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 31st July 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
KraftHeinz.com Registered The Same Day a Merger Was Announced Lost in UDRP - A one member UDRP panel awarded the domain name kraftheinz.com was registered on March 25, 2015, the same day the merger between Kraft Foods Group, and H.J. Heinz Company was announced. The decision was published in Korean and we used Google translate. The panel said: “Registering a domain name that combines the names of the target company by merger or a merger between companies that act in bad faith in using them are identified through a number of bars prior UDRP decision the applicant is cited. ... read more ...
 
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1st Day New gTLD Totals .Team 2,643 .Show 1,310; .Jewelry 961 - Three new gTLD’s went into General Availability (GA) on Wednesday. Including domain names registered in the Sunrise Period by trademark holders and domain names registered in the Early Access Program (EAP) for an extra fee, here are the totals after the first day of GA: .Team 2,643 .Show 1,310 .Jewelry 961 Another new gTLD extension entered an EAP period on Wednesday, .Tech which had 236 domain names registered in the Sunrise period by trademark holders. ... read more ...
Thu 30th July 2015
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.Trust Announces Advisory Board - NCC Group has announced the line-up of its new .trust Advisory Board, “an elite panel of renowned security experts responsible for supporting NCC Group’s .trust Technical Policy, in a bid to create the world’s first secure community on the Internet”. Six renowned security experts currently sit on the board alongside Gunter Ollmann, CTO of the group’s Domain Services division. The board will provide high-level support for NCC Group’s .trust Technical Policy. An industry first, the policy ... read more ...
 
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Willing.com, Evolve.com, Zeros.com And More Domain Movers - Here are the latest Domain Movers that I have recently detected. The following domain names have been purchased, registered or are simply moving, mainly all by large companies. These are often early detections and likely the first time that most have been reported on. I heavily rely on the domain name whois system to provide ownership information to provide accurate data, but that doesn’t always reveal the whole story. Simply put, I try to provide the most accurate data as I can but data is mainly ... read more ...
 
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Minds + Machines To Register Up To 30K New gTLD Premium Domains Under Emerald Names - Minds + Machines announced they are going through the process of registering up to 30,000 Premium Names from across its wholly-owned portfolio of TLDs through its wholly-owned entity, Emerald Names, “so as to raise the visibility of its inventory amongst the broker and registrar channel, as well as with consumers”. “As a result, these Premium Names will resolve to a “for sale” web site, whereas previously they returned a “not found” error when typed into a browser. These Premium ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Report shows 15% of America is still not regulating a Internet - BizReport.com broke down some stats that came out of the Pew Research Center that looked at Internet usage in the U.S. The research showed that Asian – Americans had only 5% not using the Internet, in contrast Blacks were at the high end of the scale with 20% not using the Internet. From the article: Despite government and social service programs designed to increase Internet adoption, 15% of U.S. adults do not use the Internet. That percentage has not changed since 2013, according to Pew. While ... read more ...
Wed 29th July 2015
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18 Year Old Generic Domain eWomen.com Saved in UDRP - eWomenNetwork, Inc. lost its bid to grab the 18 year old domain eWomen.com in a UDRP The three member panel of the Honorable Richard DiSalle, the Honorable Karl V. Fink, (Ret.) and The Honourable Neil Anthony Brown found the 18 year old domain was registered in good faith by the registrant but refused to find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) Here are the highlights: Complainant has registered the EWOMEN mark in stylized form with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) (Reg. ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD .Tech Enters Early Access Period (EAP) Today With 40+ Pioneers - Radix announced today that .Tech has entered the 1st day of the Early Access Program (EAP) Unlike other Radix new gTLD extensions that previously launched .Tech is not going to have a landrush period but an EAP period like Donuts and Rightside. Radix further announced that it has signed up 40+ Pioneers for .tech. “The Pioneer list includes impressive names like Carl Pei, co-founder of the much talked about OnePlus smartphone, Web Summit – Dublin based 3 day conference that attracts 22,000+ delegates ... read more ...
 
