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.

Tue 25th March 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
TMCH Has Caused More People Not To Register 450K Domains, As New gTLD’s Pass 350K - The Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) said today that is has delivered  500,000 Claims Notices (CNIS) of which 95% of the queries for trademark terms are not being followed through to a live registration. That means that up to 475,000 new gTLD domain names may have gone unregistered due to the THCM, let discount that number for some potential duplicate domains and call it 450,000 domain names A potential registrant of a new gTLD receives a notice as a warning to anyone attempting to register a domain ... read more ...
 
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Frank Schilling Sells iAcademy.com for $55,000 - Last week it was iMeeting.com selling for $47,750 on Sedo and today Afternic reported on their website the sale of iAcademy.com for $55,000. The domain was sold by Frank Schilling and his company Name Administration. The domain was registered in November of 2001 and the farthest Domain Tools goes back in whois history is 2005 and Name Administration was the registrant. Interestingly iAcademy.mobi is a developed website. The buyer is B.E.Publishing an online website that according to their website ... read more ...
Mon 24th March 2014
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Bad Decision: HugeDomains.com Turns Down $6K & Loses Generic Domain In UDRP - Austin Pain Association (“Complainant”), just won control of the domain name AustinPain.com which was owned by HugeDomains.com As someone who is the subject of UDRP complainants as well (2 pending) it brings me no joy to report on these cases, but the cases are the cases and in this case HugeDomains.com lost control of AustinPain.com which the panel acknowledged was generic in nature and for which the complainant didn’t even have a registered trademark and a common law trademark which “Complainant ... read more ...
 
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Go Daddy Closing a Go Daddy Direct Affiliate Program - Dear Raymond Hackney, After months of compiling data, projecting development timelines and deciding how to best serve our Affiliates’ needs, we have decided to close the GoDaddy Direct Affiliate Program. I want to thank you for your participation and I hope you join one of our programs in CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction), ShareASale or Affiliate Window. The benefits of joining one of our external partner programs include: • Access to Direct Deposit for our international publishers • ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Secure Domain Foundation Launches Backed By Facebook, Verizon, Verisign, Rightside, .Ca, .Co, DomainTools, Blacknight - Experts and companies in the information security industry formed the Secure Domain Foundation (SDF), a non-profit, community-driven organization devoted to the identification and prevention of Internet cyber crime utilizing the DNS and launched it at the ICANN’s 49th Public Meeting. The SDF is backed by : Facebook, Verizon, Verisign, Rightside which owns Enom and Name.com, CIRA(.ca), CO Internet(.co), CrowdStrike, APWG (Anti-Phishing Working Group), Emerging Threats, ESET Anti-Virus, DomainTools, ... read more ...
 
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UDRP Panel Orders Return of Purportedly Stolen Domain - A one member UDRP panel has ordered the return of a purportedly stolen domain name, Teenee.com The UDRP was decided by the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre. UDRP panels in the past generally have refused to transfer purposed stolen domain names finding the UDRP is the wrong process to return such a domain. However this panel noting that the domain name was owned by the Complainant since 2001 until it was transferred without its authorized in September 2013; The Complainant has filed a ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
After Losing Over 25,000 Registrations in Two Days .Com Back Below 113 Million; .Berlin Tops 40K - Verisign reports that they have lost .com domain name registrations over the past couple of days after it briefly reported that the number of .com registration passed 113 Million domains. According to RegistrarStats the number of registered .com domain names is sitting at 112,952,656 after it had a net lost over 17,000 registrations. However Verisign own stats which were just updated a few minutes ago show even a greater loss of registrations for .com which is sitting at 112,973,470, as of today ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Days After The AFL-CIO Calls Coins The Term Kellogg Greed & The Company Registers Domain Names - Last week the AFL-CIO a published a story on hundreds of workers of Kellogg who its says have been locked out of one the company’s plants in Memphis in a post call  Kellogg Greed: Destroying Worker Dedication Around the Globe. News outlets picked up the story and the issue seems to be spreading to other plant’s of Kellogg. The union in question the BCTGM launched a social media campaign against Kellogg calling it Kellogg Greed and the company responded by registering defensive domain names. A ... read more ...
 
