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 February 2014
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Afternic/GoDaddy Sells $1.85 Million In Domain Names - Afternic/GoDaddy released its sales report for the week of 2/17/14 – 2/23/14 All sales for the week totalled $1,848,381. The top .com sale was lead by ProjectBook.com for $20,000, with the top non-com sale lead by ILN.org for $9,800. Two new gTLD domain names were also on the list nano.technology  $1,425 and assistedliving.directory  at $1,140; Below is the complete report: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Moving A Penalized Website To A New Domain May Not Remove Your Google Penalty - Barry Schwartz wrote a piece on Search Engine Roundtable  about Google penalties following to a new website. So we know that if you have a penalty on your site and you move your site to a new domain and redirect the URLs to that new domain, the penalty will flow because of the redirects. That is known. What I did not know is that if you took your site and moved it to a new domain but did not redirect the old domain to the new, that Google may also pass along the penalty without redirecting the ... read more ...
 
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Minds+Machines Wins Private Auction For .Wedding Loses .Green Costing a Net of Over $2.3M - Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (LON:TLDH) said on Tuesday it has won won the private auction for the new gTLD .Wedding and lost the auction for .Green The net cost of securing .Wedding after losing .Green was $2,321,300.00 The figure quoted includes funds it will receive from its unsuccessful participation in the auction of the .GREEN domain name as well as a rebate from  ICANN for its withdrawal of its application for .Green The other applicants for .Green were Rightside and Afilias one of which ... read more ...
 
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Ga.Me Launches “Revolutionizing The Way People Play & Develop Games” - According to a press release out this morning by the .ME Registry the site  Ga.ME, a product that is revolutionizing the way people play and develop games launched today. Developed by Turbulenz Limited in Guildford, UK, Ga.ME is the first unified online game platform and social network capable of delivering console quality games across desktop, mobile and tablet devices. In addition to a catchy name and a new brand in the browser-based game market, Ga.ME brings a variety of new features for both ... read more ...
 
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Mt.Gox Goes Offline, Gox.com is sole and some engaging papers uncover up - While reading MattVukas.com tonight Matt mentioned that there was a blogger that was posting some interesting stuff. From the article: But tonight, we may have received the final chapter of Mt. Gox’s last saga, courtesy of a Bitcoin blogger known as “The Two-Bit Idiot”. He posted a chillingly titled entry earlier today titled “Bitcoin’s Apocalyptic Moment: Mt. Gox may have lost 750,000 bitcoins”, referencing a leaked document obtained from “an otherwise reliable source.” 750,000 ... read more ...
Mon 24th February 2014
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Godaddy Is Not Bringing .Sexy Back; Nor Are 9 Of The Top 10 Registrars - Tomorrow Frank Schilling’s Uniregistry is launching their first 2 new gTLD extensions .Sexy and .Tattoo however if you want to register one you won’t be able to do it at Godaddy.com Godaddy.com is not carrying Uniregistry strings at the moment, nor is NetworkSolutions.com or Register.com which are part of Web.com (WWWW) or 1and1.com or UnitedDomains.com which are part of the same parent company which owns Sedo.com Matter of fact  9 out of the top 10 domain name registrars in the world as listed ... read more ...
 
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RightoftheDot.com Resolves Contention On New gTLD .One In Single Sealed Bid Auction - RightOfTheDot™, LLC, one of the most well-known domain industry auction Internet consulting and advisement firms, announced today that they and their partner Escrow.com, have facilitated the contention set auction of the new gTLD Web address “.One,” which is expected to be one of the most sought-after new TLD (Top Level Domain) properties on the Internet. The winning bidder for the new TLD extension is One.com, which will act as the worldwide registry for .One domains.  They will be offering ... read more ...
 
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Web.com (Netsol & Register.com) Join Sedo’s MLS - Sedo, and Web.com Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:WWWW) a leading provider of Internet services and online marketing solutions for small businesses, today announced a partnership that will give customers access to more than 18 million premium domain names, including those under new Internet domain extensions being launched this year. By joining Sedo’s multi-listing Service, SedoMLS, customers of Network Solutions, Register.com and any of their resellers will be able to quickly and easily find the right domain ... read more ...
 
