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 19th November 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
Trademark Holder of “Ovation Hair” Registered In 2012 Wins UDRP On Ovation.com Registered in 2008 - The owner of a trademark on Ovation Hair, DC Labs Inc. was awarded the generic domain name Ovation.com by a one member panel although the term Ovation is a generic term and the trademark OVATION HAIR was not granted by the USPTO until 4 years after the domain name Ovation.com was acquired by the domain holder Of course the trademark was for a broader term than the domain name itself. Its a horrible decision in which the one one member panel of Eduardo Machado found a common law trademark to the ... read more ...
 
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13 Year Old Calibers.com Saved In UDRP But Panel Fails To Find RDNH Despite No Bad Faith, Legitimate Use & Generic Term - Calibers National Shooters Sports Center, LC lost its claim to grab the domain name calibers.com, however the panel refused to find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) despite the fact that they found the domain holder had legitimate interests in the disputed domain name and did not register and use the disputed domain name in bad faith The Panel hold that Complainant has not established a prima facie case in support of its arguments that Respondent lacks rights and legitimate interests under Policy ... read more ...
 
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NameJet.com Pulls All 16 New gTLD Domain Names On Collision List Out of Auction - After ICANN released the collision list today for all new gTLD strings, Namejet.com informed TheDomains.com that it has pulled all auction for new gTLD domain names that were on the collision list. NameJet.com in conjunction with the .XYZ and .College registry has been first out of the block to sell new gTLD domain names by auction certain new gTLD domain names off on its platform However after ICANN released the collision report today, identifying domain names in each new gTLD which cannot be sold, ... read more ...
Mon 18th November 2013
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WOW: .Wow Leads All Strings In Number of Domains On Collision Report With Over 205,000 - Wow is right .Wow has the highest number of collisions in the ICANN report of new gTLD strings released today with over 205,000 domain names. I think most people in the domain industry wouldn’t  think there would be 200K domain registrations in .Wow much less than 205,000 strings in the collision report. For the record here are the top 10 new gTLD with the most domain names listed on the collision report: .Wow .Host .Gold .Hotel .Dell .Telefonica .Samsung .House .Auto .Computer     Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
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LoveRoom Gets Some Love By Business Insiders But The Real Winner Is Thought Convergence Owner Of LoveRoom.com - Businessinsider.com just covered the launch of Love Room, The startup boasts that it’s “a platform where single people from all around the world can rent their living space to others under one condition: they need to be attractive.”   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Former Oversee CEO Jeff Kupietzky Of PowerInbox/SecretInk Interviewed By Business Insider - Businessinsider.com just interviewed the Jeff Kupietzky the former CEO of Oversee.net, which DomainSponsor.com about his newest venture PowerInbox and its SecretInk, app for sending and receiving free self-destructing text. BUSINESS INSIDER: Seems like the easiest way to describe your app is “Snapchat for text.” Is that about right? JEFF KUPIETZKY: We share similar mechanics with SnapChat but we feel SecretInk is more useful as you can convey more precise information in text format (passwords, ... read more ...
Sun 17th November 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
Mashable’s 18 Tools For Picking The Perfect Domain Doesn’t Include Any Aftermarket Channels - Mashable.com just published a post entitled “18 tools for picking the perfect domain” “Choosing a domain name for your product, service or business can be one of the most challenging steps in establishing your online identity. While it’s important to choose your name wisely, it can be difficult to craft a creative name that describes the essence of your business.” “Your name needs to be snappy, memorable and successfully communicate something about your business, and because so many top-level ... read more ...
Fri 15th November 2013
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265 Million Domains: We Asked What Happened To The Verisign Report & Tonight Verisign Answered With The Numbers - Earlier today we asked what happened to the Verisign Quarterly  Domain Name Industry Brief that has been missing for 2013 and tonight Verisign answered us. In in a post on the company blog Verisign releasing an series of three infographics showing that current worldwide domain name registrations sit at 265 Million domains as of the end of the 3rd quarter of 2013, up from 252 million reported by Verisign as of December 31, 2012.” In the blog post Verisign writes: “Today Verisign announced that ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Oversee.net Launches New Travel Site Dedicated to 2-4 Day Getaways: WanderWe.com - Oversee.net announced tonight, that is launched a new travel site,  Wanderwe.com, where “weekend travelers can now book all aspects of their weekend getaway including hotel, activities and tours. ” “WanderWe, the only online travel site completely focused on the 2 – 4 day getaway market, focuses on flexible destination search for travel within the next 60 days. ” “This means they can search for unique experiences based on budget and lifestyle interests, narrowing down their choices after ... read more ...
 
