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.

Mon 19th August 2013
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According To Alexa There Is No Traffic Leakage From Beat.La To BeatLa.com - For those that think that branding a site on any non-.com is going to automatically lead to traffic bleed over to the matching .com I present the case of Beat.La. The domain name was purchased just a couple of weeks ago by the Phoenix Suns on Sedo for $5,300 The purchase of the domain and subsequent launched received a lot of publicity from the mainstream media and sports from  the LaTimes.com to  the Bleacherreport.com. According to Alexa the domain name Beat.La has an Worldwide rank of  1,463,068  ... read more ...
 
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Report: Godaddy Acquires Locu.com For $70 Million -   GoDaddy, said it had acquired San Francisco startup Locu according to Allthingsd.com “While the company did not disclose the terms of the deal, sources close to the situation said it paid $70 million in cash and stock for the company.” There are also earnouts for the two dozen employees of Locu going to GoDaddy. “Locu, which was founded out of MIT in Massachusetts in 2011, helps local merchants get discovered online and has more than 30,000 businesses, including restaurants, spas, salons, ... read more ...
 
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Donuts Beats Back Academy Sports Legal Rights Objection To new gTLD .Academy - Academy, LTD., d/b/a Academy Sports + Outdoors lost is Legal Rights Objection filed against Half Oaks, LLC (a Donuts compny) application for the new gTLD .Academy finding that “the common generic use of the term “academy”, as well as the lack of clear evidence showing widespread public recognition of the Objector’s ACADEMY marks, standing alone, weigh heavily in the Applicant’s favor. In this case, the Panel finds that such considerations must result in rejection of the Objector’s Objection.” The ... read more ...
 
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Biotechnology Industry Organization Loses WIPO Legal Rights Objection On New gTLD .Bio - Biotechnology Industry Organization of Washington, lost its Legal Rights Objection filed against Starting Dot applied for new gTLD .bio. Here are the relevance findings by the one member WIPO panel: A fundamental issue in this proceeding is the appropriate recognition of the word “bio” by different sectors of the public, founded on differences in the basic meaning of the word, and on differences in uses in different parts of the world. From the Objector’s perspective, the word “bio” has ... read more ...
 
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Blue Cross Loses Legal Rights Objection To Block a New gTLD .Blue - Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association just lost a Legal Rights Objection to Afilias Limited new gTLD application for .Blue Here are the relevant findings by the three member WIPO panel: “”The Applicant has not denied that it was aware of the Objector when it lodged the Application. However, on the evidence which has been produced, the Panel has no reason to doubt the Applicant’s assertion that it applied for the .blue gTLD for the purpose of establishing a new registry which would provide ... read more ...
 
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Car Maker Land Rover Found Guilty Of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - The car maker Jaguar/Land Rover Has been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on the domain name MountainRovers.com. The domain name was  owned and used by the domain holder since 1998. The domain name holder did not file a response to the UDRP Not only did the one person National Arbitration Forum panel find that Land Rover guilty of RDNH it found that claim was barred by the legal doctrine of Laches. The one man panel said: “Complainant was a little too glib in its submission ... read more ...
Sun 18th August 2013
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So Now What Will Google Do With Its New gTLD Application For .Search - Of the over new gTLD 1,900 applications received by ICANN, Google’s application for .Search has gotten arguably the most attention of the mainstream media (neck and neck with Amazon’s .Amazon TLD) Google originally filed its  application for .Search to operate on a closed basis, meaning that the registry generally would not be open to registrations by third parties, but amended its application back in April of this year to operate it as a open string using Dotless Domains, just days after the ... read more ...
 
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Domainer Marc Ostrofsky Author Of Get Rich Click, New Book: Word of Mouse: 101+ Trends in How We Buy, Sell, Live, Learn, Work, and Play - Domain name inverstor and author, Marc Ostrofsky new book Word of Mouse: 101+ Trends in How We Buy, Sell, Live, Learn, Work, and Play is coming out on September 10th. Marc a domain-name investor best known for selling the name Business.com for $7.5 million.  Marc’s current holdings include; eTickets.com, CuffLinks.com, SummerCamps.com MutualFunds.com, Photographer.com, Consulting.com, TechToys.com, BeautyProducts.com, Bachelor.com and is a major shareholder and board member in Blinds.com, a $74 ... read more ...
Sat 17th August 2013
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NY Times Covers New gTLD’s: “Like Derivatives on Wall Street, They Have No Value” - The New Tork Times just covered the coming new gTLD’s and quotes a number of sources which give some juicy quotes like the one in the title which came from  Esther Dyson Some of the new gTLD’s getting a mention in the article were: .bible, .blog, .family, .game, .gay and .pizza. The article quotes  Akram Atallah, from  ICANN who says: “With .com and .net, if you wanted a nice name, it’s all taken,” “The idea of new gTLD’s is to provide real-estate availability in the market.” “The ... read more ...
 