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Another Bitcoin Exchange on a Verge of Bankruptcy Halts Withdrawals - Following on the heels of the Mt.Gox bankruptcy another Bitcoin exchange is on the verge of bankruptcy. Vicurex is based out of China and they are putting a freeze on all their customer accounts. Electronista covered the story, Another Bitcoin exchange has run into financial problems following in the wake of other recent turmoil surrounding the currency after the collapse of Mt. Gox. Vircurex, based in Beijing, is faced with insolvency causing the company to immediately halt withdrawals. Starting ... read more ...
Sun 23rd March 2014
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TRAFFIC Vegas Offers 3 Nights At Hotel & Passes To Conference At $1,595 Ends Apr 4th - The organizers of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference is offering a special sign up bonus which includes 2 nights at the Bellagio for $1495 or 3 nights for $1595 for its conference in Las Vegas which is running from May 28th – June 1st. Here is the email we received: T.R.A.F.F.I.C. has offered some of the lowest prices we have ever had but that is about to end. Right now when you sign up for T.R.A.F.F.I.C. it includes 2 nights at the Bellagio for $1495 or 3 nights for $1595. An incredible deal at a 5 ... read more ...
 
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Radix Awards Contracts for .Website, .Host, .Space, and .Press to CentralNic - CentralNic Group PLC has exclusively signed a Registry Service Provision contract with Radix Registry (“Radix”), for its four uncontested new gTLD’s; .website, .press, .host or .space. ARI  Registry had the contract for these four string before this announcement .website is a true alternative to the .com TLD; it is open and available to all for the full range of possible uses .press TLD will provide its users with a platform to share opinions and disseminate information. The primary target ... read more ...
 
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PIR Lists Four Reasons Why to Register a .NGO - Public Interest Registry (PIR) the operator of the .org extension is out with a list of reasons to register a .ngo/ong new gtld. In May 2012, Public Interest Registry formally submitted its applications to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the .ngo and .ong domain extensions as part of the organisation’s global Internet expansion initiative. Along with .ngo/.ong, Public Interest Registry also applied for the creation and management of four internationalized domain ... read more ...
 
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The Denver Post Apparently Has Never Heard of Neustar - The Denver Post is not too familiar with Neustar, they referred to the company as “virtually unknown”. The article  is pertaining to Neustar and their bid to retain a very lucrative contract in the telecom space. This is the same “virtually unknown” company that just spent $109 to million to buy .CO Internet S.A.S. The Denver Post doesn’t seem to be aware that Neustar (NSR) is a publicly traded company with a valuation of over $2 Billion dollars based on its closing share price on Friday ... read more ...
 
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Former CEO Of ICANN Beckstrom: US Surrender of Internet Governance Leads to Turbulence & Risks - In an email to subscribers of his newsletter, the former CEO of ICANN Rod Beckstrom says the US surrender of Internet governance role will leadsto new turbulence and risks Here is his statement: “During my tenure as CEO of ICANN, I signed both the 2009 Affirmation of Commitments and the 2012 IANA contract that governs changes to the global Internet’s root zone – the authoritative database of top-level Internet domain names and addresses. These are the definitive agreements that codify the relationship ... read more ...
Sat 22nd March 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
The 26th Highest Domain Sale of 2010, Reportedly Stolen - There was a press release put out that reported the domain name imoveis.com.br stolen. The release says that the domain was purchased in 2010 for $300,000 and checking out the archives on DN Journal that sale is reported. iMoveis means real estate or homes in Portuguese. The press release details how they believe the name was stolen. Press Release: In 2010 it was worth 300,000 USD and is one of the most important Brazilian domain names In the last hours someone robbed www.imoveis.com.br, one of ... read more ...
 
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.Com Passes 113 Million Registrations - According to Verisign.com, the operator of the .Com registry the number of .Com domain names just broke the 113 Million mark for the first time. The official number at the last Verisign update was 113,002,815. According to ntldstats.com/tld the number of new gTLD registrations are over 332,000 Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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TMCH Has Plenty Of “Trademarks” of Generic Words - In attempting to pre-order some new gTLD’s I have had to review trademarks filed with the Mark: hosting Jurisdiction: Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (BOIP) Goods: Rubber, guttapercha, gummi, asbest, mica en hieruit vervaardigde producten voor zover niet begrepen in andere klassen; halfbewerkte plastic producten; dichtings-, pakking- en isolatiemateriaal; niet-metalen buigzame buizen. International Class of Goods and Services or Equivalent: class number 17: Rubber, gutta-percha, gum, asbestos, ... read more ...
 
