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.

Fri 30th August 2013
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ICANN Declares Initial Evaluation Of New gTLD’s Over But There Are 29 To Go Including .Search & .ABC - In a press release this afternoon ICANN proudly announced that the “Initial Evaluation (IE) phase of the new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) program is concluded.” “This is an extraordinary landmark which demonstrates the progress in this program,” said Akram Atallah, President of ICANN’s Generic Domains Division. “We are looking forward to the innovations that these new introductions will enable on the Internet.” “Out of the 1,930 new gTLD applications submitted, a total of 1,745 ... read more ...
 
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101 New gTLD Pass ICANN IE; 8 Go To Extended Evaluation; Passing .Sex; .Islam; .Stockholm; .Ford; .Volvo - 101 new gTLD applications passed ICANN Initial Evaluation today. 8 applications are heading for extended evaluation. Like last week one of the applicants who filed Legal Rights Objections to all other applicants own application got flagged for extended evaluation this time Defender Security Company  application for .home. Another application heading to extended evaluation is the Lance Armstrong Foundations application for .livestrong The 8 new gTLD applications which were classified as eligible ... read more ...
 
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Sina Wins Legal Rights Objection on .Weibo & On .微博 - Two separate WIPO panels upheld the objection of the Internet Giant Sina on two new gTLD applications both against the same applicant Tencent Holdings Limited of Shenzhen, China. The WIPO panels upheld Sina objection to the new gTLD applications .Weibo On .微博 “The Panel notes that both Parties accept and claim that “weibo” is the pinyin equivalent (the phonetic transliteration of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabets) of “微博”. “The Panel finds that the Objector holds the ... read more ...
 
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The Limited Loses UDRP On LimitedCoupon.com - Limited Stores, LLC which operate the Limited Stores, just lost a UDRP on the domain name limitedcoupon.com despite the fact that the domain holder did not file a response. Here are the relevant findings from the one member panel: The Complainant’s allegations of bad faith are all said to be on the basis of “upon information and belief”. What information and by whom was it provided? The Complaint does not say. In fact, on this topic the Complaint is remarkably short of information. “Upon ... read more ...
 
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15 Year Old RadioAmerica.com Lost In UDRP To RadioAmerica.org - American Studies Center d/b/a Radio America just won a UDRP on the domain name RadioAmerica.com which was owned by Jet Stream Enterprises Limited. The panel found the complainant  had a common law a trademark on the term going back to 1985 when Radio America started broadcasting. In 1996 the Complainant registered RadioAmerica.org In 1998 the domain holder registered RadioAmerica.com Here are the relevant findings on the one member panel:   Complainant owns common law rights in the RADIO AMERICA ... read more ...
 
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Donuts Signs Contracts With ICANN on 12 new gTLD’s - Donuts has signed 12 new gTLD  registry contracts with ICANN.   BIKE .CAMERA .CLOTHING .EQUIPMENT .ESTATE .GURU .HOLDINGS .LIGHTING .SINGLES .VENTURES .VOYAGE (.ENTERPRISE, in Simplified Chinese script)   According to a press release; all of Donuts new gTLD applications  have passed ICANN Initial Evolution. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
Thu 29th August 2013
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Vertical Axis Beats Back UDRP On Generic Parajumpers.com By Owner Of Parajumpers.it - PJS International SA of Luxembourg just lost its bid to grab the generic domain name Parajumpers.com which is owned by Vertical Axis who was represented by Esquire.com The three member panel failed to find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking although the domain name Parajumpers.com was registered  4 years before the trademark was granted and 3 years before the complainant even registered its own domain name. Here are the relevant facts and finding by the Panel: The trademark PARAJUMPERS has been registered ... read more ...
 
