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.

Wed 13th November 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Snapnames.com End Of Year Auction Closes Tomorrow & Has Over $100K in Bids - Snapnames.com End of Year Premium domain name auction closes tomorrow, Thursday November 14th at 3:15PM EST As of time of publication there are over $100,000 bids on the domain at auction although most of those domains have not yet hit reserve including Susan.com that has a $25,000 bid and Direction.com that has a $20,500 bid. Here is a complete list of all the domains in the auction with the current high bid and reserve range:   <![CDATA[]]>Domain Name Bidders Current Bid ReserveRange ReserveStatus susan.com 1 25000 $25,001 ... read more ...
Tue 12th November 2013
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Afternic.com/Godaddy.com Sells $1.8MM in Domain Names, Led By SelectHomes.com For $21K - Afternic.com/Godaddy.com just report $1,802,489 in domain name sales for the week of November 4th – November 10th 2013 All sales were led by SelectHomes.com which sold for $21,000. Non .com sales were led by R2.Co which sold for $8K. southcarolinastatefair.com at $4,888 was one of our BIN domains that sold. Savealifetoday.com was included twice but we left it as it was in the totals provided Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
YourEDM.com “World’s Largest Electronic Dance Music News Site Acquires Rights To EDM.com” - According to a press release out this afternoon YourEDM.com the world’s largest electronic dance music (EDM) news site, The EDM Network. announced it acquired the rights to the domain EDM.com EDM.com was owned by a Jason Muir back in February of this year and is now owned under privacy. However the domain was owned by a Bruning Engineering, Inc in 2012. The company now owns these domain names:  EDM.com, YourEDM.com, Dubstep.NET, House.NET, TrapMusic.NET, GlitchHop.NET, Moombahton.NET, Electro.NET, ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Transactions Total Over $1.2 Million - Over the past week, 748 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.2 Million This amounts to $58 Million in year-to-date sales revenue. Over 45% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Sedo also congratulates  the buyer of iban.net: The website offers a free online software designed to validate an International Bank Account Number (IBAN) called “Reverse IBAN Checker”. “Now they moved from Reverseiban.com to iban.net – a much shorter and memorable ... read more ...
 
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DomainNameSales.com Sells $1.3 Million In Domains Led By Ride.com For $325K - DomainNameSales.com just reported its sales for October 16th- November 12th so a little less than a month reporting $1,291,612 in domain name sales. I’m told that the only sales reported are public sales handled by the brokerage team. DomainNameSales.com  does not track or report on  “self brokered” sales made by their customers without the help of the brokerage team All sales were led by Ride.com which sold for $325,000.   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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7 Year Old Domain jwines.com Saved in UDRP FIled By Holder of Jwine.com - J Vineyards Winery, L.P. which owns the domain jwine.com, lost a UDRP on the domain name jwines.com which was registered on December 17, 2005. The domain holder acquired the domain name from its previous owner on August 1, 2011. The domain holder was represented by Ari Goldberger and Jason Schaeffer of Esqwire.com. The three member panel found that while the complainant owned trademarks on J VINEYARDS and J VINEYARDS WINERY, none of Complainant’s alleged trademarks are identical or even remotely ... read more ...
 
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NameJet.com Is Not An Auctioneer, Its A Venue -         As we just wrote Namejet.com updated their Terms and Conditions last week and I took the opportunity to read through them I’m not sure what parts of the TOS changed (other than the addition of the Advanced Auction rules on new gTLD’s) but found this section particularly interesting: 3. NameJet is a Venue. 3.1 NameJet is not an Auctioneer. Although we state that the Site includes online auctions, it is important to realize that we are not a traditional “auctioneer.” Instead, the ... read more ...
 
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Here Are NameJet’s Terms & Conditions on New gTLD Auctions -         Namejet.com announced last week it would be auctioning off some new gTLD domain names in the strings .XYZ and .College, even before either new gTLD has been delegated to the root by ICANN. Some readers have questioned, exactly what they are bidding on since they can’t get the new gTLD domain if they win the auction and may not get the domain name. Namejet.com just updated its Terms Of Service last week in conjunction with the new gTLD domain auction and NameJet.com has specific rules ... read more ...
Mon 11th November 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.CLUB Signs Registry Agreement with ICANN -         .CLUB Domains, LLC, the company formed to own and operate the new “.CLUB” generic top-level domain name (gTLD), announced today it has signed its Registry Agreement with ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the international organization responsible for managing and coordinating the Domain Name System (DNS). .Club is Listed in the “Top 10” on Many Pre-Registration Sites, and within the top 30 of 1and1.com, one of the few new gTLD extensions where the ... read more ...
 