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Frank Schilling's North Sound Names Loses 1st Uniform Rapid Suspension on EOS.Blackfriday - Frank Schilling North Sound Names has lost its first Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) on the domain name eos.blackfriday. North Sound Names registered almost 208,000 domain names Uniregistry new gTLD’s and marks the first time North Sound has lost a domain name in a URS or a UDRP. Due to the ruling the domain registration will be suspended for the during of the registration. The term EOS was in the trademark Clearinghouse. The Complaint was bought by the camera maker Canon. Another URS was filed ... read more ...
Tue 28th July 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo Weekly Transactions Total $1million - Sedo saw 495 transactions over the last week on their marketplace and via SedoMLS. Sales totaled  $1m. 53% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings.   .CO, .US and .TV had multiple showings on the cctld list. Top .com: float.com at 50,000 USD Top ccTLD: check.co at 10,099 USD Top “other” TLD: cornhole.org at 4,400 USD There were a handful of new gtld sales: enelint.global    2,750    USD city.church    1,999    USD cumulus.global    1,000    USD inter.works   ... read more ...
 
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Give.com Sold for $500,000 - Dave Evanson super broker at Sedo tweeted he just sold Give.com for $500,000 Just sold Give(.)com for $500,000. Congrats to seller and buyer!! — dave evanson (@SedoDaveEvanson) July 28, 2015   Regged in 1995, last screenshot from Screenshots.com: ... read more ...
 
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Donald Trump Wins Control of Trumppalace.com - Donald Trump has won another UDRP this time on the domain name Trumppalace.com which was purchased by the domain holder for $800 tto sell units in Trump’s condo in Sunny Isle Beach in South Florida Here are the facts: “”Complainant Donald Trump is a household name in the United States and in many other parts of the world. He is one of the best known businessmen in the United States. He is known, among other things, as a leading real estate developer. The TRUMP mark has been used and is registered ... read more ...
 
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RightoftheDot.com Opens Submission For Auction At Domainfest.Asia With 4.CN - RightoftheDot.com (ROTD) will be conducting a Premium Online Domain Auction in cooperation with the leading Chinese Domain auction company 4.CN and in association with DomainFest.asia which will be held in Macau China, September 4th through 7th, 2015. ROTD has officially opened up submissions for the auction which will run from September 2 through September 10th catered to the Chinese and Western end user, corporate and domain investor markets. The Auction will be online only since the Domainfest.asia ... read more ...
 
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Did OnlineEducation.com Sell for $3.3 million ? - I want to point out the tip for this article came courtesy of JS Lascary, he noticed some info related to QuinStreet a publicly traded company (QNST (NASDAQ) $6.03 -0.15 (-2.43%) that is an online performance marketing company providing technologies for businesses to identify their targeted audiences. They have purchased a number of high profile domains over the years, back in 2010 they paid $35.6 million for insurance.com, JS noticed they mentioned in a recent filing: source : http://investor.quinstreet.com/secfi…3125-15-177129 Now ... read more ...
Mon 27th July 2015
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Donuts Becomes 1st new gTLD Registry to Join The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) - Donuts has become the 1st new gTLD registry to join the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) as a Silver member. The ICA is a non-profit advocating for the rights and interests of domain name owners and related service providers. Although Donuts is also a member of the DNA (As is a company I’m a Director of,  RightoftheDot.com) the DNA and the ICA have different mission statements. The ICA is the only organization which is “concentrated on protecting the rights of domain name registrants” ... read more ...
 
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Google Making Changes To Google + - In a blog post today Google announced some changes upcoming to Google + and how users can use just a Google account to create accounts and share info. There have been complaints over the last couple of years that you needed a Google + profile to act as your identity. Your Google + profile for example if public, is searchable. Not everyone likes that aspect of Google + and now it looks like just a regular Google account which is non-searchable will be all that is needed. From the blog post: Using ... read more ...
 
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Another 7 total sale? Futbol.com is Sold - GoDaddy.com has sold the premium domain name Futbol.com which is the word that most of the world outside of the US refers to as Soccer. The domain name Futbol.com was one of the 200,000+ domain names that Godaddy bought from Marchex or $28.1 Million in April of this year. I broke the news on TheDomains that GoDaddy sold Beijing.com in May, shortly after they acquired the Marchex portfolio in what was very likely a 7 figure transaction. The Beijing.com sale even had some chatter (in the comment section) ... read more ...
 