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Chanel & Adidas/Reebok File More Federal Cybersquatting Lawsuits - Both Chanel and Adidas/Rebook filed federal lawsuits today over domain names. These are separate suits to the suits Chanel and Adidas filed last week. Both suits as the one’s filed last week, were filed in the Florida Southern District Court. Here are the 54 domain names subject to the latest suit by Adidas/Reebok: 11proboots.com 2013jeremyscottxadidas.com 4footballshirts.com adidas-nike-jp.com adidasjeremyscottsaustralia.com adidasoriginalssuperstar2.com adidasporschedesignbounce.com adidassneaker.org adidaswings4sales.com all-wholesaler.com billige-nike-fussballschuhe.com billigereeboksko.com brdclothstyle.com brownsneaks.com buyjerseys.us canada-jerseys.com chaussuresadidasjeremyscott.com cheapjerseys88.com cheapnba-mart.com cheapnbajerseywholesale.com clothingwholesaletrade.com cr7soccersales.com danmarkreebok.com dnike.com easytunereebok.com exportroad.com fineworkshops.com goemwholesaler.com jeremyscottadidascollection.com jerseybuy365.com jerseysfreetax.com jerseysshoppe.com kevinshoes.com mercurialsuperfly8.com nikeairmaxdeals4u.com nikeairmaxtnsko.com nikevipjerseys.com okshopshoes.com ralphlaurenus.com shirtforsoccer.com shopcheapnhljerseys.com skoronline.org sneakersaleclub.net soccer-wholesale.com soccerbootoutlet.com soccerjerseys1store.com sparta7.com sportjerseysfactory.com styleaaa.com thisjerseysb.com uniformfootball.com wholesale-soccer-jersey168.com wholesale-soccerjersey.com wholesalebrand.org   Here ... read more ...
 
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The NewYorker Mag Covers New gTLDs: “The Great Internet Land Grab” & Calls Mr. Schilling A Squatter - The New Yorker Magazine  just did a cover story on the new gTLD program entitled “The Great  Internet Land Grab” “Suddenly reorganizing the way we navigate the web with new strings like .guru, .club, or .google might seem frivolous or strange, but entities like ICANN and its stakeholders insist that they will make the Web more intuitive and user-friendly; an address like AdoptA.dog is slightly more logical than PetAdoptions.com, which is currently occupied by a squatter” For the record ... read more ...
 
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Archeo (Marchex) Puts Up Over $7,400,000 (Estibot Value) Of Domains In Auction At SnapNames - Archo the company that Marchex is hoping to spin off into a separate public company is holding an auction of 71 domain names that have an appraised Estibot value of over $7.4 Million dollars. The auction which is currently ongoing closes on September 26th at 3:15pm Here are the domain names in the auction along with the reserved ranges and the Estibot valuation for each. If your looking for the biggest bargain compared to Estibot value its Camcorders.com which has a reserve range of only $25-$50K ... read more ...
Wed 28th August 2013
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ANA: ICANN is Falling Short of the Mission to Protect Internet Security and Stability - The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has just weighted in on the Name Collision issue in a in a letter sent to ICANN. The title of the letter is “ICANN is Falling Short of its Mission to Protect Internet Security and Stability” It should be noted that the ANA has not been the greatest fan of the new gTLD program in general. “The Interisle Consulting Group clearly stated in the “Name Collision in the DNS Report” (the “Study”) that nearly all proposed new gTLDs carry some risk ... read more ...
 
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On Day Of Hacking, Melbourne IT Announces CEO Theo Hnarakis will Step Down By a End of Year - Melbourne IT chief executive Theo Hnarakis will step down by the end of year after more than a decade as CEO according to afr.com The move comes on the day that it appears hackers associated with the Syrian Electronic Army Group hackers gained access the New York Times and Twitter amongst others although Melbourne IT who hosted the websites domain names. However, the story did not mention the hacking incident but the timing is hard to overlook. The story quotes the Melbourne IT chairman Simon Jones ... read more ...
 
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As Comment Period On New gTLD Name Collisions Come To An End, Comments Flood Into ICANN - As the comment period for the Name Collision report comes to an end there were plenty of comments submitted by applicants and others. May of the comments simply endorsed the letter of NTAG to ICANN submitted during the comment period, while others siply asked for the comment period to be extended Here are some of the more interesting submitted comments: The Afnic/CORE consortium, the registry service provider for the .paris TLD. submitted this comment on behalf of the City of Paris, applicant for ... read more ...
 