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1and1.com Starts Selling Preregistrations For .Bike; .Singles; .Holdings; .Clothing - Accrding to a press release we received today 1and1.com has started selling pre-registrations on the  new TLDs including: .BIKE .SINGLES .HOLDINGS .CLOTHING “These pre-registrations are on an exclusive first-come, first-serve basis, which means no other 11 customers are able to pre-register a domain option that has been previously chosen by another party.:” “On the specific launch date of the selected TLD, the allocation of domains is carried out by the domain registry.” If you thought that ... read more ...
 
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National Association Of Realtors: Do Not To Pay Preregister .Realtor Domains They Will Be Free -     In a blog post today on Realtor.org, the National Association of Realtors is warning its members and I guess anyone else who about thinking about preregistering a domain name in the new gTLD .Realtor not to bother doing it at Godaddy or anyone traditional domain name registrar: “Domain sellers such as GoDaddy are beginning to promote a list of top level domains which will become available, including .REALTOR.   These domain sellers have no relationship with NAR or the sale of .REALTOR ... read more ...
 
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Fairwinds: Time For UDRP Reform To Change Bad Faith Requirement From Registration Date To Renewals - Fairwinds Partners, which also heads up the Collation Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) has weighted in on the recent UDRP decision on Big5.com and whether the bad faith for a domain holder should be judged from only at the time the domain was first registered or acquired or each time the domain name was renewed on its blog today. Domain investor Nat Cohen wrote an excellent analysis of the issue on  domainarts.com, last week and I highly recommend that all domain holders take the time not only ... read more ...
Sun 10th November 2013
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Godaddy Goes All In On The New gTLD’s -                       Godaddy.com appears to have gone all in on the new gTLD’s. Gone from the front page of Godaddy is the drop down menu listing the different domain extension that are available for registration, replaced by a huge ad for preregistrations of just 4 new gTLD’s, .Uno, .Luxury, .Build, and .Menu. Actually the only other extension mentioned anywhere on the front page is .co which is right by the domain search bar. Instead of a drop down menu there is a “domain search ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Will Quorvus Become The New Hotel Brand For Carlson Hotels (Radisson, ParkPlaza, Country Inns) - Carlson Hotels which operates several hotel chains like Radisson Blu Radisson Park Plaza Park Inn by Radisson Country Inns Suites By Carlson Hotel Missoni Look like its getting to roll out another new Hotel group known as Quorvus According to some new registrations at brand protection company MarkMonitor.com it looks like Carlson is going to call a new line of hotels Quorvus registering Quorvus.com, Quorvuscollection.com, and even some typo’s like Quorvis.com We will keep any eye on this Here ... read more ...
 
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Quick Poll: How Much Will The Highest .College/.XYZ Sell For On Namejet.com? - This week Namejet.com started an auction fro 40 .college/.XYZ new gTLD domain names. These are the first new gTLD’s to go up for sale anywhere in the world. Today’s quick poll questions is not which domain will sell for the most, but what will be the the highest price that any one of these domain will sell for. Again to be clear, we are not asking what the total amount of the auction will be but what is the highest price that will be paid for one of these domains. Your choices range from under ... read more ...
Sat 9th November 2013
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Designer Isaac Mizrah Loses UDRP Bid To Get The Domain isaacMizrahiLive.com - In a UDRP decision certain to drive brand owners crazy, IM Brands, Inc. which represents designer Isaac Mizrah lost a UDRP on domain name isaacmizrahilive.com Its so interesting that some UDRP panels use all sort of convoluted logic to give generic domains to trademark holders,2 this panel didn’t seem to question why the domain owner would own this domain without the trademark holder in mind. Here the domain holder did not respond to the UDRP, offered to sell the domain and the record is silent ... read more ...
Fri 8th November 2013
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Verisign Publishes 2nd Part of 4 Part Series On Why Domain Blocking Of New gTLD’s Isn’t Good Enough - Verisign just released the second in a four part series of why ICANN’s effort to fix the potential collision issue caused by the release of new gTLD’s, by blocking domain registrations, isn’t good enough to fix the potential problems Here is the second post of the promised four part series: For several years, DNS-OARC has been collecting DNS query data “from busy and interesting DNS name servers” as part of an annual “Day-in-the-Life” (DITL) effort (an effort originated by CAIDA in ... read more ...
 
