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.

Wed 1st July 2015
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AlpNames.com Starts Selling Premium .Science, .Party and .Cricket Domains Starting At $230 - AlpNames.com just send out an email announcing they are starting to sell the premium domain names of three Famous Four Domain extension .Science, .Party and .Cricket and launched Premium.AlpNames.com. These are domain name reserved by the registry and were not available for registration. There are several price points for the premium domains: $230 $575 $1,150 $2,875 $5,750 $11,500 itsnotrocket.science will set you back $2,750 The premium domains are being sold for a one time price and then subject ... read more ...
 
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Khloe Kardashian Files UDRP TO Get The Domain Name KhloeKardashian.com - Khloe Kardashian has filed a UDRP TO Get her matching .Com Domain Name KhloeKardashian.com The actual complainant is listed as Khloe Kardashian; Khlomoney, Inc;  Whalerock Celebrity Subscription, LLC. The domain name was registered back in 2007. The domain registered under privacy at publicdomainregistry.com The last time the domain name wasn’t under privacy was in 2008 when the owner was Caribbean Online International Ltd of the Bahamas. The domain name was recently parked and had links directly ... read more ...
 
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CentralNic Likely Sells GB.com Domain Name - Early this morning CentralNic published an press release Press Release saying they had sold $1 Million dollars in unidentified domain names and would be using  will use the cash to buy more premium web domain names. In the release CentralNic says they own around 20,000 premium domain names that they started acquiring in the 2nd half of 2014. This morning the domain name GB.com, which they own has changed registrant email address to: kk@sedo.com That registrant email change very likely indicates ... read more ...
Tue 30th June 2015
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Verisign Domain Report: There Are Now 294 Million Domains As Of Mar 31, 2015 - VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), released its quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief today for the first quarter of 2015 6 million domain names were added to the Internet in the in Q1, bringing the total number of registered domain names to 294 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of March 31, 2015. The increase of six million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 1.9% over the fourth quarter of 2014. Worldwide registrations have grown by 17.8 million, or 6.5%, year over ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Weekly Transactions Total $1 Million led by Filament.com - Sedo total transactions totaled $1 Million this week. In all 508 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS 50% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings.    Top .com: filament.com at 89,000 USD Top ccTLD: s1.tv at 8,400 USD Top “other” TLD: ccc.net at 17,888 USD Number 3 on the .Com charts was HotMiami.com for $15,000, which  was sold by Michael’s company Most Wanted Domains. Interviewed.com at $9,900 was one Mike thought looked cheap. I thought S1.tv at ... read more ...
 
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Paypal Tells Sellers to Provide Compelling Evidence to Fight Buyer Dispute - Paypal is getting ready to be set free from Ebay and be a public entity again. This will be the second IPO for the company. Back in 2002 the company went public under the symbol PYPL. Here is a look at the terms back in 2002 courtesy of Nasdaq.com Company Description PayPal enables any business or consumer with email to send and receive online payments securely, conveniently and cost-effectively. Our network builds on the existing financial infrastructure of bank accounts and credit cards to create ... read more ...
 
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.LGBT Pride Program Launched: $20 Per Domain Registration Will Be Contributed To The "It Gets Better Project" - The .LGBT domain registry operator Afilias announced the launch of the .LGBT Pride Program in celebration of two recent victories for LGBT equality: the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling regarding the right to marriage equality in the US, and Ireland’s legalization of same-sex civil marriage. From today through October 11, 2015, National Coming Out Day, every new .LGBT web address registered will trigger a US$20 donation from Afilias to the It Gets Better Project. .LGBT is the new and the only top ... read more ...
 
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By A 2-1 Vote Plumbing Site RooterRooter.com Is Saved From Roto-Rooter in UDRP - Roto-Rooter Corporation just lost its bid to grain control of the domain name RooterRooter.com by a 2-1 vote of a three member UDRP panel. Panelists Richard Hill and David P. Miranda, Esq voted in favor of the domain holder while G. Gervaise Davis, Esq. would have transferred the domain name to the trademark holder. A majority of the Panel found that the term of the the rooterrooter.com domain name is common and generic/descriptive, and therefore the Complainant does not have an exclusive monopoly ... read more ...
 