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Domain Movers: Doc.com, Fans.com, XT.com And More Domains - Welcome to Domain Movers where I detect domain names on the move that have been recently purchased, registered or on the move for one reason or another. The majority of the following domain names have ownership by large corporations or are simply high value domain names. These are often early detections and being reported on for the first time. These domain names can lead to new products, companies, services, advertising and more. I heavily rely on whois data to tell the story of these movements, ... read more ...
 
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The .Site Contest Sponsored By Radix has resolved and we have a Winner - The .Site Contest that was sponsored by Radix and created by TheDomains.com has concluded, the winner is Marian Tutelea who was notified by email. Marian will receive a brand new Apple Watch.  Radix and TheDomains.com want to thank everyone who entered and got the word out on social media. We look to continue to bring you new promotions in the future. The contest winner did not receive a domain, the contest was a social contest where people tweeted out what would be their ultimate .site address ... read more ...
Sun 26th July 2015
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Frank Schilling On New gTLD's and The Value of .Com In The Years Ahead - Frank Schilling in a comment to our post on .Bank getting 5,500 applications, had a very interesting comment: “”IMO Dot Com will still be the largest individual TLD, but many, many viable alternative TLD’s will marginalize the totality of .com’s mindshare in future. Speaking as the owner of a large portfolio of valuable dot com names, I once felt comfortable explaining that people should spend whatever it takes to buy one of my .com names because they could rest easy knowing their acquisition/investment ... read more ...
Sat 25th July 2015
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UDRP Filed on The 25 Year Old Domain Name Cambridge.com By University of Cambridge - The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge has filed a UDRP on the domain name Cambridge.com. The domain is owned by Kirkland Holdings LLC of Brookline MA since March 2012. The prior owner of the domain name is “MHL” also of Brookline who got the domain around September 2009. The domain has an original creation date of September 21, 1992 making it just about 25 years old. As you can see on the screenshot the site Cambridge.com asks users to “click to Choose Your Cambridge. The ... read more ...
Fri 24th July 2015
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BMW Files UDRP on The Domain Hack B.MW - BMW has filed a UDRP seeking control of the domain name hack B.MW with the World Intellectual Property Organization WIPO. .MW is the country code (ccTLD) for Malawi. According to the whois record for the .MW registry the domain name B.MW has a creation date of 07-06-2004 but was updated in On March 10, 2015, with the domain possibly changing hands. The domain name B.MW is resolving to A.MW which is owned by Living By Blue, Co. TLD out of Japan, which lists hundreds of domain names for sale with prices ... read more ...
 
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Publicly Traded Co. That Owns Apartment.com/Apartments.com Buys Land.com - The ultra premium domain name Land.com has been purchased by CoStar Realty Information, Inc. according to whois records who also goes by CoStar Group and is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ (CSGP) and has a market cap of almost $7 Billion Dollars. CoStar is no stranger to premium generic domain names as they also own Apartment.com and Apartments.com. According to Wikipedia: “CoStar Group, Inc. is an American commercial real estate information and marketing provider with headquarters in Washington, ... read more ...
 
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API.Info Lost in UDRP - Colegio Oficial de Agentes de La Propiedad Inmobiliaria de Barcelona of Barcelona, Spain, just won control of the domain name API.info Most of us in the tech space know API to stand for Application Program Interface, which “is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications.” and is typically used to integrate data from one site or a database into a website. The Complainant whose website is API.Cat, is a public and regulated body that integrates and represents the real ... read more ...
 
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Verisign: Brands Are Keeping Their .Com: Don't See Anybody Abandoning .Com for .Brand or Another TLD." - In the Verisign earnings call yesterday the following question was asked by Fred Ziegel, Topeka Capital Markets. Fred Ziegel (Analyst – Topeka Capital Markets): But we don’t see them abandoning their .com.” Jim Bidzos (Executive Chairman, President and CEO): Added: “And just to clarify — for example, if we were to employ .verisign, we would never abandon verisign.com. Like most brands, we’ve invested heavily in promoting it. And everybody is familiar with it,  we would probably ... read more ...