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NaturallyBorn.com Saved In UDRP - The domain name NaturallyBorn.com was saved in a UDRP today The domain holder was represented by John Berryhill Here are the relevant facts and findings by the three member panel: Complainant made the following contentions. 1.    Complainant established the website naturallyborn.net in December 2010.  This website provides information about natural methods of child birthing and breastfeeding, as well as online reviews of natural childbirth and breastfeeding support providers. 2.    Complainant ... read more ...
 
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UPDATED: NamesCon Conference Selects The The Tropicana Hotel In Vegas & Rooms Start At $79 - NamesCon.com a new domain conference being held in Las Vegas On January 13th-15th has selected the The Tropicana Hotel as the venue for its first conference and has secured a ridiculously low rate of $79 per night (plus a $10 “resort fee” — that includes guestroom WiFi). for attendees. To make a reservation for a hotel room: You can begin by calling 1-800-634-4000 and reference NamesCon or the group code SNC14. According to Richard, who also considered Flamingo, Monte Carlo, Rio , the Tropicana ... read more ...
 
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NCSG: ICANN Board-Staff Violated Its Own Corporate Bylaws By Unilaterally Imposing “TM+50 Policy” - The Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) says ICANN Board-staff violated ICANN Bylaws by adopting the Trademark+50 policy without following the proper policy modification process The specific policy at issue in this CEP is ICANN staff’s unilateral decision to grant trademark holders significantly greater rights via its “trademark plus 50” (“TM+50”) policy in contradiction to the GNSO Council’s policy recommendations and implementation guidance and the process described in ICANN’s ... read more ...
 
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NameJet.com To Auction .XYZ & .College Domain Names Starting This Month - NameJet and XYZ.COM announced they  have partnered  “in a groundbreaking advanced auction format prior to the release of the TLD to the open market in 2014.” “Forty premium .XYZ and .COLLEGE domain names will be offered in this first-of-its-kind advance auction, where  the highest bidder purchases an option to acquire the domain at the winning price, taking possession of the domain when it becomes available at the registry.” “As more gTLDs become available, individuals and organizations ... read more ...
 
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How Your Premium Domain Might Be Sold By Godaddy As People Try To Preregistrations A New gTLD - With Godaddy taking paid preregistrations on four new gTLD’s today, .Luxury, .Build, .Menu and .Uno, your chances of selling your premium domain name may increase if its listed in Godaddy resale channel. As people search to preregister a new gTLD domain,  if that domain isn’t available because its  already preregistered or reserved by the registry (Godaddy doesn’t distinguish) they are showing alternative domain names and all of the alternatives as of now, are either unregistered .org .net ... read more ...
Thu 7th November 2013
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ICANN: No New gTLD’s Last Resort Auctions Until Early Mar 2014 - In a webinar held by ICANN today on its Last Resort Auction for new gTLD strings in contention,  ICANN stated that no new gTLD ICANN last resort auction will be held in 2013 and most likely not until March 2014. Moreover the ICANN schedule is 10-20 auctions per month, with no applicant being able to participate in more than 5 auctions per month. So a company like Donuts which has over 100 applications in contention, based on the current time frame could be looking at a couple of years to settle ... read more ...
 
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Demand Reports: Media business Negatively Impacted by Declines in Search Referral Traffic & Advertising Demand -  Demand Media, Inc. (DMD), reported its earnings after the market closed today. Demand’s earnings were in line with estimates, but revenue was above estimates. However it seems like Demand is fighting a losing battle on the eHow front as changes in Google search algorithm is negatively effecting that part of the business. For Demand in My opinion the spin off of the domain service business can’t happen soon enough “This quarter, our media business was negatively impacted by declines in search ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Owner Of CarCovers.com Claims They Bought The Domain For Over $310,000 In 2012 - According to a press release out today the owners of CarCovers.com claim they paid an amount for the domain name in 2012 which would have placed it the top 10 most expensive domain names in 2012 According to DnJournal.com for 2012 the 11th most expensive domain reported that year was 60.com which was $310,000 Tied for number 9 on the 2012 reported domain name sales was Bj.com and Vi.com which both sold for $325,000 So to make the top 10 list the domain name CarCovers.com would have had to sell for ... read more ...