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ICANN Newest On Name Collision: 20% Uncalculated Risk New gTLD’s Can “Begin Contracting” But Puts Exection Of Contract On Hold - ICANN issued this statement on name collision report last night and the effect it will have in contracting: “ICANN has solicited community comment on the mitigation steps outlined in the staff recommendation paper, with a comment close date of 27 August 2013 23:59 UTC. Pending receipt of community feedback on the staff mitigation proposals, ICANN intends to proceed with New gTLD applications as follows: Low Risk – Eligible applicants will be invited to begin contracting and may proceed through ... read more ...
Tue 27th August 2013
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ICANN Approves $200 Million Dollar Budget For 2014; 306 Employees & Still No Revenue From New gTLD Auctions - ICANN just approved  its 2014 budget which is coming in at over $200,000,000 in revenue. The budget anticipates ICANN staff growing to over 300 people but the real kicker, in our opinion is that ICANN still has virtually no revenue allocated coming in from the “Last Resort” New gTLD auctions. We have noted in past years that ICANN has not allocated any revenue coming in for auction of new gTLD strings where there is more than one applicant although the Guidebook that ICANN have produced, call ... read more ...
 
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Dog Days Of Summer? Fourth $50K+ Domain Sale Of The Day, As 22 Year Old Domain DPC.com Sells For $60K - August is usually referred to as the dog days of summer ,where not much is happening in business and typically domain sales slow up. However we can now report the 4th closed sale of a domain name today of $50,000 or more, as Sedo.com which is on fire this wee,k just reported the domain name DPC.com sold for $60,000. The domain name DPC.com was owned by  Clover Technologies Group of Ottawa, IL and has an original registration date of all the way back to 1991, July 25th 1991 to be exact. The oldest ... read more ...
 
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Afternic.com Sells $1.1 Million In Domains Led By Name Administration’s Sale Of Fab.Net For $39,000 - Afternic.com just reported fits weekly domain sales for the week of 8/19/13 – 8/25/13. Total domain sales for the week, including confidential sales and sales under $1000, summed to $1,108,62 All sales were led by a Net, in this case Fab.net which was sold by Frank Schilling’s Name Administration’s For $39,000. All .com sales were led by a Tucows.com owned domain DreamLover.com which sold for $19,200 Here are the reportable sales: <![CDATA[]]>  Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Sedo.com Sells Deco.com For $100,000; Fork.com For $50,000 - In its second $100,000 sale reported today, Sedo.com has sold the domain name Deco.com for $100,000. Earlier today we reported that Godaddy.com sold OPS.com through a Sedo MLS listing for $100,000. Neither of these two sales is included in this weeks Sedo.com report. The seller of Deco.com was  BlackHawk Industrial of  Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The domain is currently going to a placeholder for Domaine.Fr a French registrar indicating that the buyer may well be a french company. The domain name Deco.com ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Transactions Totals $1.7 Million on Only 646 Transactions - Sedo just reported that 646 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling last week totaling  $1.7 Million It appears there was another big sale last week based on those numbers, I’m trying to see if I can get any more information. Afternic.com last week reported that it sold a domain for $500,000 but it could not release the domain This amounts to $45m in year-to-date sales revenue. Over 43% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Top .coms: growersedge.com ... read more ...
 
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Garry Chernoff Sells OPS.com For $100,000 On Godaddy.com - The domain name OPS.com just sold on Godaddy.com for $100,000 coming through Sedo.com system. Sedo.com announced the sale on its Facebook page just a short time ago. The owner of the domain name is long time domain investor Garry Chernoff’s company NetIncome Ventures Inc. The domain name has an original registration date of 1994. As with any three letter domain name there are thousands of possible uses and buyers. Congrats to the buyer and seller on the transaction.       Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
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Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) Supports NTAG Letter on Name Collision; Except For Verisign - Verisign does not support the New gTLD Applicant Group (NTAG) letter on Name Collisions. We agree with some statements made in the letter, but do not agree with the analysis, conclusions and recommendations made. Verisign’s own analysis and recommendations can be found in the Verisign Labs Security, Security and Resiliency Report #2 at http://techreports.verisignlabs.com/docs/tr-1130008-1.pdf and explained further in this blog post: http://blogs.verisigninc.com/blog/entry/new_gtld_ssr_2_exploratory We ... read more ...
 