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Ken Hansen Of NeuStar Resigns to Launch The Co.com Registry With Greg McNair & Paul Goldstone - According to press release we received, “three well known domain industry leaders have teamed up to launch the co.com registry that will allow users to “register the .com domain names they’ve always wanted!” Ken Hansen (formerly of Neustar) will lead the new venture as CEO, joining Paul Goldstone (President), and Gregg McNair (Chairman). Ken Hansen “When Paul asked me to work with him to build a ‘dream team’ for co.com, I immediately thought of Ken Hansen as our leader. Today our CEO ... read more ...
 
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What Happened To Verisign’s Quarterly Domain Name Industry Report? -   Verisign which had been releasing a quarterly report on the domain name industry seems to be  Missing in Action. The last Domain Name Industry Report was  published for the quarter ending December 31, 2012. Verisign had been issuing quarterly reports containing the number of total domain names registrations with a break down ccTLD’s has been a no show in 2013. Verisign’s last quarterly report it issued was for December 2012 showed 252 million domain names registered  worldwide. As you ... read more ...
 
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.London All Over The News Today As Its Signs Contract With ICANN - The new gTLD .London is all over news today as the Board of Top Level Domain Holdings (AIM: TLDH) reported that its client, Dot London Domains Ltd (“Dot London”), has signed the contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) allowing the new top level domain, .LONDON,  to proceed to the final round of pre-delegation testing before being introduced into the Internet’s root zone in 2014. Dot London is a subsidiary of London Partners, the official promotional ... read more ...
Thu 14th November 2013
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.Kiwi Launches Founders Program - The .Kiwi registry has formally launched a Founders Program for the .Kiwi new gTLD and has broken it down between several different levels of involvment Launch Community Individuals and organizations who show early interest in .kiwi, and are eager to promote their Kiwi-ness. Only a select few will have the opportunity to join the .kiwi Launch Community. Register your interest with us now to be kept in the loop about potential future offerings. Launch Partners Organizations that are so confident in ... read more ...
 
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JustCloud.com Buys Mega.Co For $60,000 - JustCloud.com a company which allows you to store all you “information in the cloud” just bought the domain name Mega.co for $60,000 The domain name was owned by  InterNetworX Ltd. Co. KG. The domain sale was brokered by Rocket Name™ According to Rocketname.com, it’s the fifth biggest .co sale to date after O.Co ($350,000), e.Co ($81,000), cruises.co ($82,500) and mesothelioma.co ($76,000). It should be noted that e.Co was subsequently sold for more than $81,000 in a unreported transaction. Mega.com ... read more ...
 
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Verisign Publishes 3rd Part of Four Part Series On Name Collisions - Verisign publishes the 3rd part of a new 4 part series on name collisions last night. “Blocking a second level domain (SLD) simply on the basis that it was queried for in a past sample set runs a significant risk of false positives.  SLDs that could have been delegated safely may be excluded on quantitative evidence alone, limiting the value of the new gTLD until the status of the SLD can be proven otherwise. Similarly, not blocking an SLD on the basis that it was not queried for in a past sample ... read more ...
 
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Timbermate Products Pty Ltd Guilty Of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Timbermate Products Pty Ltd of Nunawading, Victoria, Australia, represented by K L Gates LLP, Australia has just been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on the domain name Timbermate.com The one member panel of Tony Willoughby gives an excellent recap of UDRP decisions where RDNH was found and the basis for finding RDNH. Here are the relevant facts and findings by Mr. Willoughby: The Complainant has owned its domain name timbermate.com.au since at least December 7, 1998. The Domain ... read more ...
 
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Architelos Publishes The Second Installment of a NameSentry Namespace Quality Report - Architelos, Inc. announced today the publication of the second installment of the NameSentry Namespace Quality Report. The report benchmarks the comparative safety of the Internet and its largest Top Level Domains (TLDs) by measuring by the prevalence of security threats such as malware, phishing, botnets, and spam. The findings indicate a 67% increase of domain names identified and listed as “abusive” by major blocklists from January to September 2013, and that at least 5.5% of newly registered ... read more ...
 
