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 10th December 2013
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Godaddy/Afternic Sells $1.76 In Domains Led By HealthAdvisor.com For $40K - Here is GoDaddy and Afternic’s reportable weekly domain sales for the week of 12/2/13 – 12/8/13 Total domain sales for the week summed to $1,760,202 All sales were led by HealthAdvisor.com at $40K The bargain of the week may have been slot.org for $7K     <![CDATA[]]> Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Demands Media’s Rightside Releases Introductory Video - Demand Media, Inc.,  proposed spinoff of its new gTLD registry, and registrar business Rightside.co just released an introductory video on its business and the new gTLD’s program. The video highlights many of Demand Media, Inc. own gTLD’s it applied for including .Ninja   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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SnapNames.com Add .Co.Uk and .Cn Dropping Domains To Their System - SnapNames®, a KeyDrive S. announced today that the ccTLD domain names for the United Kingdom, .CO.UK and for China, .CN are now available for backorder services. “As the world’s third and fourth most popular country code top-level domain (ccTLD) extensions, demand for .CO.UK and .CN is aptly reflected in top worldwide internet usage penetration rates and volumes.” “According to the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency, 80% (more than double the global rate) of ... read more ...
 
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Art.com Build On Category Killer Domain Planning On Going Public in 2014; Godaddy May Not Be Far Behind - USAToday.com, is reporting that Art.com, a leading online seller of prints, posters, frames and canvas, is discuss plans for a possible initial public offering (IPO) next year If Art.com’s IPO plans work out, it will likely try to go public toward the end of 2014. “A surge in Internet stocks this year and the successful Twitter IPO has many private technology companies raising money or mulling a public listing. Alibaba, the giant Chinese e-commerce company, is expected to go public in the U.S. ... read more ...
 
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.Uno Starts Sunrise Period, Runs Until Feb 6, 2014 - Dot Latin LLC, the .UNO Domain Registry, announces today that their 60-Day Sunrise Period starts and runs until February 6, 2014. The Sunrise Period is when trademark owners are eligible to register a domain name containing their owned mark. In order for Trademark Holders to apply for a domain during Sunrise, they must submit an application and obtain validation approval from ICANN’s Trademark Clearinghouse (http://trademark-clearinghouse.com/). Sunrise applications will only be accepted through ... read more ...
Mon 9th December 2013
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Aero Club of New Delhi, India Guilty Of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking on 14 Year Old Woodland.com - Aero Club of New Delhi, India, represented by Lall Sethi Advocates, India was found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) by a one person UDRP WIPO panel on the generic domain name Woodland.com Aero Club operates under the domain name woodlandworldwide.com which they registered in 2002 and tried to grab the shorter Woodland.com domain which was registered on November 26, 1999 “The Complainant is an Indian partnership, which commenced business with two retail outlets in New Delhi in 1992. ... read more ...
 
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UDRP Panel Fails To Order Transfer Of Domain Back From Ex-Employee - The Law Firm Dr. Khalid Alnowaiser of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, just lost its bid to get the domain name lfkan.com in a UDRP The Complainant is a law firm established in 1996, with offices in Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Complainant offers a range of legal services to local and international clients, in both Arabic and English. Although the one member UDRP panel found that “The record suggests bad faith on the part of a disaffected former employee of the Complainant, who seems to have hijacked ... read more ...
 
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Technology Companies Propose Plan on Reforming Government Surveillance - Today a coalition of Technology companies released their plan for reforming how the government conducts surveillance.  See below for the full press release. In addition to the press release there were a couple of other related stories. CNN featured a story today, “Microsoft Fights Back Against NSA Snooping” (CNN) — Still concerned about some faceless government bureaucrat peeking at your e-mails and other online communications? Well, you’ve got a new champion: Microsoft. The computing giant ... read more ...
 
