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 26th November 2013
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Frank Schillings Name Administration Sells 88888.com For $245,000 - DomainNameSales.com has brokered the sale of the domain name 88888.com for $245,000 The domain name was owned by Frank Schillings Name Administration. This domain was suppose to be included in the DomainNameSales.com report we posted earlier, but they mistakenly left it out of the report. That would bring up DomainNameSales.com for the week of Nov. 13th to Nov. 26th up to $800K At $245,000 88888.com has to be the largest reported sale of a NNNNN.com domain name and it should be as most buyers of ... read more ...
 
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Godaddy/Afternic Sell $1,685,659 In DomainNames Led By HeritageHome.com For $25K - GoDaddy and Afternic’s reported weekly domain sales for the week of 11/18/13 – 11/24/13 of $1,685,659 All sales were led by HertiageHome.com which was sold for $25K by Frank Schilling’s Name Administration who also had the 2nd highest sale of the week with RealEstateSecrets.com which sold for $17,500. TheKingdom.com a nice “the” domain sold for $11,610 A few product domains like GlassPartitions.com and DeckTiles.com each sold for $9,999 which appears to be Buy It Now Sales I counted at ... read more ...
 
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DomainNameSales.com Reports $555K In Sales For Last Two Weeks Led By Novio.com For $45K - DomainNamesSales.com reported $555,582 in reportable sales handled by the brokerage team for the two week period ending today. DomainNameSales.com  does not track or report on  “self brokered” sales made by their customers without the help of the brokerage team. Here are the sales from November sales from Nov. 13th to Nov. 26th All sales were led by  Novio.com which was owned by Frank Schillings Name Administration. Novio is Spanish for boyfriend. Name Administration also sold the 2nd and ... read more ...
 
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Federal Judge Rules Domain Names Are Not Property Under Virgina Law - A Virgina federal judge has ruled that domain names are not property under Virgina Law. The case is ALEXANDRIA SURVEYS, LLC, , v. ALEXANDRIA CONSULTING GROUP, LLC, (ACG)  Civil Action No. 1:13-CV-00891, United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, Alexandria Division and was handed down by District Judge LIAM O’GRADY The case was an appeal from a Bankruptcy court decision, which involved a lot of issues, but we are going to limit our review of the case only as it applied to disucssion related ... read more ...
 
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If A New gTLD Applicant Used His $185K To Buy Bitcoins Instead His Investment Would be Worth $30 Million - Back in May 2012 when the application period for a new gTLD’s  closed, the application fee was $185,000 per new gTLD string. At that time the value of a Bitcoin was trading at around $5.00. Instead of applying for a new gTLD string for $185,000 what if the applicant would have bought 37,000 Bitcoins, at $5 each. How much would have that $185,000 investment be worth today? Just about $30,000,000. So why would I tie new gTLD’s and Bitcoin’s together? Last week while I was in Argentina on a Saturday ... read more ...
Mon 25th November 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
Andee Hill Quits Escrow.com & Takes Staff To Gregg McNair’s Backed New Online Escrow Service; EscrowHill.com - Gregg McNair is back in the news for the 2nd Monday in a row by joining with another huge name from the domain industry to form a new venture. Last week it was Ken Hansen that left Neustar to join Greg McNair and  in the Co.com registry and today its long time veteran in of Escrow.com Andee Hill  who left Escrow.com last week to join Mr. McNair in a new online escrow company EscrowHill.com which is based in New Zealand that was formed to compete with Escrow.com. The press release goes on to chat ... read more ...
 
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Scott Richter Gets Slammed By Krebsonsecurity.com As ICANN Sends Termination Of His Dynamic Dolphin Registrar -       A respected internet Security blog Krebsonsecurity.com ripped Scott Richter in a post covering ICANN’s notice of termination of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement of the domain name registrar, Dynamic Dolphin, a registrar that Krebs says “has long been closely associated with spam and cybercrime”. “The move came almost five years after this reporter asked the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to investigate whether the man at the helm of this registrar ... read more ...
Sun 24th November 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
Bought in 2007, Care.com To Go Public In 2014 - Care.com Inc., is planning to go public, in 2014 according to WSJ.com. According to the WSJ.com store, Care.com is an online service for hiring nannies and other at-home caregivers, and hired Morgan Stanley to lead the IPO, which is expected to raise around $100 million next year. Care.com operates a marketplace for baby sitters, dog walkers, housecleaners and other household caregivers. It has more than 8.8 million members, many who pay a monthly, quarterly or annual subscription to solicit service ... read more ...
 
