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.

Thu 13th March 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Facebook Launches Video Ads - Today Facebook rolled out video ads, these ads will be autoplay ads which I am sure will quickly have some ranting and raving to do away with it. With the sheer size of Facebook this could turn out to be a huge number of video ads playing on a monthly basis. ReelSEO wrote, O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! The Jabberwock is, er, Facebook video ads are here! Our news feeds will now be inundated with autoplay video ads. Yippee? Well, it’s a big step forward for the world’s largest social network ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Late IGal/Mrs Jello Hit With UDRP On Milly.com - A domain name registered to Mrs. Jello, LLC which was the company formed by  the late Igal Lichtman  has been hit with a UDRP. A UDRP has been filed by the Milly LLC on the domain name Milly.com According to Business Week, Milly LLC is a private company which “designs apparel for women worldwide. It offers dresses, tops, bottoms, outerwear, swimwear, handbags, fashion jewelry, and accessories, as well as clothing for children. The company also provides products for cocktails and offices, as ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
17 Year Old Patient.com Hit With UDRP - Egton Medical Information Systems Limited has filed a UDRP with the World Intellectual  Property Organization (WIPO) against the domain name Patient.com The domain name Patient.com is owned by  Health Axis Group of Tampa, Florida but has a Network Solutions placeholder. Health Axis seems to have acquired the domain in June of 2012. The domain name has according to domain tools an original registration date of 1997. According to Screenshots prior to Health Axis acquisition of the domain it was parked ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Mercedes Benz Launches MB4.Me To Sell Cars & Mercedes.me As Its New Umbrella Brand - Under this new umbrella brand, the Stuttgart-based premium automotive manufacturer is bundling all existing and future service offers, making them easily accessible at any time on a digital platform that is scheduled to go online in Summer 2014. “Mercedes me” is broken down into five areas – “move me”, “connect me”, “assist me”, “finance me” and “inspire me” – and takes into account all product-relevant areas such as the purchasing, financing and servicing of vehicles, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
King.com Seeks Up to a $7.6 Billion Valuation - King.com the maker of Candy Crush Saga could be looking at as much as a $7.6 billion valuation in their I.P.O. The Wall Street Journal reported today that the valuation would put King in the big leagues with a valuation rivaling the top video game companies on the market. Of course King.com has had some negative publicity lately with their attempts to trademark Candy and Saga. Smaller game makers and gamers alike have expressed their displeasure with the company. From the Wall Street Journal: King ... read more ...
Wed 12th March 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
Sen. Rockefeller, Adweek & Politico Pick Up On The .Sucks Story We Told You About In December - Back on December 19th we wrote about one new gTLD  applicant’s plan to charge $25,000 for a .sucks domain registration in a post entitled; “You’ve Got To Be Kidding: $25K For A .Sucks Domain Name Registration” Today Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called .Sucks “little more than a predatory shakedown scheme designed to force large corporations, small businesses, non-profits, and even individuals, to pay ongoing fees to prevent seeing the phrase ‘sucks’ appended to their names on ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Scrapping Banner Ad Experiment - Harrison Weber is reporting on Venture Beat and Ginn Marvin is reporting on Marketing Land,  that Google is going to scrap its banner ad experiment. Google started showing banner ads last October which sparked many to become upset as Google had long promised not to show banner ads in search results. From the article: VentureBeat can confirm that banner ads for original partner companies, like SouthWest Airlines, are no longer visible in our own tests — of course, there’s still a chance that ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Namejet.com Holding Domainfest Premium Domain Auction - NameJet announced today its running an auction for over 40 premium domain names in partnership with Oversee.net. All auctions scheduled to close during the DomainFest domain industry and investor conference on April 1st and 2nd. All of these exclusive domains are being offered with low reserves or no reserves. Here is a partial list the domain names that are already live on NameJet.com for backorder: blackcar.com brickhomes.com bubblejet.com cairoegypt.com cellcovers.com collegejobs.com crunchroll.com federalloan.com getadeal.com getdressed.com golfcap.com gulfbeachresort.com guyparty.com happygirls.com inventorysystem.com kidsradio.com kidstyping.com ladyfitness.com localgyms.com localsonly.com makeupgame.com nightjobs.com oilpump.com oldcurrency.com