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 11th February 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Is @jamesdean Twitter hoop violating heading law ? - Its not just domain names where people seem to make a stretch with regards to trademarks. Wendy Davis wrote a piece a few hours ago on MediaPost about Twitter and James Dean. From the article: The licensing agency CMG Worldwide has sued Twitter for allowing a user to tweet under the name of deceased actor James Dean. CMG alleges that Twitter — as well as the account creator — are infringing trademark in the name James Dean. The licensing company, which manages accounts of Dean, Marilyn Monroe, ... read more ...
Mon 10th February 2014
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BidPal Inc. Decides to take their UDRP Loss to Court - There was an article published today by Gerald Levine on Ip Legal Corner, that highlights what is a disturbing trend for domain owners who have legitimate rights to their domain. It was generally considered that if you registered a domain, say in 1998, and a company came along in 2008 with a trademark, you could easily show there was no bad faith in the registration unless you could foresee the future. Of course you have to pay attenion to your domain names at all times, someone who registered a ... read more ...
 
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Figaro.Tv Saved In UDRP Because The Domain Owner Died - Société Du Figaro S.A. of Paris, France, just lost its bid to grab the domain figaro.tv from a dead guy - The Respondent is Cut Company of Krefeld, Germany; - The owner – and seemingly only economic actor – of said company was Mr. Blumtritt. - According to the documents filed by the Complainant, Mr. Blumtritt passed away on June 28, 2013. - A cease and desist letter was sent in October 2013, after the presumed death of Mr. Blumtritt; - The Complaint was filed on November 8, 2013, also after ... read more ...
 
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Glenn Hayward, Formerly With Nominet, Joins CentralNic’s Board & Becomes Its CFO - CentralNic (AIM:CNIC), today announces that Glenn Hayward has joined the Board of CentralNic plc as Chief Financial Officer of the Company. Mr. Hayward joins the Board of CentralNic from Nominet, the company responsible for the .uk domain names, where he was Executive Director, Business Development Director and Finance Director. Ben Crawford, Chief Executive Officer of CentralNic plc, said: “We are delighted that Glenn has joined the CentralNic Board. His expertise gained with one of the world’s ... read more ...
 
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CNBC “New Internet domains are coming, and tiny biz needs to be wary” - Cadie Thompson wrote a piece for CNBC earlier today that included comments from Kathy Nielsen from Sedo. The article focuses on the potential problems that a small business without a robust intellectual property team and a small budget may face. This makes it easier for cybersquatters to buy a domain name that a legitimate business may want. It also opens the door for more cybercriminals to pose as an established website in order to steal user information. And while big corporations have the resources ... read more ...
Sun 9th February 2014
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ICANN Says Brands Are At Risk of Domain Abuse - Katy Bachman at AdWeek did a piece on ICANN and their statement that brands are at risk of domain abuse. They are warning brands to protect their intellectual property by using the Trademark Clearing House. The article mentions that many brands are not rushing to pay  the $150/year per domain fee to register each brand. From the article: Try to follow this. Icann, the international organization that has begun to roll out hundreds of new generic top level domains over the objections of brands worried ... read more ...
Sat 8th February 2014
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New gTLD’s Aftermarket: Sedo Is Ready & Has New gTLD’s For Sale; Afternic Does Not - I did a check to see if the major aftermarket houses were ready and listing new gTLD’s for sale. The short and simply answer: Sedo.com is. Afternic.com is not. Sedo has a drop down search feautre to search for domains name by extension. Sedo has the 7 new gTLD;s already included in their drop down menu and in fact there are already hundreds of new gTLD domain names for sale in the resale market with both fixed pricing and make offers/ Sedo actually has a few auctions going on new gTLD domain names. Afternic.com ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD Committe Tells ICANN To Consider Appeal Mechanism In String Confusion Cases - The New gTLD Program Committee of ICANN (NGPC) pased a resolution, directing the ICANN President and CEO, to initiate a public comment period on the framework principles of a potential review mechanism to address the perceived inconsistent String Confusion Objection Expert Determinations. The effect of this proposal, and the issue that is likely to be before the NGPC after the close of the public comments, is to consider implementing a new review mechanism in the String Confusion Objection cases ... read more ...
 