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Godaddy’s Founder Bob Parsons reemerges As The Harley King - Bob Parsons, best known as the founder of GoDaddy.com, has reemerged as as the King of Harley Davidson dealerships, announcing the acquisition of Southern Thunder Harley-Davidson in Southaven, Mississippi by his company YAM Worldwide. Southern Thunder is Parsons’ first acquisition outside of Arizona. The deal also includes two popular alternative retail outlets, Graceland Harley-Davidson and Blues City Harley-Davidson, located in Memphis, Tennessee. Parsons is He is the CEO and founder of award-winning ... read more ...
Sat 23rd November 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
The Only Thing Forbes.com Missed About The Domain Name Industry Is The Billion+ Dollars Coming Into It - After spending a week at the ICANN Meeting with 2,000 + people which are pouring over a Billion dollars into the domain name industry, I read the piece in Forbes.com by Deborah L. Jacobs, who is a self proclaimed “woulda coulda shoulda” kind of girl who still dreams about all the money that was sitting on the table in 1995, 2005 which she missed and is still missing today, trying to figure out how to fit all of her “worldly possessions into a carry-on bag“. Ms. Jacobs took the opportunity ... read more ...
Fri 22nd November 2013
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What Does Paris Hilton, Marvel, Standard & Poor’s, Affliction Clothing, Virgin & Remy Martin Have In Common? UDRP’s - Some interesting complainants ranging from Paris Hilton, to Marvel Comics, Standard Poor’s, Affliction Clothing to Virgin and Remy Martin in the news, as they either filed or won UDRP’s on domain names today. Paris Hilton filed a UDRP on the domain name ParisHiltonPornVideos.com,  a domain that was registered since 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc filed a UDRP on the domains:   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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NetworkSolutions.com Tries To Sell A Domain Owner His Own Domain - The domain name Registrar, NetworkSolutions.com tried to sell Domain investor Abdu Tarabichi  of Domainsville.com his own domain name. Abdu got the following email from Network Solutions in which they tried to sell him the premium domain name Halallocator.com which he already owned and was registered at Networksolutions.com The domain name was registered in July 2013. The email offering Abdu the opportunity to acquire a domain name he already owns came in yesterday November 21st, 2013. It seems ... read more ...
 
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Heritage Auctions Sells $419,970 as 26 out of 68 lots sell - XZ.com leads them all selling for $120,000 plus the Buyers premium made the total cost. 26 out of the 68 lots sold, (excuse the initial headline when I copied and pasted originally a few of the sales showed up twice when I counted them) I thought it was really cool, logged in watched it live, the auctioneer I thought she was very good. Congrats to Aron all auctions should be like this for those who want to watch it over the Internet. All sales include Buyers Premium of 15 % 87001 DupontCircle.com, ... read more ...
Thu 21st November 2013
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GAC Communiqué: Wants To Look At “Public Policy Implications of Holding Auctions to Resolve String Contention” - The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) just issued its Buenos Aires Communiqué from the ICANN Meeting and “requests a briefing on the public policy implications of holding auctions to resolve string contention (including community applications)”. The GAC considers that new gTLD registry operators should be made aware of the importance of protecting children and their rights consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights ... read more ...
 
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Verisign Publishes Last Part Of Series On Possible Domain Collision: “SLD Blocking Is Too Risky Without TLD Rollback” - Verisign Published its final part of its 4 part series on domain collision and the new gTLD program entitled  “SLD Blocking Is Too Risky Without TLD Rollback”on the final day of the ICANN Meeting in Argentina. Here it is: “ICANN’s second level domain (SLD) blocking proposal includes a provision that a party may demonstrate that an SLD not in the initial sample set could cause “severe harm,” and that SLD can potentially be blocked for a certain period of time. The extent to which that ... read more ...
 
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Tasty: Yahoo Sells Sandwich.com For $137,500 On Sedo - Yahoo sold the domain name Sandwich for $137,500 on Sedo today as part of its themed auction. Only a handful of domains seemed to hit reserve and sell with Sandwich.com being highest sale by far. Sandwich.com has a reserve range of $50,000-$99,999 The domain name was first registered on July 3rd, 1997. The most active domain name in the auction was PostAJob.com had over125 bids and sold for $13,500. PostAJob.com has a reserve range of $500-$999   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD .UNO Selects Sedo For Sunrise & Landrush Auctions & Broker Premium Domains -   Dot Latin LLC  who is the registry for the new gTLD .Uno has selected Sedo, to conduct sunrise and landrush auctions, define a premium list of the extension’s most valuable assets and provide brokerage and additional auctions for its premium domains. Godaddy.com is already accepting pre-registrations for .Uno domain names starting  at $39.99 a year Dot Latin established .UNO to provide a domain extension that will globally connect and unite Hispanic and Latino communities, businesses, individuals ... read more ...
 