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DNA Grows To 30 Members adding Afilias, Neustar, Nominet, Radix & Web.com - The Domain Name Association (DNA), the global trade association for the internet domain industry, has welcomed eight new members from all over the world, bringing the total to 30. The newest members are: Afilias (Ireland) au Domain Administration Ltd. (Australia) CO Internet S.A.S. (Colombia) Neustar (U.S.) Nominet (UK) Radix (United Arab Emirates) SIDN (The Netherlands) Web.com Group (U.S.) “This membership growth shows gratifying support for the DNA’s mission at an exciting time for the industry, ... read more ...
 
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.co.com Sunrise Period Begins Today - During the Sunrise Period, qualified trademark holders have the first opportunity to register the exact match of their trademark, before .co.com opens to the public. As of today, more than 100 registrars have signed on to offer .co.com domains. “The introduction and ongoing management of .co.com will be conducted with the utmost respect for trademark holders”, said Ken Hansen, CEO. Co.com LLC. “The .co.com registry is taking a number of steps to minimize trademark infringement and to provide ... read more ...
 
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Buckingham Palace Buying Up Domain Names - Emily Gosden wrote a piece for The Telegraph  about Buckingham Palace buying domain names as a precautionary member. Of course the domain industry was a flutter back in July 2013 when Luc Biggs registered the domain GeorgeLouisAlexander.com. Biggs did a guest post on DomainInvesting.com that he offered the domain to the Royal Family. Buckingham Palace has bought up dozens of website addresses for members of the Royal Family to protect their online identities, fuelling speculation it will launch ... read more ...
Sun 23rd February 2014
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Nature’s Way is catastrophic in their try to benefit 4 domains by UDRP - This case was well thought out by the panel imo, its the type of critical thinking that domainers and small business owners should be happy with. This was a sole panelist decision. Nature’s Way went after a couple of variants in this UDRP, one might think they would have succeeded in getting naturesway.biz and .info. The hyphenated version of their name most would have thought would be a victory,  NatWay.net seemed to be a real stretch imo. 1. The Parties The Complainant is Nature’s Way Products, ... read more ...
 
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Your.Tattoo: The 100 Domains Uniregistry Reserved For .Tattoo - The 100 domain names Frank Schilling Uniregistry reserved for its own use are now in the zone file. Most of the domains clearly relate to the operation and promotion of the .Tattoo registry However some of the domains are some of the best brandable domains the registry has like Geta.tattoo,  iwanta.tattoo and Your.Tattoo. A few like rent.tattoo; finance.tattoo and lease.tattoo are pretty strange as a tattoo is not an item I have ever heard sold on a financing leasing or renting program and since ... read more ...
 
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No Privacy or Proxy Registrations For .NYC New gTLD Domain Names - This week during the Fairwinds Beyond The Dot conference held in Washington, Jeff Neuman of Neustar,  laid out some more interesting information about the new .NYC extension which Neustar will be running in cooperation with the city of New York. Domaininvesting.com covered some basic eligibility a few days ago, including that a registrant be an entity, business or resident who has a physical location in New York. For one no privacy registrations will be allowed. Each registration will have to contain ... read more ...
Sat 22nd February 2014
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First URS Decision Published on New gTLD’s - The first Uniform Rapid Suspension decision has been issued. The case was decided 9 days ago, which was 6 days after the 1st URS was filed on the domain names; ibm.guru and ibm.ventures. So while the decision was known 9 days ago, the actual decision was just published today so this is the first time we are seeing at how these URS decisions will look: DOMAIN NAME ibm.guru ibm.ventures PARTIES Complainant: International Business Machines Corporation of Armonk, NY, United States of America Complainant ... read more ...
 
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Could Watson Change Search As We Know It ? - Daniel Newman wrote a piece on Millenial CEO that took a look at Watson, the super computer from IBM. Newman explores the possibility if Watson could change the search landscape. Just Google It…Everyone Else Does Right now when we want to know more about something, anything, we Google it; this isn’t an exception, this is the rule. In fact, 74% of the entire population turns to Google to start their information finding efforts. This trend has been on the rise for sometime and as we have become ... read more ...
 
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Better Business Bureau Warns Against Domain Scam - The Better Business Bureau is warning people about domain scams. Times Record News reported, How the scam works: You receive an email addressed to the owner of your company. It appears to be from an Asian domain registration service. The email says that a third party company has requested to register your business’s brand name as a website domain in China or elsewhere in Asia. According to the email, the “domain registrar” realized your company owns that brand name. And they decided to do ... read more ...
Fri 21st February 2014
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Vertical Axis Holds on to ParkRoyal.com after complainant is denied in UDRP - In a 3 panelist ruling Vertical Axis holds on to ParkRoyal.com but there is no finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. 1. The Parties 1.1 The Complainants are Grupo Costamex, S.A. de C.V. (“Costamex”) of Mexico City, Mexico and Operación y Supervisión de Hoteles, S.A. de C.V. (“Opyssa”) of Cancun, Mexico, represented internally. 1.2 The Respondent is Vertical Axis Inc. of Barbados, represented by ESQwire.com PC, United States of America. Factual Background 4.1 The Complainants are part ... read more ...
 