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UPDATED: Cisco Is Buying OpenDNS For $635 Million - According to a post on its company blog, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is buying OpenDNS. According to VentureBeat.com, the deal is valued at $635 Million.  OpenDNS has raised north of $50 million in funding to date, including a $35 million round last May.” This is from the Cisco blog post: I am pleased to announce our intent to acquire OpenDNS, a leading provider of advanced threat protection for any device, anywhere, anytime, delivered in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. The acquisition will extend ... read more ...
 
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Barclays has a home during Home.Barclays - Barclays has found a home now at Home.Barclays, back in May they said they would be transitioning away from the .com and the .co.uk. They said they would be adding a layer of security for customers and clients by allowing only Barclays and Barclaycard to set up websites ending in .barclays and .barclaycard. So now Barclays has the .com redirecting to Home.Barclays but not the .co.uk, that domain still stands alone and does not redirect. The one thing I think all these brands need to do is have continuity. ... read more ...
Mon 29th June 2015
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UDRP Filed To Gain Control of The 15 Year Old Domain Name SharkTank.com - A UDRP has been filed to gain control of the domain name SharkTank.com The domain, SharkTank.com is registered to a Jeff Thomas of North Carolina. According to DomainTools.com the domain was registered in 2000 by Legal Solutions, Inc In 2003 the domain name ownership changed to LeaveLaw.com, Inc. with Jeff Thomas showing as the contact meaning that Mr. Thomas appears to have controlled the domain since at least 2003. The Television Show Shark Tank first premiered on ABC in 2009. The domain name currently ... read more ...
 
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Projects.com Drops To SnapNames & Is Over $20K Only 1 Hour Into The Auction - The domain name Projects.com just dropped and went to Snapnames.com closed auction about an hour ago and already has already topped $20,000. The domain name expired on April 11, 2015. The domain was registered under privacy at Fabulous.com. The last registered owner of the domain was Merlin Kauffman of True Magic in 2014. I cannot find a reported sale of the domain name, which if it sold in the aftermarket, I would assume sold in the six figures. Estibot.com has the domain name Projects.com valued ... read more ...
 
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TldOperator.Help to Host Two Webinars on Jun 30 - There will be two webinars tomorrow that will look to help new gtld applicants and registries to find ways to spread the word on the new gtlds. Registering for the webinars takes place at TldOperator.help Speakers have just been added Ingrid Baele (Head of Operations, Philips) and Ken Nishida (Manager, Internet Domain Strategies, Hitachi). They are added to a lineup that includes industry participants from Donuts, .berlin, .sucks, .sydney, .club and .monash. The front page of Tldoperator.help reads: Dedicated ... read more ...
 
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Domain Movers: Hum.com, Orlando.com and More Domains - Welcome to the latest round of Domain Movers where I detect domain names on the move that have been recently registered or acquired. The majority of these are by large companies and would often go unreported otherwise. These are often very early discoveries and most lead to a new brand, product, service and more. Here are my latest findings: Time Inc. has registered the domain name EliteTravelerClub.com adding to its domain name portfolio of over 9,000+ domain names. Hum.com has been acquired by ... read more ...
 
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Click Fraud Malware Can Lead To Bigger Problems - Ashley Carman published an article today on SCMagazine.com that deals with click fraud malware and how it can lead to bigger problems. In her article she referenced a report by Damballa.com that was basically a overview of all potential infections going around the web. The report points out that click fraud malware is usually deemed “low risk” but it can lead to bigger problems. From the article: In the report’s RuthlessTreeMafia group example, a victim was infected with click-fraud malware ... read more ...
Sun 28th June 2015
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125.com Becomes Largest Reported Sale on 4.cn - Domain NameClosing Price Xe.com shows 1RMB = .1611 USD 125.com¥1,815,000 RMB 357.com¥995,889 RMB August 2014 xy.com¥948,000 RMB December 2011 zy.com¥901,000 RMB November 2011 after selling on Sedo earlier in 2011 for $106,000. mingshi.com¥891,000 RMB January 2015 102.com¥831,000 RMB August 2014 103.com¥802,000 RMB August 2014 886.com¥688,888 RMB November 2011 kq.com¥638,000 RMB December 2012 920.com¥589,888 RMB Feb 2014 So you can see that 125.com almost doubled the previous high sale ... read more ...
 
