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.

Thu 7th November 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Cairns Airport Pty Ltd of Queensland, Australia, Guilty Of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) - Cairns Airport Pty Ltd of Cairns, Queensland, Australia, represented by McCullough Robertson Lawyers, Australia has been found GUILTY of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking on two domain names owned by two different owners; cairnsairportparking.com.au (first domain name) and airportparkingcairns.net.au (second domain name) “Paragraph 15(e) of the Rules provides that, if “after considering the submissions the Panel finds that the complaint was brought in bad faith, for example in an attempt at Reverse ... read more ...
 
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KK.com Sells For $2.4 Million Dollars In A Deal Brokered By Moniker.com/SnapNames - The domain name KK.com just sold for $2.4 Million Dollars. brokered by Moniker.com /Snapnames.com The news was posted on the company’s Facebook pages “Congratulations to the Moniker SnapNames Brokerage Team, and Brokers Kevin Kopas and John Mauriello for the sale of KK.com. The domain sold at a price of $2,400,000.00. Great work!” The domain name is now in the name of Liang Zeng of Zijin Digital Plaza in Bejing China according to DomainTools.com The domain name was owned under privacy for ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD Program Committe Denies 3 Reconsideration Request But Punts On .Amazon - The  New gTLD Program Committee (NPGC) of ICANN denied several requests for reconsideration in its latest meeting of which the minutes published last night, while punting on reconsideration requests Amazon on .Amazon. The NGPC denied the requests for reconsideration of Hotel Top-Level-Domain S.a.r.l’s (“dotHotel”) of the 8 August 2013 Expert Determination from a dispute resolution panel established by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) dismissing dotHotel’s objection ... read more ...
Wed 6th November 2013
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Verisign Rolls Out 4 Part Series On Why Second Level Domain Blocking For New gTLD’s Isn’t Good Enough - Verisign just published the 1st of a new 4 part series on the potential collision issue arising from new gTLD’s this one authored by Burt Kaliski. Verisign message is  “the introduction of a new generic top-level domain (gTLD) at the global DNS root could result in name collisions with previously installed systems” and that ICANN  “alternate path” for new gTLD’s to launch of blocking any SLDs associated with the new gTLD in the “Day-in-the-Life of the Internet” (DITL) and other ... read more ...
 
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Web-Design.com Sells For $38,500; ClassicTrader.com Sells For $39,000 - The domain name Web-Design.com just sold for $24,001 GBP, which equates to just over $38,500. The domain name was most recently owned by  SANDERA LTD, The domain names ClassicTrader.com also sold today for 29,000 euro’s which is over $38,000. ClassicTrader.com was owned by a company out of Luxembourg. Two very nice sales. Congrats to the buyers and sellers..   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Trademark Holder Lets Its Domain Drop & UDRP Says They Can’t Have It Back - Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. lost its attempt to grab the domain name valiant-ent.tv  which  was registered on August 18, 2013. Its an interesting opinion and one of the first times I have ever read a UDRP decision where the panel recognizes that a company that allows its domain to drop is at least partially to blame: “The Panel finds that the Complainant’s failure to renew its domain registration and not act promptly in re-registering the name is, realistically, a causative element ... read more ...
 
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United Parcel Service Wins UDRP On The Domain Driveups.com - United Parcel Service of America Inc. just won a UDRP on the the Domain Name Driveups.com UPS asserted that Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name and instead, in light of the fame of Complainant’s mark, is acting with opportunistic bad faith. Complainant points to the extensive use by Complainant of its UPS mark years prior to Respondent’s acquisition and use of the disputed domain name. Complainant asserts that Respondent has no relationship with UPS and ... read more ...
 
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Donuts 1st 7 New gTLD’s Will Not Have a Landrush Period But Go Live After Sunrise On Jan 29 - Donuts Inc., today announced that the “Sunrise” period for the first seven new gTLD  names, the window during which trademark rights holders have exclusive access to registrations, will begin November 26, and close January 24, 2014. The other big news from today’s announcement is that  “Donuts will forgo a traditional land-rush and move directly to general availability to all registrants on January 29, 2014.” Without a Landrush period pre-registrations will really come into effect as ... read more ...
 
