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.

Mon 17th March 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Up Next In The Crypto Currency World – Pot Coin - This could be a trend domain investor’s dream, the combination of a crypto currency and marijuana.  Two of the more popular threads on Namepros are the showcase threads for Marijuan, Pot, Hemp names, and one for showcasing your Bitcoin names. Roger Huang wrote on Tech Crunch about Pot Coin It started with one evocative name shouted into the phone from one developer to another: “Potcoin!” The Founding Fathers had to work for years to craft a Constitution that would grant the government the ... read more ...
 
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First City New gTLD To Goes Live Tomorrow .Berlin - Arguably it is the extension that kicked this whole new gTLD thing off. On March 18, .BERLIN will launch into the General Availability phase. 777 years after the city was founded, any business, organization or individual can register Internet addresses under .BERLIN. Worldwide, this marks the first time a city receives its own new top-level domain. More than 3.4 million Berliners will be given a new home on the net. According to InternetX, “Even during the pre-registration phase, .BERLIN was one ... read more ...
 
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You Can Bid On The Super Premium Live Domain Auction For The Chinese IDN Online -   TLD Registry the company behind the new gTLD for the Chinese IDN for Online (.在线) as well as the registry for the new gTLD (中文网) (Dot Chinese Website) will be holding a live auction in Macau starting at 11 a.m. Friday local Macau Time (03:00 UTC) March 21, 2014 (Thursday March 20th at 11pm EST), and Sedo.com will be taking online bids for those that cannot be in attendance. As far as I know this is only the second time that Sedo is allowing for online bidding from a live auction event, ... read more ...
 
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Swimsuit.Photos Auction Closes during $3,550 At Godaddy & People Paid $700 To Bid on It - The new gTLD domain name Swimsuit.Photos closed on Friday for $3,550. The domain name was auctioned off by Godaddy.com who had multiple applications for the domain on the 4th day of registrations, which is part of Donuts Early Access program (EAP). The cost for an EAP 4 day registration is around $700 at Godaddy depending on the domain. So in essence the domain sold for $4,250 which is the $700 the winning bidder paid to get the domain on day 4 plus the amount of the winning bid. The losers in the ... read more ...
 
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Verisign Now Down Over 10% Despite Assurances That ICANN’s Move Has No Effect On .com/.net - Shares of Verisign are now down over 10% in trading today. Shares of the company ended trading on Friday at $54.85 are now trading at $49.17 after touch off of its intraday low of $48.55. Verisign issued a statement today saying that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) announcement of its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions would have no effect on .com or .net registry. Of course the concern is what will happen the next time Verisign contract ... read more ...
 
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Canyon.bike Lost In 1st UDRP Decision On A New gTLD Domain Name - Canyon Bicycles GmbH of Koblenz, Germany, just won the first UDRP decision on a new gTLD domain name, canyon.bike (all other decision up to now have been URS cases) The one member panel found that when it comes to new gTLD’s the will take the entire domain name, both on the left and right of the dot in determining whether the domain name infringes on a trademark: The Panel finds that, given the advent of multiple new gTLD domain names, panels may determine that it is appropriate to include consideration ... read more ...
 
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Verisign Issues Statement On ICANN’s Move & Is Down Over 5% In Pre-market - VeriSign, Inc. VRSN today provided a statement on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) announcement of its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions. Verisign shares are down over 5% in pre-market activity trading at just over $52 a share. Here is Verisign’s announcement: “”The announcement by NTIA on Friday, March 14, 2014, does not affect Verisign’s operation of the .com and .net registries. The announcement does not impact Verisign’s ... read more ...
Sun 16th March 2014
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New gTLD Domain Registrations Pass The 250,000 Mark - According to ntldstats.com, the number of new gTLD domain name registration has now passed the 250,000 mark. .Guru is still leading the pack with almost 45,000 registrations  but .Photography is closing in passing 28,000 registrations. .Tips and .Today have about the same amount of registrations which are quickly approaching 15,000 each. .Technology and .Director each have just over 10,000 registrations. Of all fully launched new gTLD’s .Tattoo seems to have the least with just over 1,200 registrations. .Tattoo ... read more ...
 