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Guru Passes 20,000 Registrations: Now Has More Than .Travel & .Aero - The new gTLD .Guru added over 6,000 registration yesterday giving the extension almost 21,000 registered domain names. .Guru yesterday also passed .Travel and .Aero two Top Level Domains (TLD’s) that have been around for many years. .Travel launched back on October 2005 .Aero launched back on December 1, 2008 However unlike .Guru both .travel and .aero are restrcted meaning not everyone can register and own one. As for .Travel the extension is restricted for registration to “people, organizations, ... read more ...
 
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Verisign Is Not Being Transparent on Their Policy With Regards to Short .TV Domains - Back in December Mike wrote about how GM.tv and 13.tv were being held back and reserved by Verisign. At the time Verisign said they were holding these back for promotional purposes. In the past Verisign did this with a few other short .tv domains like G.tv. Domain Name: G.TV Domain ID: 97041820 Updated Date: 2012-05-10T18:50:28Z Creation Date: 2011-05-27T04:01:07Z Expiration Date: 2021-05-27T04:01:07Z Sponsoring Registrar: .TV RESERVED DOMAINS Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 9998 Domain Status: SERVER-UPDATE-PROHIBITED Name Server: No nameserver DNSSEC: Unsigned delegation So ... read more ...
 
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German Court Says Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website - A ruling came out of Germany that could make registrars have to do a lot more work to earn their pay. Loek Essers wrote an article today on PC Advisor covering the case of Universal Music vs Key-Systems. A domain name registrar can be held liable for the copyright infringements of a website it registered if it is obvious the domain is used for infringements and the registrar does nothing to prevent it, the Regional Court of Saarbrücken in Germany has ruled. Universal had wanted to prevent unauthorized ... read more ...
Fri 7th February 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Did Someone Let Cm.com Drop and Who Owns it? - The rare two letter domain name Cm.com appears to have dropped back 2013. The last record for the domain according to DomainTools.com is from May 2013: Record Date: 2013-05-01 Registrar: DOMAIN.COM, LLC Server: whois.domain.com Created: 1997-05-20 Updated: 2013-04-28 Expires: 2020-05-21 Can’t get information on local domain CM.COM”” According to Screenshots.com the domain was in use as a parking page most recently back in December 2010. Unlike other two letter domain names that recently dropped ... read more ...
 
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LinkedIn acquires Bright.com - LinkedIn made their largest acquistion yet acquiring Bright.com. Tech Crunch covered the acquisition which coincided with LinkedIn reporting earnings on Thursday. From the article: Today, alongside a fourth quarter earnings report in which it beat Wall Street estimates yet again, LinkedIn announced its intentions to acquire data-savvy job search startup, Bright.com, for $120 million. The deal, which was 70 percent stock and 30 percent cash the company said, will be completed during the first quarter ... read more ...
 
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Verisign CEO: “I Don’t See Anybody Who’s Going to Abandon The .Com For a New gTLD - The CEO and President of Verisign James Bidzos had some pretty interesting comments regarding the new gTLD’s and the effect they may have on .com and .net registrations during its earnings call today. I have listened to the last several Verisign earnings call and this is the first time I can remember an analyst asking a pointed question about the new gTLD’s and their effect on the .com and .net registry. The question was asked by JP Morgan Chase Co: Any thought to whether the gTLD program, whether ... read more ...
 
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UDRP Filed Against Garry Chernoff 19 Year Old Domain Gauntlet.com By Warner Bros. - Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc filed a UDRP on the domain name Gauntlet.com today which is owned by domain investor Garry Chernoff’s company NetIncome Ventures Inc. The domain name Gauntlet.com has an original registration date May 21, 1995. Mr. Chernoff’s company according Domaintools.com has owned the domain since at least 2005 but could be the original registrant. The domain name is parked but is returning links for cell phone cases and other leather products. Gauntlet according to Wilkipedia.org ... read more ...
Thu 6th February 2014
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Versign Reports: 127.2 Million .Com/.Net Domains, Revenue adult 10%; Has $1.7 Billion In Bank & - VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ :VRSN ) reported financial results for the fourth quarter of 2013 and year ended Dec. 31, 2013. VeriSign, Inc. and subsidiaries (“Verisign”) reported revenue of $246 million for the fourth quarter of 2013, up 7% from the same quarter in 2012. The operating margin was 53% for the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to 58.8% for the same quarter in 2012. Verisign reported net income of $292 million and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.94 for the fourth quarter of 2013, ... read more ...
 