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German Discount Clothing Company Spends 178,500 Euros to Upgrade to KiK.de - German discount clothing company KiK Textilien which operates at Kik-Textilien.de and .com has stepped up the quality of their domain name and purchased Kik.de for 178,500 Euros ($246,223) The domain did belong to another German company KiK Computerausbildung Vertrieb GmbH that company is now currently operating at Kik.eu. Screenshot from Archive.org: According to Wikipedia Kik is the largest discount clothing company in Germany. KiK is the largest textile discounter chain in Germany and operates ... read more ...
Fri 21st March 2014
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Apple, Yahoo and Google All Reserve The Right To Read Your Email - So there was a story out this week that Microsoft had read the emails of a French blogger who had received code from a former Microsoft employee, the employee has been arrested in Seattle, accused of leaking Windows 8 to the tech blogger. The blogger actually contacted Microsoft to verify what was going on, Microsoft then went through his hotmail and messenger and found the email from the former employee. This of course has created quite a stir about privacy and what providers can and cannot do. ... read more ...
 
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Top Level Domain Holdings Starts Trading Under Minds + Machines Today - Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (“TLDH”) has officially changed its name to and started trading today under Minds + Machines Group Limited From today, the Company’s shares will trade uwith the EPIC ticker symbol, MMX. Fred Krueger, Chairman of the Group, commented: “We are delighted to be now fully grouped under the banner of our operating businesses, Minds + Machines. It not only reflects the Board’s confidence in the prospects of our registry and registrar operations but will create ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Macau Auction Concludes With Close to $200,000 in Sales - In what was an interesting way to follow an auction, Sedo concluded their Macau auction this morning and they were updating people on Twitter as the auction ran. They actually set up a Twitter handle for the auction,  @twitter.com/macauauction The account  had 20 followers and they made close to 400 tweets. Click on the link and you can follow all the bidding action as it was tweeted live. The last lot sold for Gaming/Game sold for  $25,388, below I embedded some tweets from the action. “Rent” ... read more ...
 
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Mt. Gox May Have Found 200,000 Bitcoins - There was a report out last night that bankrupt Bicoin exchange Mt. Gox may have found 200,000 Bitcoins in a forgotten wallet. Pete Rizzo of Coindesk wrote: A new report suggests that Mt. Gox, the now-bankrupt Japan-based exchange said to have lost 850,000 BTC in customer funds may actually still be in possession of 200,000 BTC ($118m at press time). The news, published by Yahoo Japan, allegedly comes from the exchange’s bankruptcy lawyer who suggests the bitcoins were found on 7th March in a ... read more ...
 
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ICANN: Important Corrections To Inaccuracies and Misconceptions Regarding U.S. Announcement - ICANN in a blog post today, entitled Important Corrections to General Inaccuracies and Misconceptions Regarding U.S. Announcement and IANA Functions tries to quite the outrage coming from many in the domain community and Congress. Here is some of the blog post (edited) On Friday, March 14 the U.S. Government announced its intention to transition its stewardship responsibilities of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions to the global multistakeholder community—a key component of ... read more ...
Thu 20th March 2014
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Stock Analysis organisation Trefis On Verisign: Risk Is ccTLD’s; Doesn’t Mention new gTLD’s - Stock Analysis firm Trefis had some interesting comments on Verisign in a note entitled “Drop In Verisign Shares Highlights Risks Associated With Domain Business” The note went on to say that the biggest risk to the Verisign business is growth in ccTLD domain names. Trefis didn’t mention the new gTLD’s at all. It would be one thing to mention new gTLD’s and then conclude that the wouldn’t impact Verisign market share of the global domain market, but for the company not to even mention ... read more ...
 
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.XYZ Starts Sunrise Today - The .XYZ Sunrise period opened today and will run to May 20, 2014. The company put out a press release with all the details, Beverly Hills, CA (March 20, 2014) — Internet users worldwide will soon see web addresses ending with .xyz – the first truly generic domain extension – as Brands are invited to register and secure their marks in the .xyz namespace during the trademark-exclusive Sunrise Registration Period. “With its universal appeal and competitive pricing, .xyz is destined to be a ... read more ...