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Kentucky Appeals Court Overturns Seizure of 132 Gambling Domain Names - TheRepublic.com is reporting that the Kentucky Court of Appeals has overturned a decision allowing the state to seize 132 gambling domain names and ruled that a trade association may represent the owners of the sites trying to fend off the state. You might remember the commonwealth of Kentucky seized 132 domain names related to gambling almost 6 years ago, some were domains of actually gambling sites others were just parked pages. Today the Republic is reporting that Judge Allison Jones ruled the ... read more ...
 
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Mt. Gox Bitcoin Price Falls Below $100, the Lowest Level Since July - Troubled BitCoin exchange continues to have problems and the price of Bitcoin on their exchange has plunged below $10o Peter Rizzo reported on CoinDesk, The price of bitcoin on Mt. Gox dropped below $100, hitting a low of $91.50 on 20th February. Data from Bitcoincharts indicates it was the lowest total observed on the exchange since 22nd July when the lowest price was $89.80. The announcement comes amid increasing criticism from the bitcoin community about the exchange and its questionable behavior ... read more ...
Thu 20th February 2014
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Google; Linkedin; Amazon; BMW; Dupont; Godaddy; Micosoft; Yahoo All Grab .Menu Domains In Sunrise - An interesting mix of companies applied during Sunrise for .menu domains. While some of the Sunrise domains like nestle.menu; fridays.menu; tgifridays.menu; panerabread.menu; pfchangs.menu; icantbelieveitsnotbutter.menu, joyofcooking.menu; sweettomatoes.menu and kentuckyfriedchicken.menu are bang on for those in the food or restaurant industry, most of the trademarks were by tech companies and other global brands. Even Mark Monitor and Godaddy registered their respective .menu domains Google; Linkedin; ... read more ...
 
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Best Selling Author & Social Media Expert Gary Vaynerchuk to Keynote DOMAINFest Conference - DomainSponsor just announced that New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk will be the opening keynoter at this year’s DOMAINFest Hollywood, which will be held from March 31 to April 2, 2014 at the luxurious Loews Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood, California. As a social media trailblazer, Vaynerchuk began video blogging in 2005 and now has nearly 1 million Twitter followers. He has been included on BusinessWeek’s list of the “Top 20 People ... read more ...
 
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Gucci Wins UDRP on 71 Domains Against a Most Ridiculous Domain Holders Of All Time - Gucci won 71 domain names in a UDRP against the most ridiculous domain holders of all time. The Complainant is Guccio Gucci S.p.A. of Florence, Italy, represented by Studio Barbero, Italy. The Respondent is Organization shimici, Here are the domains that Gucci won control over: alwaysmakeyouhappygucci.com, angelgucciuse.com, authenticguccihome.com, bestguccibags.com, bestsellergucci.com, buyguccisitezone.com, charming-guccisite.com, cheapbutgoodgucci.com, colorfulguccisale.com, colorfulgucciyou.com, ... read more ...
 
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Bonnie Wittenburg is new CEO of Moniker - KeyDrive S.A. is pleased to announce that Bonnie Wittenburg has taken the position as CEO of Moniker. Bonnie Wittenburg has been the Executive Vice President of Key Systems since 2009. “Moniker is one of the top 10 ICANN accredited registrars for generic top level domains on the international market and member of the KeyDrive S.A. since January 2012. KeyDrive has more than 6 million domains under management.” “Moniker currently has nearly two million domains under management.” Bonnie Wittenburg. ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD Registrations Top 125K As .Today; .Technology; .Land; .Directory Open Up Strong - The total number of new gTLD domain name registrations have now passed the 125,000 mark as several new extensions have finished Sunrise and starting to take registrations. .Guru continues to led the pack now topping over 35,000 registration with .Photography topping 18,000 registrations. Quite a few new gTLD’s are hitting RegistrarStats.com for the 1st time with .Today leading the way with over 5,000 registrations followed closely by .Technology at around 4,700. .Land which many people seem to ... read more ...