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 15th October 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Godaddy/Afternic.com Sells $1,780,000 in Domain Names Led By Likers.com For $28K - Godaddy.com/Afternic.com just released its weekly sales report for the week of 10/7/13 – 10/13/13 Total domain sales for the week, including confidential sales and sales under $1,000, summed to  $1,779,357. Sales were led by Likers.com for $28,0000 and Rah.com for $20K. Non .com sales were led by Fn.net which sold for $15,050 Here are all the reportable sales:   <![CDATA[]]> Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Last Sold In 2005 For $1.4 Million, VIP.com Is Sold To Publicly Held VipShop.com - Publicly traded VipShop.com (NYSE: VIPS) whose site is VipShop.com has quietly acquired the domain name VIP.com. The company has a market cap of $3.77 billion dollars. It appears according to DomainTools.com the company acquired the domain just a few weeks ago at or around September 24th, 2013. I haven’t seen any announcement on the sale and VipShop.com has not issued a  press release. Back in 2005 it was reported that British betting site operator Leisure Gaming PLC  paid $1.4 million to acquire ... read more ...
 
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Demand Media Shares Hit 52 Week Low After Rosenblatt Resigns - Shares of Demand Media, Inc. (DMD) hit a 52 week low today closing at $5.34 down almost 9% in the first day of trading since Richard Rosenblatt resigned as CEO and Chairman Share hit inter-day low of $5.31. Demand Media, Inc. is now over almost 50% off its 52 week high of $10.34 Volume today was over double of its  90 day average. Demand Media, Inc. now has a market cap of $466 million. Demand went public at $17 a share.     Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Sedo.com Transactions Total $1MM Led By USA.org For $56K - Sedo.com just published their domain transactions for the week 10/7/13 – 10/13/13 totaling $1MM. Over the past week, 698 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling over $1MM. This amounts to $53.1MM in year-to-date sales revenue. Over 45% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales include: - Top .coms: triglycerides.com and nineforums.com each at 25,000 USD - Top ccTLD: startup.tv at 8,750 USD - Top “other” TLD: USA.org at 56,000 ... read more ...
 
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Teen.XXX Sells For $400K; 3 More Domains For $200K & Really Useful Says .XXX Performing Better Than .Com’s - According to a press release we just received from ICM Registry the operator of the .XXX registry, Really Useful Limited, which is one of the world’s leading adult producers, has invested over $600,000 in new .XXX domains buying Teen.XXX for $400,000 and acquired Mature.xxx, Bdsm.xxx and PublicSex.xxx for an additional $200,000 With these purchases JT has invested over $800,000 in .XXX Premium names. JT is The owner and chairman Really Useful Limited and is one of the original founding members ... read more ...
 
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CADNA Calls On Congress To Increase Cybersquatting Penalties Under The ACPA & Include Registrars/Registries - The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) posted a story on its site, written by Warren Communications News, Inc.,  which quotes Josh Bourne Director of CADNA: “The problem of cybersquatting is going to “explode by at least 2,500 percent when new gTLDs go live” “CADNA will start a letter-writing campaign and continue to seek a sponsor for a revision to 1999′s Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA).” “CADNA’s proposed revamp would establish stronger deterrence for ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Elliot’s Blog Rebrands as DomainInvesting.com - Popular domain investing website, Elliot’s Blog has rebranded and re-launced today as DomainInvesting.com. Elliot’s Blog, was established in 2007 by Internet entrepreneur and domain investor Elliot Silver. The rebranded website was launched this morning, and visitors to the ElliotsBlog.com domain name are now automatically redirected to the DomainInvesting.com website. Elliot say “I privately acquired DomainInvesting.com earlier this year,” and  “I believe rebranding as DomainInvesting.com ... read more ...
 
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BGC Rejects Reconsideration Requests: 2 Panels Can Come To Different Decisions on Same Strings: Even The BGC - The Board Governance Committee (BGC) of ICANN rejected two request for reconsideration (“Request”)  over two decisions by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (“ICDR”) One request was brought by Amazon over the decision sustaining Commercial Connect LLC’s (“Commercial Connect”) objection to Amazon’s new gTLD application for the Japanese translation of “online shopping” (“Amazon’s Applied-for String”) as being confusingly similar to Commercial Connect’s application ... read more ...
 