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Breaking: .Com Domain Name Registrations Top 110 Million Mark For The 1st Time - For the first time in the history of the Internet there are no more than 110,000,000 .com domain names registered according to Verisign. As of 8:36:10 AM UTC there are now over  110,024,017 active .com domain names registered. According to Verisign the registry of the .com and .net domain name extensions or Top Level Domains (TLD)  the number of active .com registrations passed the 110 Million Mark for the first time ever just a little while ago. It was just on August 15th that Verisign announced ... read more ...
 
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ICANN Approves Renewal Of .Info; .Org and .Biz Registry Contracts Without URS Being Included - According to a resolution passed by the ICANN Board,  ICANN has renewed the registry contracts for the .info, .biz and .org contracts without the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) being included. On the issue of not requiring the URS to be added to the registry contracts ICANN said: “”There was a specific community concern raised, and subsequent letters provided to the Board, regarding the inclusion of a requirement for the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) to be included in the renewed agreement, ... read more ...
 
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Chanel, Inc. Files Suit Against Cybersquatters over 68 Domain Names - Chanel, Inc has become the latest brand holder to skip the UDRP process and head right for federal court. Chanel filed a federal suit in the Florida Southern District Court seeking $100,000 under the ACPA seeking statutory damages of $100,00 per domain and attorney fees as well as counterfeiting, false designation of origin, cybersquatting, and common law unfair competition Here are the domain name subject to the suit: 24onlinebags.com aboutfoot.com all-wholesaler.com amazing4scarf.com apparelto.net bagbrands.org bags-stores.com bagsoffers.net best-wholesalers.com brandfashiontop.net bzonetradediy.com chanelacquisto.com chanelbag2013.com chanelbagsboutique.com chanelbagsforwomen.net chanelborseita.com chanelpaschersoldes.com chbagsoutlet.us cheapchanel2012.org cheapforclothing.com china-discount-handbags.com chinafashionhouse.com chrome-clothing.net clothing-brand.com cnbestsell.com cnwantbuybags.com cosmohit.com discountluxurybags.com ebackshop.com ec24online.com emilysluxury.com handbagxyz.com icclothes.com ilikereplica.com iofferluxurygoods.com ioffermac.com jeans007.com jessyjadebag.com jixingtrade.com lujosolv.com luxury4u.cn luxurybagsoffer.com luxuryreplicashop.com menedzfahionstyle.com my8mart.com mypursesale.com onlineshopping888.com outletstoreshoe.com perfect-clones.co pop-replica.com puretime.co qualitymost.com replicabagsnow.com replicaleboybags.org replicas-handbags.net replicaworlds.com salebybulk.com sell-cheapshoes.com shoesexpress.net shoesjerseysonline.com shopluxbags.com soaho.org urbanclothesdiscount.com vancleefarpelsmall.com vivisbag.com watchisnice.com yahuaaa.com zoolbags.com Google+Michael ... read more ...
Mon 26th August 2013
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ICANN Corrects Friday’s New gTLD Initial Evaluation Posting: Taipei Is Eligible for Extended Evaluation - On Friday in releasing its Initial Evaluation results ICANN mistakenly showed that the new gTLD application for the Geographic area of  .Taipei failed IE and was not eligible for Extended Evaluation. However today ICANN has correct what was an error on their part and is showing the application for the new gTLD application  .Taipei is in fact eligible for extended evaluation. The application for .Taipei was submitted by the  Taipei City Government. ICANN website has now updated the information ... read more ...