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Famous Four Media Selects Sedo For Auctions & Brokerage of Premium Domains -     Famous Four Media (FFM), today announced its has selected Sedo.com to conduct auctions, privately broker premium names and promote the different extensions under FFM’s management. FFM was one of the most active participants in the program, applying to manage 57 new gTLDs. I n the coming months, FFM will begin making 12 of these extensions available to the public, beginning with .BID and rapidly followed by .WEBCAM, .TRADE, .ACCOUNTANT and .REVIEW. The remaining extensions will be released ... read more ...
 
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15 Year Old Wolfpack.com “One of The Best Domains on The Internet” For Sale For $60K Hit With UDRP - A UDRP has just been filed against the domain name Wolfpack.com. Wolfpack.com is a dictionary term which means “a group of wolves that live, feed, and travel as a family group” The domain is going to a for sale page which says: “One of the Best domains on the Internet Wolfpack is for sale for purchase $60,000 O.B.O. The domain is owned by The Ascot Group, Inc of California which according to DomainTools.com has owned the domain since at least 2002. The domain was registered in 1997. According ... read more ...
Wed 20th November 2013
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FinanceIt.ca Raises $13 Million & Looks To Expand Into US Market - According to a press release out today FinanceIt, has raised a $13 million Series A financing. The company owns the domain name Financeit.ca “which is today a Canada-only play”. The domain name Financeit.com is owned by a US company evenmoney.com The press release goes on to say that they money will help the company expand to the United States, starting in 2014. I guess they are going to go with the .Ca to do business in the United States. As a company, FinanceIt offers a very interesting service: ... read more ...
 
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Nominate Approves .Uk Domain Names; .co.uk Holders to Get 1st Shot - Nominet the company that runs the .UK ccTLD on behalf of the United Kindom announced today that it was going ahead with its controversial plan to domain go launch the shorter .uk domain name not only to compete with all the thousands of new gTLD’s most notably .London,  but to bring the UK into line with other European countries such as France (.fr), Germany (.de) and Ireland (.ie) Nominet  existing .uk customers will be offered first refusal of the shorter equivalent of their current address, ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD Strings With The Smallest Number of Domains In Collision (Non-Brand, Non-IDN’s) - We have chatted about the new gTLD strings with the most number of collisions based on ICANN report  here are the 10 new gTLD’s with the smallest number of collisions, that are not Brand applications and not IDN’s: .MutualFunds 26 .CancerResearch 27 .Bargains 52 .Yachts  62 .Passagens (Portuguese for cheap) 67 .Gripe 120 .Voto (Spanish for Vote) 137 .Translations 138 .Guitars 142 .Exposed 142 .Kosher 143 Some other new gTLD strings with a low number of collisions include .Republican, .Democratic,  ... read more ...
Tue 19th November 2013
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Godaddy.com/Afternic.com Sells $1.67 Million In Domain names Led By ToughPad.com For $37K - Godaddy.com/Afternic.com released their weekly sales reporting $1,656,650 in domain name sales All sales were led by ToughPad.com which sold for $37K and TAMR.com which sold for $25K more than Rags.com which sold for $20K Here are the reportable sales:     <![CDATA[]]> Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Transactions Total $1.4 Million Led By Outbreak.com - 640 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.4 Million dollars This amounts to $59.9 million in year-to-date sales revenue. Over 46% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales include: ·         Top .coms: outbreak.com at 73,000 USD ·         Top ccTLD: publicidade.com.br at 17,000 USD ·         Top “other” TLD: arcadia.org at 5,500 USD Pay.La sold for $10K and Max.la sold for $4,500 Two .com.br ... read more ...
 
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Donuts Picks Sedo To Run Sunrise Auctions & Run Premium Domain Name Auctions - Donuts, Inc. selected Sedo, to  manage contention resolution for competing trademarked domains, and will also assist in auctioning premium names that will be reserved from general registration. Donuts will commence Sunrise periods in November 2013 and they will continue through the middle of 2014. Sunrise provides an opportunity for trademark holders to secure their names before domains are opened for public availability. In instances where there are multiple claims for the same mark, Sedo will ... read more ...