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True Category Killer Hits The Market, Fashion.com But Why Is Schilling Brokering Not Buying It? - We get press releases about domain names for sale almost every day but this one really caught our eye. The domain name is Fashion.com Its a huge vertical, certainly a top 100 generic .com domain name and certainly worth into the eight figures According to the press release the domain is being brokered jointly by DomainNameSales.com and igloo.com. DomainNameSales of course was founded and is owned by Frank Schilling. Frank Schilling also is the founder of Uniregistry a company which applied for over ... read more ...
 
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.CLUB Partners with RightOfTheDot.com for “Category Killer” Premium & Founder Program Domain Sales and Strategy - Although I rarely write about projects I’m personally working on, I’m delighted to announced that .CLUB Domains, LLC, the company formed to own and operate the new “.CLUB” generic top-level domain name (gTLD), has partnered with Internet consulting and advisement firm RightOfTheDot, LLC to help facilitate and manage the release, placement and auction of certain super premium and Founder .CLUB domain names. Super premium names may include such “category killers” as a.club, e.club, 888.club, ... read more ...
 
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New Pizza Chain Spends a Whole $500 To Secure Its Brand, YourPie.com -               This is a new pizza chain starting to gain some momentum has now added South Florida to its locations. Your Pie which started in 2008 the same year  the domain name YourPie.com was acquired the domain at a Godaddy.com auction for a whopping $500, which is now the name for the pizza chain which is busy franchising locations. The chain is now in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee. Another example of someone selling a highly brandable domain name for pennies on the ... read more ...
Wed 13th November 2013
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Tucows Sells Over $4 Million In Domains Names In 3rd Quarter Or Gets A Lot Of Money For New gTLD Strings -   Tucows Inc. (NYSE AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC), today reported its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2013 beating EPS estimates by $0.03 and beating revenue estimates by $3.8M. Shares are trading up over 15% after hours. Tucows sold a total of  $4.167,000 in domain names for the 3rd quarter of 2013 or maybe not. To be clear Tucows reported portfolio income of $4.1 million which has always consisted of  domain name sales but now includes some serious cash they may have gotten ... read more ...
 
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1and1.com Tops 4 Million New gTLD Pre-Reservations; Adding 1.5 Million In a Month -                       The domain name registrar, 1and1.com just topped 4 Million pre-reservations for new gTLD domain names. The registrar announced earlier this week that they were accepting pre-registrations for 4 new gTLD’s, .BIKE, .SINGLES, .HOLDINGS and .CLOTHING which are different that pre-reservations. 1and1.com recently announced they have spent over $50 million dollars in television and other marketing of new gTLD domain name pre-reservations. On October 24th 1and1.com passed ... read more ...
 
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Troubling: Federal Court Gives ShareTv.com To ShareTv.Org Despite .Com Registered 3 Years Earlier & 7 Years Before TM - In a troubling development for all domain investors, The United States District Court for the Eastern District Of Virginia has awarded the domain name Sharetv.com to the owner of ShareTv.org under a lawsuit brought under the Lanham Act and Virginia’s Unfair Competition Act. (Case No. 1:13-cv-00506, Dkt No. 1) Although ShareTv.org had a federally registered trademark on the term ShareTV, the domain name Sharetv.com was registered three years before the Plaintiff’s own domain name ShareTV.org was  ... read more ...
 
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Sedo.com Is Running Yahoo Premium Domain Auction Featuring AV.com - Sedo.com is running a Branded Yahoo.com Premium Domain Name Auction. The auction starts tomorrow November 14th and ends On November 21. It is the first time I have seen a branded domain name auction of a public company’s domain names. There are 29 domain names in the auction led by AV.com which has a stated reserve range of $1M-$1.5M MyM.com has a reserve range of $100K- $250K There are certainly some nice domain names on the list Here are all the domain names in the Yahoo Domain Auction as of ... read more ...
 
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Brands May Lead The New gTLD’s But They May Also Lead The Confusion - Many expect the Brand applicants are to lead the new gTLD charge by bringing consumer awareness to the new gTLD program. To the extent consumers start seeing advertising on domain names using new gTLD’s , consumers may become much more aware of new gTLD domain names. However company’s are still using what I call the “indiscriminate dot” in its advertising, marketing and branding  which is only going to confuse consumers even more. At the recently held TRAFFIC conference I sat in a session ... read more ...