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Vice.com Sold By Anything.com In 2010 Gets $70 Million Dollar Investment From 21st Century Fox - According to a report in the Financial Times, Century Fox has invested $70 million in media company Vice Media, giving Fox a 5 percent stake in the company and valuing Vice at $1.4 billion. Vice Media official site is Vice.com Vice Media bought the domain name Vice.com in 2010 from the large domain investor Anything.com. A recent profile in The New Yorker said that in 2012, the company brought in $175 million in revenue, more than 80 percent of it from the web. Vice has also received funding from ... read more ...
 
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Brand Protection Fail: This Weeks TM Domains Brands Let Drop & Get Registered Boeing; NCAA; ESPN Google AP & More - We have written over the years about brands, brand protection companies and dropping domain names which both brands and brand protection companies continue to miss. Not only do they miss grabbing them but they don’t even seem to try. Its pretty interesting sitting on the sidelines every week seeing companies spending $1,500 a pop to file a UDRP on a single domain name (plus attorneys fees) on the same type of domain names that are dropping and can be picked up for $69 on a back order or sometimes ... read more ...
Fri 16th August 2013
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95 New gTLD Pass ICANN IE: .Visa; .College; .Casino; .Poker; .Hamburg; . Cologne; .Kia; .Playstation; .Sina - 95 new gTLD’s passed ICANN Initial Evaluation today. Two Geographic applications passed today both a large German cities; .Cologne and .Hamburg Some generic applications passing today include .College; .Earth; .World; .Golf; .Poker; .Casino; .Taxi;. .Yoga; .Tickets; .Foundation and .Gives and Amazon’s application for .Kids and .Author. Some of the .Brand applications passing today was Visa Credit Cards application for .Visa; Safeway Grocers application for .Safeway; Sony’s application for .Playstation;  ... read more ...
 
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ICANN New gTLD Committee Kills Off Dotless Domains - The new gTLD Committee of ICANN just killed off Dotless Domains according to a resolution published last night. Google notified ICANN that it modified  its application to operate .Search new gTLD from a closed model to an open model operating it as a Dotless Domain. Here is the resolution: Whereas, dotless domains consist of a single label and require the inclusion of, for example, an A, AAAA, or MX, record in the apex of a TLD zone in the DNS. Whereas, Section 2.2.3.3 of the Applicant Guidebook ... read more ...
 
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8 New gTLD Private Auctions Produce $9.65 Million - Innovative Auctions today announced the successful completion of the second Applicant Auction. Winners in the auction will pay a total of $9,651,000 after resolving contention for eight new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). The winners for the eight contention sets included in this week’s auction were: .guide: Donuts, Inc .construction: Donuts, Inc .storage: Extra Space Storage (NYSE:EXR) .desi: Desi Networks LLC .expert: Donuts, Inc .fishing: Minds + Machines, a subsidiary of Top Level Domain ... read more ...
Thu 15th August 2013
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Looks Like 1st New gTLD Private Auction For This Week Is Over As Donuts Loses & TLDH Wins .Casa - It appears that the 1st of this weeks private auctions being held by Applicant Auction is completed as Donuts has withdrawn its application for .Casa on the ICANN website. Donuts application for .Casa has a prioritization number of 1,622 and has not yet passed ICANN Initial Evaluation (IE)  meaning that Donuts will get 70% refund of their $185,000 application fee. The only other applicant for .Casa is Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (LON:TLDH) which had a prioritization number of 171 which appears ... read more ...
 
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WIPO Denies Another Legal Rights Objection To .Music: Community Trademarks Of Objector “Not Bona Fide” - A WIPO panel has rejected another Legal Rights Objection to the new gTLD .Music . This objection was to Famous Fours application to operate the .Music registry and was filed by another applicant for .Music, DotMusic Limited/Constantinos Roussos. The panel basically found that the community trademarks of the Objector were not bona fide: The Objector filed for registration of its .MUSIC and DOTMUSIC figurative Marks in the European Union on March 5, 2009. Respondent has brought to the Panel’s attention ... read more ...
 
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13 Year Old Domain Togu.com Saved IN UDRP Panel Cites Delay In Bringing Case - TOGU Gebruder Obermaier oHG of Prien-Bachham, Germany, just lost a UDRP on the domain name Togu.com. The domain owner Port Media Domains was represented by Esquire.com Its not clear to me why the panel did not find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) as the domain name is 13 years old, and was registered prior to the Complainants trademark registration. The panel did not address the issue of RDNH but did not specifically adopt the legal doctrine of Laches it did say: ” it is well to remember that ... read more ...
 