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Inc. Asks Do You Really Need A .Com -                   In a post tonight Inc.com asks Do you Really Need A  .Com? “If you’ve started a business any time in the last 15 to 20 years, you’ve probably struggled with the same issue. There’s the-name-you-wish-you-could-have.com but you can’t have it because someone else already does. There’s the-stupidly-long-name-no-one-will-remember.com but no one will remember it. Or, there’s the-weird-made-up-word-no-one-grabbed-yet.com. ” “That last category is what gave ... read more ...
Mon 14th October 2013
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Demand Media CEO & Chairman Rosenblatt Resigns - Demand Media (DMD) CEO and Chairman Richard Rosenblatt resigned today. The resignation of CEO is effective October 31, 2013, and as Chairman is effective immediately The board has appointed Shawn Colo as interim President, effective immediately, and as interim CEO, to be effective upon Mr. Rosenblatts resignation. James Quandt has been appointed Chairman, effective immediately. The board will begin a search for a permanent CEO shortly. Demand Medias board also confirmed its commitment to pursue its ... read more ...
 
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Uniregistry Beats Back Google’s Objection To .Cars: Different Decisions On The Same String Is ICANN’s Problem - Uniregistry, Corp just beat back an objection from Google’s Charleston Road Registry (CRR) Inc. on the new gTLD .cars in a decision handed down by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (“ICDR”) CRR objected to Unregistry application for .cars as on the basis of String Confusion to its own application for .car and wanted the two applications to be placed into the same contention set which would have forced Uniregsitry into an auction with Google. This panel was aware that a previous ... read more ...
 
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NationwideLifts.com Saved in UDRP Which Should Have Been A RDNH - S H Enterprises, Inc. DBA Nationwide Lifts of New York, New York, just lost a UDRP on the very generic domain name nationwidelifts.com S H’s site is at elevette.com which they registered in 2003 and which I’m sure all domain investors would agree is a horrible domain. S H has trademarks on the term NATIONWIDE LIFTS:  registered on June 14, 2005, with a filing date of August 18, 2004 and one registered on June 5, 2012 The domain holder which is in the same business as S H selling elevators ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.NYC Expects To Go Live in 1st Half of 2014 -                       According to a mailing from the offical site of the .NYC new gTLD domain name extension, mydotnyc.com the city expects that the .NYC extension will go live in the 1st half of 2014. “The City of New York will be one of the first cities in the world to be granted its own domain extension by ICANN, the nonprofit organization responsible for overseeing the domain names. “Approval of .nyc comes as ICANN expands the number of generic top-level domains beyond such extensions ... read more ...
 
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.ORG Launches Website Makeover Contest - Public Interest Registry, the not-for-profit operator of the .ORG domain, today announced the launch of its . as part of an ongoing effort to empower nonprofit organizations and groups to effectively advance their causes online. Today through November 8, Public Interest Registry is accepting nominations from leaders and representatives of organizations and nonprofits for a chance to win a newly designed .ORG website from OmniStudio, a Washington, D.C.-based firm specialized in web design and consulting ... read more ...
Sun 13th October 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
Quick Poll: Which of The 9 Donuts New gTLD Starting Sunrise In Oct Will Have The Most Registrations? - This week we wrote a post about Donuts starting to accept Sunrise Applications on its first 9 new gTLD’s on October 29. Our poll question today is which of these new gTLD strings will have the most registrations by the end of March 2015? Why March 31st? Well since Sunrise (for trademark holders) last 60 days and landrush follows which will be in at the earliest in January, 2014,  General availability ( the day you can go to registrar and register a domain) may not start until March, so basically ... read more ...
 
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ICANN Makes Domain Investor Daniel Negari The Poster Boy For The New gTLD Program In Video Released Tonight - ICANN has made Domain investor and new gTLD applicant Daniel Negari the poster boy for the new gTLD program in a video released by ICANN tonight on Twitter. Why Dan? Well at 27 years of age, he is the youngest applicant for a new gTLD with an uncontested application for XYZ.com and the winner of a  private auction for .College. I have know Dan for a few years from the domain investor side and he is really smart, very successful. well spoken young man and has his act together at 27 more than most ... read more ...
Sat 12th October 2013
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1and1.com New gTLD Pre-Registrations Top 3 Million Domain Names -                       It was back on September 22nd  when we posted that 1and1.com, the domain name registration  which has been running television commercials in heavy rotation in the United States t0 promote new gTLD domain names broke the 2 Million pre-registration mark. Tonight 1and1.com blew past the 3 million pre-registration mark some 20 days later. 1and1.com is only accepting 1 domain name registration per domain name so these are 3 million unique domain pre-registrations. As ... read more ...
Fri 11th October 2013
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Trademark Clearinghouse Verification Service Now Accepting Additional Abused Labels - Abused Domain Name label service for Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) Verification is now available. It was created to help rights owners protect labels that have a history of being abusively used or registered in the Domain Names Space.   The Abused Domain Name labels service allows rights holders to register up to 50 “abused labels: related to a verified trademark record in the Clearinghouse. These associated labels must have been the subject of a determination in a prior UDRP case or court decision ... read more ...
 