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Donuts: .Com Is Like A Department Store, We are Building An Entire Shopping Mall - Clickz.com, , just published an interview with Jon Nevett one of the founders of Donuts and Mason Cole their VP of Communications and I found a few very interesting quotes. Jon Nevett is quoted as saying “At a high level the existing name space is overused and worn out. As new businesses start up, they can’t find what they want in the existing name space so they end up with a crazy mix of consonants and vowels because that’s all that’s available in dot com. So they end up with newyork35avepizza.com ... read more ...
 
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.Cam Objection Fall Out: Demand Media Compains About Panels Reaching Different Conclusion on Same String - Another day and another applicant is complaining a new gTLD Dispute Resolution panels. Today its Demand Media, Inc, (DMD) complaining to Cherine Chalaby, Chair of  ICANN New gTLD Program Committee over the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) on the objections filed by VeriSign against the three applicants for .CAM.In two of the cases a ICDR panel rejected the application of Verisign finding that .cam was not confusingly similar to .com but in the third case involving Demand Media, ... read more ...
Tue 5th November 2013
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Afternic.com/Godaddy.com Sells $1,821,172 in Domain Names, Led By Outbreak.com For $73K - Afternic.com/Godaddy.com just released its weekly sales report with $1,821,172 in sales. All sales were led by OutBreak.com which sold for $73,000.  The domain was sold by Dreamissary from Oakland Ca. Non .com sales were led by shiver.net which sold for $10K and no I don’t get it either but good for the seller.   <![CDATA[]]> Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Marchex’s Archeo Division Sells 81 Domains For $1.9 Million; Ave Price $23,500 -   Marchex report earnings today after the market closed and its Archeo unit which operates the domain name portfolio of Marchex sold a total of 81 domain names for $1.9 Million in the third quarter of 2013. The total sales in the 3rd quarter averaged $23,457 per domain based on the total sales figures Archeo had total revenue of $4 Million dollars for the quarter meaning their domain monetized over $2 million dollars in revenue in the quarter. Here are the details: Archeo Q3 Business Highlights: Revenue. ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Transactions Total $1.2 Million; 49% Are Buy It Now - Sedo just issued their weekly report  for the past week, 614 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.2 Million Dollars. This amounts to $57.2 Million in year-to-date sales revenue. Over 49% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings which I think is an all time high percentage for Sedo. Highlights of public sales include: ·         Top .coms: phonetracker.com at 50,000 USD ·         Top ccTLD: label.ca at 11,950 USD ·         ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD Program Committee Accepts GAC Advice On Cat 1 & 2 Beijing Communiqué Safeguards - In a letter sent to Heather Dryden
, Chair, Governmental Advisory Committee by the New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) ,  they are intending to accept the GAC’s Beijing Communiqué advice concerning Category 1 and Category 2 Safeguards. The result of the NPGC action is that some new gTLD’s in the same vertical will be open to anyone who wants to register a domain name, while others will fall into the highly restricted category and can only be registered by those that are licensed or meet the ... read more ...
 
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.Sport Fallout: 12 Applicants Call On ICANN To Add An Appeals Proceess For Community Objection Proceedings - The fallout from the .Sport objection continues as 12 new gTLD applicants sent a letter to ICANN today signed  “expressing our ever-growing concerns relating to the Community Objection process”. A ICC panel upheld the objection of SportAccord to Famous Four application for .Sport finding that SportAccord represented the community of “Sports” The letter was signed by Radix Registry and co-signed by 11 new gTLD applicants, United TLD Holdco Ltd.,  DotClub Domains, LLC, Top Level Design, ... read more ...
 