onlinecash.com petpsychic.com quickshop.com realityshow.com redchili.com smalltrees.com soccermall.com stepping.com tamilmusic.com taxconsulting.com tropicalplants.com tropicalresorts.com truckers.com vintageshoes.com virussoftware.com Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Dior Files URS On Dior.Clothing & I’m Going To Blame The Company For This One - A URS wwas filed by designer fashion house Christian Dior on the domain name Dior.clothing yesterday. I’m going to blame the company for this one. No one likes to pay for insurance just like no one wants to spend money to register defensive domains, but if your in business you need to do certain things and make good business decisions. So while I don’t expect any brand (although some did) to go and register or block hundreds of new gTLD’s in every possible extension, domains that are bang on ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
HA.com Domain Auction Is Live: Tablets.com; Digital.com; Future.com; LK.com - Heritage Auctions second domain auction is now live. Most names have reserves, which will be made public for everyone to see 7 days before the auction. Some names have no reserve price. Prices range from $100 up to near $1MM. Here are some of the more interesting domain names: LK.com DEC.com (the 5th name ever registered.  September, 1985) Tablets.com Digital.com Future.com Spokane.com Skinny.com CoinCollector.com SouthAmerica.com March.com CorpusChristi.com Cola.com PriceofGold.com PoliticalScience.com There ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Agreed Becomes a 1st Licensed Internet Escrow Service to Accept Bitcoin & Litecoin - California-based Agreed Escrow announce today it has partnered with GoCoin to become the first licensed Internet escrow service to allow clients to pay with Bitcoin and Litecoin through its site at Agreed.com. “Agreed is licensed by the California Department of Business Oversight to act as an Internet Escrow agent in escrows involving goods and services.” “Agreed’s clients are now able to make purchases on agreed.com using the two most popular digital currencies, Bitcoin and Litecoin, with ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Apple, Weather Channel, Ericsson, Hallmark, Chanel: Brands Are Getting Their .Wiki - Top Level Design LLC, the company behind the new gTLD, .Wiki announced today that leading global brands including Apple, Ericsson, Hallmark, the Weather Channel, and Chanel were among the first to take advantage of the opportunity to obtain their .wiki domain names through the “TheirTrademark.wiki” program. The world’s best-known online collaboration tool thanks to Wikipedia.org, “wikis” are a specific type of Internet content that is rapidly becoming an essential asset for brands worldwide.” “Under ... read more ...
Tue 11th March 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New gTLD’s Registered With Word “Eco” Are Being Take Back: On ICANN’s Restricted List - As we just went to tape this weeks DomainSherpa.com discussion show, a fellow Sherpa, Page Howe, brought it to my attention that new gTLD domain names that have the word Eco on the left of the dot were in the process of  being taken back by the Donuts Registry. Page’s domain names eco.directory and eco.careers are only two of the domains now in the process of being deleted by the registry as the whois records are showing the domains being in pending delete. Even my company Worldwide Media, Inc. ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic/GoDaddy Sells $1.9 Million In Domain Names - Afternic/GoDaddy released its sales report for the week of 3/3/14 – 3/9/14. All sales for the week totalled $1,907,184. The top .com sale was lead by GoZone.com for $15,000 followed by Avus.com for $10,807. The top non-com sale lead by How.co for $13,890. Below is the complete report: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
DomainHoldings Brokerage Is Staying But Parent Company Changed To Bidtellect - The Baltimore Business Journal has just covered John Ferber and his new venture  Bidtellect which is what the company known as DomainHoldings, Inc. is changing its name to. According to the article which quotes John: “”Bidtellect is an online platform through which advertisers bid in real-time for native ad spots. ” “The company was founded in 2010 as a domain name brokerage called Domain Holdings Group Inc. ” “The company recently adopted its new moniker, Bidtellect, to reflect is expanding ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Brands Finally Find A New gTLD They Like For Sunrise .Company has a Few Hundred - Much has been made of the lack of Sunrise applications and Brands seeking their matching trademark or brand domains in the new gTLD rollout. I just reviewed the Zone file for the new Donuts gTLD .Company and it seems like this is a gTLD Brands are ding some registrations on. Although still not a huge number there does seem to be about 3x the activity in Sunrise than the average TLD. I actually see a lot of companies that grabbed a Sunrise application for their .Company domain that  I have not seen ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Trademark Clearing House Up To 27,252 Marks -   The Trademark Clearing House (TMCH) issued its monthly update. As of March 10th 2014, there are 27,252 marks submitted for a total of 59, 593 trademark years. 