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UDRP Filed On 19 Year Old Domain BigBang.com Owned By Vertical Axis - A UDRP has been filed on the domain name BigBang.com by Javier Zetter Casillas The domain name BigBang.com was originally registered back in February 1995 making it 19 years old. The domain name changed hands a few times but has been owned by Vertical Axis, Inc since at least 2006. The domain name is parked Of course the most famous meaning  of the term Big Bang refers to how some believe the universe was created. However there is also a popular television show known as the Big Bang Theory and ... read more ...
 
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DVD Ripping Software Company has domains seized though stays defiant - Torrent Freak reported  a few days back that a DVD ripping software company DVDFab had its domains and bank accounts seized. A New York federal court has granted the seizure of several domain names, bank funds and social media accounts belonging to DVD ripping software company DVDFab. Judge Broderick ruled in favor of AACS, the licensing outfit founder by Warner Bros, Disney, Microsoft, Intel and others. AACS, the decryption licensing outfit founded by a group of movie studios and technology partners ... read more ...
Sat 15th March 2014
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1% of Search Advertisers Drive 82 % of Clicks - Laurie Sullivan wrote on MediaPost that only 1% of search advertisers drive 82% of clicks. If you believe the results of a recent study examining Google AdWords clicks, it may seem that most marketers still don’t know how to run a successful paid-search campaign. While many think they do, only the top 1% of search advertisers in the categories of Retail, Hotels Resorts, and Computer Hardware drive an average of 82% of search clicks in each category across the United States, the United Kingdom ... read more ...
 
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People Are Gobbling Up Hillary Clinton Domains - Time Magazine did a piece on the squatting of Hillary Clinton Internet squatters have been grabbing pieces of Clinton-related real estate in the hopes of a 2016 payoff Typing Hillary Clinton’s name into your favorite Web browser is becoming a more and more adventurous proposition. As the former Secretary of State mulls a repeat bid for the White House in 2016, an amalgamation of spammers, grifters, and passionate supporters have occupied almost every square inch of relevant Internet real estate. ... read more ...
 
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The Bitcoin Vault - It only made sense with all the hacking and theft that alternative ideas in the world of crpyto currency would come to light. A new start up Xapo has just raised $20 million. Dan Primack wrote on Fortune: It’s the brainchild of Wences Casares, former CEO of digital wallet company Lemon (acquired by Lifelock last December). His new company is called Xapo, and has raised $20 million in first-round funding led by Benchmark. Other investors include Fortress Investment Group (FIG) and payment-focused ... read more ...
 
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Matt Cutts Talks About a Softer Panda and a Boost for Sites Using SSL - Matt Cutts had a few things to say at  SMX West regarding potential future moves at Google. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable wrote that Cutts would like to give a boost to sites using SSL. At SMX West Matt Cutts gave the attendees a few tidbits, one of those items was that making your site secure, encrypted, i.e. SSL enabled, is an important trend for 2014. At the end of the session, I asked Matt if this means Google is looking to give sites that enable SSL a ranking boost. Matt Cutts ... read more ...
Fri 14th March 2014
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Here Is a Offical Statement Of The US Giving Up Control Over ICANN - We just published that the United States is giving up control over ICANN Here is the official statement from the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA): “”To support and enhance the multistakeholder model of Internet policymaking and governance, the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today announces its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder ... read more ...
 
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Breaking: US To Give Up Control Over ICANN: We Predicted It in 2008 - According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. government is preparing to relinquish oversight for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). We predicted back in 2008 that the Obama Administration would give up control over ICANN. According to WSJ.com the move is viewed as a response to increasing international concern about U.S. control over the Internet’s structure, particularly in light of the recent disclosures about surveillance by the NSA and other U.S. intelligence ... read more ...
 
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Moki.com closes during $66,100 on NameJet - Moki.com closed today at $66,100 on NameJet. There seemed to be quite a bit of conversation on Twitter. Here was one conversation.   @mwzd @VinsDomainscom The winning bidder is MokiOrphanage. They must really want it mate, now at $66,100… — Matt Jackson (@matjakdomains) March 14, 2014 The domain was initially registered back in 1996 The name has no screenshots or anything using Archive.org or Screenshots.com. The registrant looked to be a Moki Cherry from New York UPDATE The domain MokiOrphanage.com ... read more ...
 
