Tennenhouse Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Technology Policy “”The U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s recent announcement of its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multi-stakeholder community is a significant and welcome ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Holdings Reports: Revenue Up 5.5%; Domain Parking Down; 16.5 Million Domains For Sale - Sedo Holding AG just issued its Annual Report for 2013 and revenues overall were up by 5.5% to €140.0 million (previous year: €132.7 million). But the growth was driven by the Affiliate Marketing segment, “although it performed significantly more weakly than expected”. The Domain Marketing segment continued to face the challenges presented by the falling domain parking market accompanied by strong competition from aggressively-priced providers, which is why the drop in sales revenues continued, ... read more ...
 
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Twitter Files UDRP On Twıtter.com (Its An IDN) - Twitter.com filed a UDRP on the domain name twıtter.com Twıtter.com is an IDN; xn--twtter-4ja12b.com and goes to a page that has a picture of what appears to be someone in the armed forces somewhere by the name of RUHUNUZ ŞÂD OLSUN ÖCÜNÜZ ALINDI There is no advertising or other monetization on the domain nor is there any reference to Twitter. The domain does not appear to be for sale or have any sort of for sale banner or even contact link. We will see how this plays out Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
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UDRP Panel Punts Denying Google’s UDRP On Androidtv.com - Google Inc. (“Complainant”) just lost a UDRP on the domain anem androidtv.com and xbmcandroidtv.com Its a pretty interesting case in which the Panel winds up punting saying the dispute is outside of scope of the UDRP but I think having read all the facts and findings of the panel and the argument of the respondent, this UDRP should not have been dismissed on its merits not as being outside the scope of the UDRP. Here we go: “””Complainant offers a software platform and operating system ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
ICANN Acts: .VG; .ZM; Collision Issue, Approves Studies For 2 Round; Get’s Ready For US Exit - ICANN Board passed some resolutions last night on the last day of the ICANN Meeting in Singapore: 1.  ICANN re-delegate the .VG country-code top-level domain to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of the British Virgin Islands. You might remember there was a “dispute within AdamsNames Ltd., the listed technical contact for .VG which is currently responsible for operating the name servers for the registry. The dispute raised concerns over the stability of the domain as well as over the ... read more ...
 
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After 1st Day Of Availability .Email Has12K Registrations & Becomes 7th Most Popular New gtTLD - .Email is stilling just short of 12,000 registrations after its first full day of General Availability. According to ntldstats.com .Email zoomed past .Company to become the 7th most registered new gTLD to date. The 2nd most popular new gTLD released this week after the first day of registrations is .Solutions which got just short of 7,000 registrations. There are now over 386,000 new gTLD registrations according to ntldstats.com and while the top 3 .Guru, .Berlin and Photography represent over 30% ... read more ...
 
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King.com opens to Stock Crush Saga – Dropping 16% on First Day of Trading - King.com the maker of Candy Crush Saga could have titled their first day of trading as Stock Crush Saga. The stock had a very poor performance on its first day of trading. Perhaps people were looking at King and thinking it was going to be another Zynga, wildly popular before the IPO but as soon as it went public it could not make any gains in the public market. Zynga had Farmville and King has Candy Crush Saga, King must find more games that can provide a stable stream of income. Of course they ... read more ...
Wed 26th March 2014
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Who Should Oversee The Web ? - Who Should Oversee The Web ? PBS covered the topic of just who should oversee ICANN and what part government should have in that role. Host Judy Woodruff sat down with Vint Cerf from Google and Randolph May of the Free State Foundation. There is a full transcript on the site if you do not wish to watch the video. Cerf and May discuss their concerns with how the process may turn out, I think May summed up what a lot of people are concerned about. RANDOLPH MAY: I do have some concerns. And my concerns ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Hey Registries, Registrars This Is The Way To Sell A Domain - Over the years we have pointed out a bunch of ridiculous emails we get from registries and registrars trying to get people to buy a unregistered domain names. Usually the domain names suggested in the email have little to do with the person receiving the email or a defensive sale, along the lines of you better get this domain before someone else does. However today I got this from the DotCeo registry and you have to admit its a nice looking, bang on domain and properly presented. The operators of ... read more ...
 