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Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Files UDRP’s Against Mike Mann’s Domain Asset Holdings On 4 Domains - Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc makers of the widely popular Grand Theft Auto games, filed a UDRP’s today against Mike Mann’s Domain Asset Holdings, LLC on four domain names with WIPO. All four domain names are listed for sale at Mike Mann’s DomainMarket.com. Here are the domains, registration date and the Buy It Now (BIN) price listed for each of the domain names on DomainMarket.com: Grandtheftautovideos.com registration date  August 9, 2012 for sale for $350.00 GTAextreme.com  Registration ... read more ...
 
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NTAG Cites .XXX in Telling ICANN To Allow All New gTLD’s Labeled “Unknown Risk” In Collision Report To Move Forward - In a comment filed with ICANN on the Name Collision Report of Interisle,  the New gTLD Applicant Group (NTAG) signed by Tim Switzer, laid out a pretty compelling argument for why ICANN should not delay the roll out 279 new gTLD’s that fell within the “unknown risk category in the Interisle report. “With such a long history of productive discussions, it is dismaying to see a great deal of uncertainty about the New gTLD program being introduced at such a late point in the process.” While agreeing ... read more ...
 
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ICDR Rejects Verisign’s String Confusion Objection To .Cam As Being Too Confusing to .Com - One of the more interesting objections filed at the International Centre for Dispute resolution (ICDR) based on String Confusion was Verisign’s objection to the new gTLD .Cam being too confusing to .Com. Today a panel has ruled that .Cam is not confusing to .Com, finding “the visual similarity of the two strings does not allow a conclusion that confusion would result”. “The test is not to decide whether the proposed domain name bears similarities to existing domain name but rather to determine ... read more ...
Wed 14th August 2013
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Troubling: Domain Awarded By UDRP With No Trademark Based On $1K Bank Account, Flyers & 61 Customers - In what I consider a very troubling and horrible decision, A one member UDRP panel has awarded a domain names welldonebbqs.com and welldonebbqcleaning.com to a Complainant who didn’t have a registered trademark, on the basis doing a whopping $11,000 in gross revenue, having $1,000 in a bank account and distributing 2,000 flyers. I have comments that follow this really bad decision. “Complainant is a young man who, whilst still at University, enrolled in the Province of Ontario’s Summer Company ... read more ...
 
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CircleId Post Rips The Domain Name IDNX Pricing Index - Alex Tajirian, CEO of DomainMart in a post on CircleID.com just ripped into the IDNX domain name index backed by Thies Lindenthal and Sedo. “The index is intended to be a benchmark for domain owners and investors. “ “But it’s out of line with other studies and the common sense of how a market operates. A much better barometer to follow is average prices for groups of domain names with similar characteristics.” “Using a single index would have dire consequences. ” “Other problems with ... read more ...
 
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Rocket Internet Incubator & Accelerator Company Raised $500 Million Since 2012 - In a press release just out today Rocket Internet announced “that it has raised a total of USD $500 million from partners Investment AB Kinnevik and Access Industries since May 2012, representing the largest investment ever made in an internet incubator and accelerator company. ” “The funds will be used to further expand Rocket Internet´s world-wide network of successful internet start-ups”. “Rocket Internet is the world’s leading internet incubator, bringing together the four elements ... read more ...
 
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Publicly Traded Ceat Mahal Of India Files UDRP Against BuyDomains.com On Ceat.org - Ceat Mahal a tire manufacturer located in India, filed a UDRP against BuyDomains.com on the domain name Ceat.org Buydomains.com appears to have picked up the domain name on a drop in late 2012. The Tire manufacturer appears to be a public company and owned the domain name Ceat.com The domain name Ceat.org is going to a generic parked page and of course has a “for sale” on the top. Ceat Mahal says they have been in business since 1958 which makes them old as I am. We will keep our eye on it.       Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
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Finalist For Britain’s Million Pound Startup Competition Buys FaceBuy.com For $10K On Sedo - The domain name FaceBuy.com just sold on Sedo for $10,000 and I think the seller may not be thrilled when they realize the buyer is a App developer from Australia who has already gotten some mainstream coverage in the press and whose Facebook page has almost 9,000 likes. The start up is so successful that they are a finalist for Britain’s Million Pound Startup Competition. The company was covered by the theaustralian.com.au, just a month ago: “Stephen Chapman, has developed a social selling app ... read more ...