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Over 242 million Internet users visited Google properties in May - In a post on 24/7 Wall Street they broke down visitors to Google, Facebook,Yahoo, etc… for the month of May. Google owned sites had 242.4 million visits in May. Of course Google has You Tube and a few other popular sites under their banner. Only three companies had over 200 million visitors for May. Facebook and Yahoo both reached the 200 million visitor mark. From the article: Out of a total audience of 256.1 million unique U.S. Internet users, fully 95% (242.4 million) visited a property owned ... read more ...
Sat 27th June 2015
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8 Naming Mistakes Investors Hate to See - There are so many diffferent opinions out there on naming, and more than one reason why certain companies choose the name they do. Sometimes it comes down to budget, sometimes it’s a certain meaning to the founder that no one else understands, and sometimes it’s about following the herd and following a similar naming convention. Martin Zwilling wrote an article on Entrepreneur that looks at 8 naming mistakes that investors hate to see. Mr. Zwilling is a start up mentor and angel investor so he ... read more ...
Fri 26th June 2015
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FTC Rules Network Solutions Misled Consumers on 30 Day Money Back Guarantee - Network Solutions got slapped by the FTC for not providing clear terms with their 30 day money back guarantee. Network Solutions did not make it clear that they hold up to 30% of the refund. There was no fine by the FTC but there will be penalties should they violate the terms set forth by the FTC. From the FTC website: Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission has approved a final consent order involving Network Solutions, LLC, which misled consumers who bought its web hosting ... read more ...
 
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Alarm.com Went Public Today & is Up Over 20% - Alarm.com went public today in a IPO at $14 a share which gives the company a market valuation of about $627.9 million. However shares are currently trading at almost $17 a share over 20% higher than the IPO price. The ticker symbol is “ALRM”. The company reported more than 2.3 million subscribers. The company reported a net profit of $13.5 million last year, compared with $4.5 million in 2013 and $8.9 million in 2012, while revenue surged to $167.3 million in 2014, from $130.2 the year before ... read more ...
 
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ICANN Best Estimate For New gTLD Renewal Rate 50%; 25% For Free Domains: 35% Worst Case - In releasing its 2016 operating budget ICANN made some estimate for the purposes of budgeting revenue from new gTLD’s. ICANN is saying its “Best” estimate is that the average renewal rate will be 50% for new gTLD’s except for TLD’s that provided free registrations where the renewal rate was estimated at 25%. On The Low estimate the ICANN seems to be indicating a new gTLD renewal rate of 35% but does not break out the free registrations from paid registrations so that number should have ... read more ...
 
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ICANN Mar 2016 Meeting To Be In Morocco, Oct 2016 In Puerto Rico - The ICANN Board selected locations to hold its meetings for March 2016 and October 2016 before heading out of the ICANN Buenos Airs meeting. The March 2016 ICANN meeting (ICANN 55) with be held in Marrakech, Morocco which had already been selected for the site for the March 2016 ICANN Meeting after ICANN relocated the meeting scheduled for March 2014 to Singapore during the outbreak of Ebola. The Marrakech meeting will be held March 5-10 2016 ICANN announced it was going to hold its October 2016 ... read more ...
 
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No Luck of The .Irish; Has Less Than 500 Registrations After 1st Day Of Availability - There was no luck for the Irish for the launch of the new gTLD .Irish Including those domain names registered in the Sunrise period for trademark holders, the landrush period for those who were willing to pay an extra fee for early access to domains and the first day of general availability which was the 24th, the current zone files reflect less than 500 domain registrations The official count stands at just 478 registered domain names with almost 50% of those being registered at Canadian registrar ... read more ...
Thu 25th June 2015
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Domain Movers: C9.com, BRRR.com and More Domains - Domain Movers is a series where we highlight newly registered, purchased and domain names that are simply moving for one reason or another, mainly all by large companies. These are often early discoveries. Lets get going with today’s list of domain name movers: Google Inc. registered several new domain names, starting off with GoogleChromeStick.com (Google has Chromecast which is a “stick”) Homero also points out the Asus Chromebit, which is a new Chrome Stick coming out soon, GoogleDeepMind.net, ... read more ...
 
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Actor John Stamos Gets His .Com in UDRP; Panel Finds Whois Privacy Corp. A Co-Serial Cybersquatter - Actor John Stamos just won rights to his matching .com domain name JohnStamos.com in a UDRP. David E. Sorkin as the sole Panelist wasted little time awarding the domain name to the actor from Ryan Foo who has lost over 100 UDRP’s and has been recoginzed by many UDRP panels as a serial cybersquatter However Mr. Sorkin went even farther finding that the “proxy service”, “Whois Privacy Corp” which operates under whoisprivacycorp.com, was “a co-conspirator with Mr. Foo and is also a recognized ... read more ...