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Facing Competition From .Kiwi, New Zeland ccTLD To Allow .NZ Registrations - The Council of InternetNZ (Internet New Zealand Inc) which operates the ccTLD for New Zealand approved today to allow domain names to be registered at the second level in the .nz domain name space. By allowing registrations at the second level, people and organisations will be able to register theirname.nz instead of theirname.co.nz or theirname.net.nz (the current system, which allows registrations at the third level only). InternetNZ President Dr Frank March says this move fits with InternetNZ’s ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
No Wonder UDRP’s Are A Mess; 13 Years Later & Panelist Can’t Agree On 1 of a 3 Elements - A  UDRP decision handed down today shows why the UDRP system is still a mess and why we get some many bad decisions. The UDRP system has been handing down decisions for over 13 years and today’s case points out panelist still disagree on the meaning of  1 of the 3 elements required to prove  a UDRP claim bad faith and what the language of the rule means. Writing for the majority In the case of Guru Denim Inc. which found in favor of the domain holder of truereligion.com; “There are broadly ... read more ...
 
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Google’s Registry For New gTLD’s; Charleston Road Registry Launches the Site - Google’s Registry for that will be the back end operator for Google’s new gTLD strings, CharlestonRoadRegistry.com officially launched their site today (Update I have been informed that this site actually launched on March 29, 2013) “Welcome to Charleston Road Registry, Google’s domain registry. We’re really excited about the domains we’ll soon be able to offer. The Internet has always been first and foremost about self-expression, and the dawn of this era of hundreds of new domains marks ... read more ...
 
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Donuts To Start Sunrise Period For 9 New gTLD’s On Oct 29th - This is a great discussion. My day job got in the way this week which is why it took a while for me to get back to this interesting (at least to me) thread. I agree at least a bit with all of you I believe that: 1) A registrant with a .com will not give up that .com and move to a new TLD, but also there are currently millions of registrants that give up a .com every year nevertheless. Those deletes are currently replaced with other .com registrations, and I believe a portion of those new ... read more ...
 
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Spy Optic, Inc. Guilty Of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking On SpyOpticsOutlet.com - In A one member UDRP decision Spy Optic, Inc. of Carlsbad, California, United States of America, represented by the law firm Stetina Brunda Garred Brucker has been found guilty Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on SpyOpticsOutlet.com. The panelist, Richard G. Lyon, took the complainant and its council “out to the wood shed”  over the complainant in which it cut and pasted language from another UDRP filing on another domain name SpyOpticsOutlet.org, owned by another person, into this complaint. The ... read more ...
Thu 10th October 2013
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Schwartz Sells eBet.com For $1,350,000: 5 Online Appraisal Services Value it From $40K to $55 - I thought it would be interesting to see what the automated appraisal services had to say about the value of the domain king, Rick Schwartz $1,350,000 Million dollar sale of eBet.com If your a frequent reader of thedomains.com you know I’m not a huge fan of the online appraisal services but pretty surprised when I checked this domain today and found only 2 of 5 gave it a value in the five figures, not great for a 7 figure domain. I think a fair conclusion would be based on these services Rick did ... read more ...
 
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The 1st Godaddy/Afternic Weekly Sales List: $1.625 Million In Sales: MGM Buys SkyLofts.com For $41,250 - GoDaddy.com and Afternic.com  just issued its first combined weekly domain sales list  since Godaddy acquired Afternic.com Here are the reportable or the week of 9/30/13 – 10/6/13 Total domain sales for the week, including confidential sales and sales under $1,000, summed to  $1,625,913. All sales were led by Skylofts.com which was bought by MGM whose MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas has been offering luxury rooms called Sky Lofts for many years now, certainly a bargain for them since the rooms ... read more ...