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Looks Like Godaddy Charges Some Customers $50 If They Get Hit With A UDRP - It appears that Godaddy.com charges its customers $50 one of their domains get hit with a UDRP. One customer is complaining on his own blog. Daniel Paden tells his tale on the blog Atheiststoday.com, in a post entitled, Stop Using Godaddy, including all the emails he exchanged with Godaddy.com complaining about a $50 fee charged to Mr. Paden credit card when a UDRP was filed against one of his domain names. “I purchased a domain name to use on a project I was working on. Someone had a problem with ... read more ...
Sun 8th December 2013
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Owner Of BusinessesForSale.com Files UDRP On BusinessForSale.com Purchased For $150K In 2011 From Marchex -   A UDRP has been filed against the domain name BusinessForSale.com The Domain is actually a full blown site with containing listings of businesses for sale. The domain name was purchased from Marchex for $150,000, in 2011. The company filing the complainant and seeking to grab the domain name Businessforsale.com is Dynamis Limited, whose site is Dynamis.co.uk Dynamis describes itself as being: “A leading online publisher focused upon delivering exciting web titles and technologies within the ... read more ...
Sat 7th December 2013
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Daniel Negari Lays Out His Vision For .XYZ & Chats About The Controversial NameJet.com Auctions -     While at was at ICANN chatting with Applicants and others in the domain space the question I found myself being asked the most was about .XYZ. .XYZ has been very aggressive pushed the envelope when it became the first to auction off new gTLD domains names through Namejet.com So I reached out to Daniel Negari whose company is going to operate the .XYZ extension (and .College too)  to see what his vision for the extension is, what’s up wit the Namejet.com auctions  and what the hell he was ... read more ...
Fri 6th December 2013
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MutualFunds.Com Sells & Heritage Domain Auction Crosses $1.5 Million Mark - The domain name MutualFunds.com found a new home, selling for an undisclosed amount to an anonymous buyer, after initially crossing the auction block as part of Heritage Auctions inaugural Domain Name Intellectual Property Signature® Auction, which has recorded well in excess of $1.5 million in total sales so far since the live event in New York on Nov. 21. “While we cannot reveal the details of the transaction, we can say that the seller was seeking an offer in the $1 million range plus 15% ... read more ...
 
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Intellectual Property Owners Association Tells ICANN Registries Should Not Be Able To Hold Trademarked Domains - The President of The Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO), Richard Phillips, sent a letter to ICANN telling them that that new gTLD registries should not be allowed to be reserved names that are filed with the Trademark Clearing House (TMCH) and if they are allowed the IPO wants the registry to be subject to a UDRP like dispute resolution procedure. “We are particularly concerned that the rights provided to new Registry Operators in Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement will adversely ... read more ...
 
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the National Association of REALTORS® Files Its 1st UDRP - Jay I said they did apply for .realtor in my post I think the actual applicant is a company set up by the NAR according to their application: The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), The Voice for Real Estate®, is the world’s largest professional association, representing greater than one million members over approximately 1,400 local associations⁄boards. The term REALTOR® is registered as a collective membership mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It is ... read more ...
 
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John Berryhill On Why You Should Be Glad Some Courts Do Not Consider Domains Property - It is an article of religious faith among some domainers that the world would magically be a better place if domain names were, for all purposes, property.Okay, let’s have a show of hands: How many of you want: 1. To pay sales and transfer taxes on this “property” when it is bought and sold? 2. To have them be considered marital assets during a divorce? 3. To have them subject to liens? If the states of Arizona, Florida, or Virginia got wind of the notion that GoDaddy, Moniker and Netsol have ... read more ...
Thu 5th December 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
Play The InterNetX DomainGame & You Can Be Crowned The DomainKing (Mr, Schwartz Is Not Going To Be Happy) - InterNetX just announced the DomainGame which is intended to help convey some basic knowledge about the complex topic of “domains”. “You know what .CX is? And you know where the Christmas Islands are? If you think you know something about domains, then play our Xmas DomainGame and earn the crown of Domain King.” (For those in the domain industry, most know Rick Schwartz is the Domain King (I think he has a trademark on it)). The email continues: “As an extra incentive, there are also prizes ... read more ...
 
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And S&P Loses UDRP Becuase BoycottStandardandPoors.com Doesn’t Resolve - Standard Poor’s Financial Services LLC  just lost a UDRP on its big to grab the domain name, BoycottStandardandPoors.com Unlike the UDRP decision we just wrote about which seemed to turn on the fact that the domain name didn’t resolve, this three member panel refused to transfer the domain largely because the domain name did not resolve finding since the domain did not resolve SP could not meet its burden of proof that the domain name was registered in bad faith. “As Respondent conceivably ... read more ...
 