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Frank Schilling’s BIN Priced Domains On DomainNameSales Total Over $3 Billion - Frank Schilling just Tweeted that the the total dollar value of “priced” domain names on DomainNameSales.com  is over $3 Billion dollars. The exactly total of priced domain names was $3,327,525,422. That’s a lot of digits and a lot of money. I’m now told that the total reflects just Frank Schilling owned domain names which carry a Buy it Now price. I’m also told that “way less” of 1/3 of Frank’s owned and operated Name Adminstration domain portfolio is priced on a Buy It Now basis. The ... read more ...
 
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Teabox.com sole by MostWantedDomains Featured in Tech Crunch - Back in June of 2013 our very own Michael Berkens and his company Most Wanted Domains sold Teabox.com for $30,000. Today the company was featured on Tech Crunch as the company is seeking to raise $1million in seed funding. Now TeaBox, a speciality e-commerce startup based in the North Eastern town of Siliguri in India, is raising around $1 million in seed funding led by Accel Partners India to serve fresh tea packages across Russia, US, China and Japan. Another investor participating in this round ... read more ...
 
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Donuts Letter To Those That Lost Eco New gTLD’s - Donuts just sent out a letter to all their customers that registered a new gTLD with the word Eco on the left of the dot, who had their domains taken back from the registry. The memo line on the email reads “Your Recently Deleted Name” As we stated earlier this week, we lost one such domain, eco.domains, so we got an email letter of our own and thought you would be interesting in seeing what Donuts is sending out Here it is: “”You recently registered the domain name eco.domains through your ... read more ...
 
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Another Day, Another Deadbeat Buyer - I got a serious of emails the other day on a domain name we own Hablamos.com The offer came into us unsolicited and except for the amount which we quoted as in dollars, but for the purposes of the post is now referred to just being $xx,xxx; the emails are reprinted word for word: This is the email we received from vicentecurto@gmail.com “Hi, I’m Vicente Curto and I’m interested to know the price to buy this domain (www.hablamos.com)… Thank you and I hope you send me the info soon.” Our ... read more ...
 
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Wow Godaddy Has A Great Job Waiting For Someone Out There: Domains Partner Manager - Godaddy.com asked me if I would run a post for a position they are seeking and it sounds like a great job with the title The Domains Partner Manager, which they say carries a six figure salary plus benefits (Medical and Dental Insurance)  and includes possible pre-IPO shares or options. The job doesn’t require you to move to Arizona or work out of any of Godaddy.com offices. If none of you take it, I might, so you better get applying. Here is the info: GoDaddy Domains has a unique opportunity ... read more ...
 
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Desktop Advertising to Drop $1.4 billion in 2014 as Search becomes some-more mobile - eMarketer released a report today that estimates desktop advertising to drop by $1.4 billion while mobile search will increase over 82 % in 2014. Of course Google has been talking about this in their earnings reports for the last couple years. This is certainly not great news for domain investors who park their domains, as mobile clicks pay less than desktop clicks. It stands to reason that parking earnings will be down across the board as the traffic becomes more mobile centric and a lower cost ... read more ...
 
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Dana.Holdings Gets Suspended in URS Decision - The public company, Dana Holding Corporation (NYSE: DAN) just won a URS it filed on the domain name dana.holdings. The domain name was suspended based on the URS decision Findings of Fact: Dana Holding Corporation (NYSE: DAN) is a publicly traded Fortune 500 company based in Maumee, Ohio; Dana Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dana Holding Corporation. Dana Limited is the owner of the federally registered trademark DANA (U.S. Registration Numbers 4459800, 1190470, 856983, and 1200853) for ... read more ...
 
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Namecheap Loses UDRP In a Attempt to Get a Domain Namechap.com - Namecheap, Inc, just lost a UDRP on its attempt to get the domain name namechap.com The domain holder defended the registration of the domain which was just registered in 2013 by saying it was a term in and of itself “Name Chap” Interesting case. Here are the relevant facts and findings by the one member panel who found the domain name was NOT confusing or similar to the trademark holder Name Cheap. Complainant was launched in 2000, and is now one of the most prominent domain name registrars ... read more ...