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Demand Media’s Domain Services Spinoff Is Rightside.co & Names Taryn Naidu As CEO -     Demand Media, Inc. (NYSE: DMD),  that it has selected the name Rightside Group, Ltd. (“Rightside”) for the spun off domain services business. The company is going with the domain name Rightside.co. Taryn Naidu, who currently serves as Demand Media’s Executive Vice President of Domain Services, will become the CEO and a Director of the newly formed domain services company that is proposed to be spun off from Demand Media. Rightside will include the domain name registrars eNom, Name.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
How Much Is A Category Killer Domain Worth? CarLoans.com.au Generates $40 Million in 6 Months - Smartcompany.com.au, just published a success story that all domainers can use as the poster child for potential buyers of great domain names. It makes the best case for buying a great domain name and building your business around as I have ever read. The owner of CarLoans.com.au says he purchased the domain name in June and has increased the company’s business by $40 million dollars. “In June, Shaun McGowan’s business, Beep.com.au, was turning over $60 million. Five months later the company ... read more ...
Mon 4th November 2013
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NameJet.com Releases $386,000 In Domain Sales For October -           NameJet.com released its reportable domain name sales for October totaling  over $386,000. Only sales of $2,000 or more were included. We were the 2nd high bidder on GoodJobs.com which sold for $15,766. Here are the reported sales for the month:   <![CDATA[]]>    Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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With New gTLD’s Coming To Market .TO Rebrands Itself To Represent Toronto -           .To has become the second country code (ccTLD) to rebrand itself to represent a city. Following on the succesful rebranding of .La which is the ccTLD for Laos for Los Angeles , .TO which is the ccTLD for Tonga send out a press release today announcing the re-launch .TO for Toronto “Comparatively  speaking, .TO is wide open”, observed Eric Lyons, of Tonic – the .TO registry operator. “There are thousands of generic keywords and highly brandable names available for registration ... read more ...
 
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Epik Starts Charging $199 For New gTLD’s Pre-Reservations - Epik is taking pre-reservations for new gTLD’s and are charging for it I just got this email from Epik.com: Hello, “I am contacting you in regards to your domain name VETERINARYDENTIST.COM. As you may be aware, starting this Fall, the world of domain names is undergoing a very significant change. After more than 20 years of .COM, a much larger selection of descriptive domains will become available. More to the point, the new domain .VET will soon be available to interested parties.” “The ... read more ...
 
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RockLive.com Purchase For $40K: New Social Network Shots Of Me Backed By Beiber To Launch Without Matching Domains - According to the Fortune’s Term Sheet,  a “new teen-focused social network called Shots Of Me will launch later this week, under the RockLive brand.” The company Rock Live bought its domain name RockLive.com from Marchex for $40,000 and was part of the 500 domain name sales Marchex announced back in November 2012. The social network Shots of Me is making news because its “new lead investor is perhaps the world’s most famous teenager, Justin Bieber.” “Fortune has learned that Bieber ... read more ...
 
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WIPO Panel Rejects Johnsons & Johnsons UDRP Claim on 17 Year Old Domain Johnsons.com - A WIPO rejected Johnson Johnson UDRP claim on the domain name Johnsons.com The domain holder was represented by Karen J. Bernstein. The domain name has been owned by the domain holder since November 12, 2006. Not only did the three member panel not find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking but one panelist, Peter Rindforth dissented with this majority finding that the domain name was registered in bad faith, although he agreed with the majority that the domain name was not used in bad faith. The panel ... read more ...
Sat 2nd November 2013
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ICANN Issues Rules For Last Resort Auction But Fails To Address Many Of Applicants Concerns - ICANN published rules for its Last Resort auction last night. To bid in an auction each applicant will have to put up 10% of its maximum bid and if they want to bid an unlimited amount or more than $20 Million they have to put up $2 million per string. Under the rules applicants will not be able to ‘”share” the deposit (although once concluded the money can be moved to another auction) theoretically if an applicant for a large number of applications in contention wanted the ability to bid over ... read more ...
Fri 1st November 2013
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DomainTools.com Rolls Out Redesigned Site - A reader noticed that DomainTools.com has undergone a pretty dramatic designed home page today. The home page has a much more modern look and feel. Interestedly DomainTools.com which seemed to start out as a product geared towards the domainer community is now highlighting the usefulness of the site as a tool for Law Enforcement and Brand Protection Companies. According to Tim Chen of DomainTools.com, the general context of site resign is really the the homepage which was meant to: -starting to focus ... read more ...
 
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ICANN Board Of Directors Get Over $1.7 Million In Compensations & Reimbursements in FY 2013 - This table represents reimbursements and compensation paid directly to Board Members, payments made to third party vendors such as hotels, restaurants, and travel agencies on behalf of Board Members as well as a total of the three amounts. This is only compensation and reimbursements for the Directors. Not included are compensation paid as Officers and Employees. This is for the fiscal year of 2013 which ends on June 30, 2013. Compensation amounts reflect amounts effectively paid in FY13, including ... read more ...