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Confirmed: Credits.com Sold For $100K Net To Buyer - A few days ago we noticed that the domain name Credits.com came through on the Sedo sales wire selling for $30,000. Today we have been able to confirm with the seller of the domain name that the domain sold for $100,000 net to Seller, that Sedo.com RSS feed picked up the down payment of  $30,000 as the selling price. So as it turns out the seller of the domain did not lose money on the domain, which is very good to hear and we have another six figure sale. Even as of today the Sedo wire is still ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Whibse.com New Bulk Domain Lookup Tool - Domain name intelligence service Whibse.com has released an update to its bulk Whois tool that “quickly and accurately retrieves and fully parses all fields in the Whois records, along with reputation information, all IP address information, all server information” “If you wanted to get hundreds or thousands of domain name Whois records along with all of the server, reputation and similar data, there wasn’t really a good way to do it John Horton President of Whibse told theDomains.com Whibse ... read more ...
 
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ZeptoLab Seeking to Cancel King.com EU Trademark on Candy - We have written before how King.com the makers of the wildly popular Candy Crush Saga were seeking to trademark Candy for video games and clothing. Last month King.com decided to pull their US application and are no longer seeking to trademark the word ‘Candy’ with the USPTO. “King has withdrawn its trademark application for Candy in the U.S., which we applied for in February 2013 before we acquired the early rights to Candy Crusher. Each market that King operates in is different with regard ... read more ...
Tue 25th March 2014
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Sedo Transactions Total $1.7M Led By ntent.com for $25K; Nm.org $35K - Sedo just reported that over the past week, 692 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.7 Million 48% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Nm.org is the new home of Northwestern Medicine which is part of Northwestern University Highlights of public sales are: ·         Top .coms: ntent.com at 25,000 USD ·         Top ccTLD: freespins.de at 20,000 EUR ·         Top “other” TLD: nm.org at 35,000 USD <![CDATA[]]> Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
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Some Interesting .Email Domain Registrations & The Dallas Cowboys Miss Again - As we said in an earlier post today we went through the zone file for .Email to see what people have been registering. We noticed some interesting registrations. The Dallas Cowboys which has an illustrious history when it comes to domain names, just missed again not applying for the domain name cowboys.email, in Sunrise and the owner of the domain is now Cowboys Concert Hall, Inc  which is also out of Dallas. I’m sure they will get their money’s worth went it sends out emails like me@cowboys.email Another ... read more ...
 
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Breaking: IRS Rules Bitcoin (virtual Currency) Will Be Treated As Property Not Currency - The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday that it will treat Bitcoin and other virtual currencies like property, like stock or other intangible property rather than currency. If the virtual currency is held for investment, any gains would be treated as capital gains. The top long-term capital gains tax rate is 20%, while the top ordinary income-tax rate is 39.6%. The IRS notice also made clear that many people involved in handling virtual currencies—and many transactions involving them—would ... read more ...
 
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Afternic/GoDaddy Sells $1.9 Million In Domain Names - Afternic/GoDaddy released its sales report for the week of March 17th – March 23rd 2014 All sales for the week totaled $1,904,435. The top .com sale was lCatterton.com for $25,000 followed by AmericanNational.com for $20,000. I’m going to guess that Catterton.com probably was bought by the large private equity firm, Catterton Partners The top non-com sale lead by sna.net for $4,500. CEObuzz.com sold for $3,920 SEO.buzz is priced at $5,320 by the registry Here are all the reportable sales Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
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Meet The 1st .Email Cybersquatter Grabs Up ESPN, Pepsi, Starbucks, Chevrolet, NFL & More - We just went through the zone file for the .email new gTLD to see what interesting new domain registrations I found. I couldn’t help miss the registrations by a organization out of Los Alamitos, CA named Viva Las Vegas who wound up getting a great domain in LasVegas.email, but went after and got domain names matching some trademarked and well known companies. It should be noted all these were acquired before general avaliabity so the company paid extra to get priority registrations on these  .email ... read more ...