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13 Year Old WAFU.com Lost in UDRP As Domain Holder Fails To Respond & Domain Doesn’t Resolve - Wafu Inc. of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was just awarded the rights to the domain name WAFU.com a domain that was registered on March 8, 2000. The Complainant owns some trademarks in Cananda the one’s cited by the panel are dated June 23, 2008 another dated November 17, 2003. However  “The Complainant contends that the registration date of the disputed domain name is March 8, 2000, nearly one year after the use of the Complainant’s mark; the Respondent therefore, does not have any rights or ... read more ...
 
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Here Are My First 3 New gTLD Registrations & How we Can Register Your New gTLD’s Now. - At ICANN I had a chance to get a personal tour of MindsandMachines.com new domain registrar site. Mindsandmachines.com which is part of Top Level Domain Holdings (TLDH), a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange, applied for 100 or so new gTLD’s and recently launched its own domain name registrar site. Not only can you register domain names on five new gTLD’s  extensions; Casa, .CEO, .Best, .Cooking and .Horse, but also .com .net and .org registrations. Since MindsandMachines.com ... read more ...
 
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Breaking: 9th Circuit Says No Such Thing As Contributory Cybersquatting Under ACPA: Ruling In Godaddy’s Favor - The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has just ruled that there is No Such Thing As Contributory Cybersquatting Under  the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act  (ACPA). The case is  PETROLIAM NASIONAL, Plaintiff-counter-claim-defendant, Appellant, v.GODADDY.COM, INC.Defendant-counter-claimant,  Appellee., No. 12-15584 D.C. No. 4:09-cv-05939- PJH The case is an appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Petroliam Nasional Berhad, a Malaysian oil and ... read more ...
Wed 4th December 2013
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SellMyApp.com Saved In UDRP AS Complainant Fails To Meet Any Of The 3 Elements Of A UDRP - Vassilios Pantazopoulos just lost his bid to grab 4 domains including SellMyApp.com with the three member UDRP panel finding the Complainant failed to meet any of the three elements required for a successful UDRP. The domain holder was represented by Zak Muscovitch of The Muscovitch Law Firm sellmyapp.com sellmyapp.net sellmyapplication.net sellmyapplication.org Here are the relevant facts and findings by the three member panel On or about October 14, 2010, Complainant launched its website under ... read more ...
 
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Marchex Announces ArcheoDomains.com Adds “Buy It Now” Feature To 30K Domains - ArcheoDomains.com announced that they added “Buy Now” functionality to the ArcheoDomains.com marketplace. More than 30,000 domains are now competitively priced under $10,000 and available for immediate purchase. Focused on our Geo-specific names, some examples include NewYorkDoctor.com, ManhattanPubs.com, CarolinaOnline.com, ArizonaColleges.com, AustinLawyers.com, GeorgiaHouses.com, OrlandoEyeDoctor.com, and more. ArcheoDomains.com part of Marchex, owns over 200,000 domain names. With this update,  ... read more ...
 
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Variety.com Publishes; Epic Fail: The Rise and Fall of Demand Media -   Variety.com just published a cover story on Demand Media, Inc. (DMD) and its less than flattering. The article entitled Epic Fail: The Rise and Fall of Demand Media starts out: “Take note, Twitter: Not every tech company has a happy ending after a ballyhooed IPO. Just look at Demand Media, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based firm some thought would revolutionize content production. Not long after the company went public in January 2011, its market capitalization soared to more than $2 billion, ... read more ...
 
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Oink.com With Trademark Sold For $57,500 - TechCrunch.com is reporting that Virtual Piggy, a payments service aimed at minors is today rebranding as Oink after buying the domain, trademarks and social marks from Milk (not Google) for $57,500. Founder and CEO Jo Webber is quoted as saying “the company found that 66% of it users were already over the age of 13, “Piggy” sounded too infantile but “Oink” lets them retain some of the branding association with piggy banks while sounding more punchy in a way that will resonate better with ... read more ...
 
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How Premium New gTLD’s Might Help Sell Your .Com Domains - Many of the new gTLD registries are planning on the old .TV pricing model to sell their premium domain names. Two large applicants Donuts and  Minds +Machines who between the two applied for 400 new gTLD strings, have both stated they indent to use the .TV pricing model which sells premium domains instead one for a one time payment in the four, five and even six figures and breaks them down by a factor of 1/10 and charges that amount every year as a annual premium renewal price. Like .TV pricing ... read more ...