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On The Day New gTLD Picked Up 19,163 New Registrations, .Com Picked Up 37,782 - Plenty of new and buzz was created yesterday when new gTLD’s generated 19,163 new domain registrations led by .Guru However in all fairness we need to point out that the total number of new gTLD registrations on the 1st day of general availability was still just about 1/2 of the number of net new .Com registrations. According to RegistrarStats.com while the total number of new gTLD registrations were 19,163 with 9,516 of them coming from .Guru, the .Com registry had 99,078 new domain registration ... read more ...
 
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Slam Strategy “Dotcom means zero to a consumer” - Shaun Le Cornu from Slam Strategy wrote a piece today on their blog about why a dotbrand is better than a brand.com. The article is worth a read as it shows the thought process that those consulting in the space are trying to get across. Obviously there is some bias because everyone wants to talk to brands about the hot new thing and get paid while doing it. That’s fine to get on board the dot whatever train, but make sure the advice is rooted in logic. In the first paragraph Le Cornu states, What ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD’s Take Over The Home Page Of Godaddy - Godaddy has been changing their home page quite a bit over the last couple of months, with one blogger noticing that all references to new gTLD’s were dropped altogether from the home page 10 days ago. Look at Godaddy.com today and new gTLD’s have taken over the home page, the entire home page above the fold. The fact that Godaddy is pushing hard on the new gTLD’s isn’t surprising considering the high profit margins registrars can make from new gTLD’s well  above and beyond .com domains .Guru ... read more ...
 
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CornerstoneHomes.com Sells For $150K on Sedo - Just crossing the Sedo.com sales wire today is the domain name CornerstoneHomes.com which sold for $150,000 The domain name was owned by Cornerstone Home Builders, Inc. has an original creation date of 2006 The domain is now showing at being at escrow over at Sedo.com Doing a Google search for the term Cornerstone Homes I found quite a few matches for companies using variations of the term in their domain name including: mycornerstonehomes.com cornerstone-homes.com mycornerstoneloan.org cornerstonehomes.net and ... read more ...
 
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.Guru Domains Already For Sale; P*ssy.guru For $20K Anyone? -   As the last day of general availability ended yesterday, we know that .Guru was the big winner so far with over 12,000 domain registrations. Not surprisingly just one day after general availability started for  new gTLD  domain name registrations, new gTLD domain have already started to hit the aftermarket. Over at eBay.com the domain name pussy.guru is priced at at Buy it Now of $19,997 (or best offer) A  .Guru registration is around $40 at Godaddy. So at $20K  that would be a fairly nice ... read more ...
Wed 5th February 2014
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Twitter Reports Earnings First Time as a Public Company – Stock Down in After Hours Trading - Today is the first earnings report from Twitter as a public company.  They exceeded expectations as they were actually expected to lose about .02 a share and made .02 a share. From Tech Crunch After the bell this afternoon, Twitter reported its maiden earnings as a public company, with fourth quarter revenue of $242.7 million and earnings per share of $0.02. Analysts had expected Twitter to lose two cents per share on total revenue of $217.82 million. Media Bistro said this before the release: Two ... read more ...
 
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17 Year Old Vernet.com Saved in UDRP - Vernet, of Ollainville , France , just lost its bid to get the domain name Vernet.com in a UDRP which was registered back on April 9, 1997 The UDRP decision was handed down in French. Here are the facts and findings by the one member panel: The Complainant is the company Vernet , a French company specializing in the production and trade of motor vehicles and health equipment and heating equipment parts. The Applicant operates the name Vernet as name and brand for decades. He also holds several made ... read more ...
 
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7 Year Old StableTable.com Saved In UDRP - Hedera AB of Lund, Sweden, just lost its bid to grab the domain name stabletable.com in a UDRP which was registered back on November 24, 2007. The Panel basically threw the Complainants case out and only failed to find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking because they believed the owner of the domain changed in 2011. The domain holder who is represented by Mike Rodenbaugh, Esq. already filed a lawsuit in federal court to get a declaratory judgement once the UDRP was filed. Here are the facts and findings ... read more ...
 
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Insurance.Pro Saved In UDRP - Christopher Copeland (“Complainant”), just lost it bid to grab the domain name Insurance.Pro from Michael Silver who was represented by John Berryhil Here are the relevant facts and findings by the three member panel: Complainant asserts the following: Policy ¶ 4(a)(i) Complainant owns rights in the INSURANCE.PRO mark through registrations of the mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) (e.g., Reg. No. 2,785,018 registered November 18, 2003). The insurance.pro ... read more ...