20, 076 notifications were sent to holders based off attempted new gTLD registrations.   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Interview with a owner of NtldStats.com - NtldStats.com is a website that offers a comprehensive list of statistics pertaining to the new gtlds. The company behind the website is Greensec based out of Germany. We sat down with Stefan Meinecke to get some more info about the site. 1) What is GreenSec’s interest in the space ? Stefan – GreenSec is a software consultant company that offers individual solutions for companies around the world. This includes customised hosting solutions for clients including the registration of domain names. 2) ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Big Changes Coming To Google Search Results - Jayson DeMers wrote a very detailed and well thought out post about Google and coming changes in search.  In the article DeMers discusses that search will change to accomodate a more mobile world, that SEO professionals will have to adapt and change as well. All things search must evolve. DeMers goes on to discuss that there will be more color and more information, targeted data to get users what they need faster. He goes on at length to discuss the rise of the Knowledge Graph. From the article: Google’s ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Quickest Legal Action On A Domain Registration? bbva.careers Hit With URS 5 Days After Registration - In what maybe the quickest action filed by a trademark holder against a domain holder, the domain name bbva.careers has been hit with a  URS 5 Days After Registration. The domain name bbva.careers was registered on March 5th on the last day of EAP for many times general availability rates which would have gone into effect the following day on March 6th. The URS was filed today on March 10th BBVA is a publicly traded financial company (BBVA),  Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A with a market cap ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Chinese Game Company 37wan.net Is Buyer of 37.com For $2.1 Million & Predicts $36 Million In Profit - According to a story out tonight in Chinatechnews.com,  the buyer of the domain name 37.com for $2.1 Million dollars is Shanghai-headquartered 37wan.net a Chinese Gaming company The company officially renamed the company 37 Game today. Li Yifei, president of the company said “the market for web game exports is optimistic and it is a necessary way for gaming companies to expand into overseas markets. ” “He revealed that 37 Game will launch its mobile game distribution in China and abroad simultaneously. ... read more ...
Mon 10th March 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
Fred Krueger of Minds + Machines Book “Stop Drinking and Get Fit” Hits Amazon - Fred Krueger of Top Level Domain Holdings (Minds + Machines) book entitled “Stop Drinking and Get Fit: A guide to personal transformation” is now in paperback and available at Amazon for purchase for $15.18. This new 200 page “Director’s Cut” is a must have…” says Krueger Fred wrote on his Facebook page that he dropped close to 30 Lbs and had gotten under 15% body fat: “Phase 1 was to hit my ideal weight and body fat %. I’ve hit and maintained that for 3 months now” I recently ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Mashable Looks during “The History of a Domain Name” - Max Knoblauch did a post entitled “A Brief History of the Domain Name” Starting off with Symbolics.com owned by Aron Meystedt, to 1995 and the end of free domain names.  1998 and the privatization of the DNS and ICANN. 1998: Privatization of the DNS and ICANN In 1998, the Department of Commerce, under President Clinton’s urging, issued a proposal for privatizing the Domain Naming System (DNS), which was then controlled by the U.S. government. The document — known as the “Green Paper” ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
It’s Official: Google Is Giving Away Free Domain Names - Since the ICANN Big Reveal where we learned  that Google applied for over 100 new gTLD extension we have been chatting about whether Google would giving away free domains. Well we didn’t have to wait long to find out. Google is offering 5,000 new gTLD’s in its first live new gTLD which is an IDN, .みんな Domainincite.com broke the news that Google is offering a free domain name to the first 5,000 people to submit a .みんな web site idea via a campaign web site ” “The offer expires ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Purchased For $65K Kiko.com Saved in UDRP - Kiko s.r.l. of Bergamo, Italy just lost its bid to grab the domain name kiko.com in a UDRP The domain holders bought the domain for in 2010 for $65,578.50 to use for a social networking site. Here are the relevant facts and finding by the three member panel The Complainant’s business is the manufacture of cosmetic products. The Complainant is the owner of trademark registrations in Classes 3 and 25 for the word trademark KIKO in a number of countries, including in the United States of America (filed ... read more ...