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 1st June 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Apple Inc. Wins AppleId.com and AppleAccount.com In UDRP - Apple Inc. has secured two domain names recently with two different UDRP filings on the domain names AppleID.com and AppleAccount.com . AppleID.com The AppleID.com domain name was registered on May 26, 2004 and was secured by Apple Inc. in a UDRP case #D2015-0582 with a status of “Terminated”. The terminated status often relates to the respondent not putting up a fight and transferring the domain name. According to whois records, Apple Inc is now the owners of the domain. I tried to find an ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD Utilization Report by CSC - CSC put out their most recent New gTLD utilization report, the report is published every two months. The report looks to find trends and make observations for corporate clients and digital marketers. Observations from the report include: there have been 1,300+ registrations to date which represents a more than 60% increase from the March report. When it was feasible, they analyzed .brand registries with more than two registrations to identify the following findings:   The most active .brand applicants ... read more ...
Sun 31st May 2015
Written by The Domains in EN
BigRock.com: India Accounts For 4% of All Domain Registrations; China 20-22% - According to firstpost.com, average monthly domain name registrations in India has more than doubled to 4% of all global registrations, citing figures from web-hosting company BigRock. China, accounts for 20-22%t of monthly new domain name registrations globally. BigRock hosts websites for Warner Brothers, Fiat India, Adidas, Yatra.com, HP Gas, Star Network, and Kotak Securities, among others and competes with larger players like GoDaddy, HostGator and Net4India. There are now 232 million Internet ... read more ...
 
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Quick Poll: How Many Sunrise Domain Registrations Will .Sucks Get? - The new gTLD .Sucks has been in the news for a few months since announcing its pricing plan which place a suggested retail price of up to $2,499 for trademark holders. ICANN claimed .sucks domains were being sold to trademark owners in a “predatory” manner, and took the unprecedented step of asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) if it was legal. This week the FTC answered and told the ICANN, if you break it you buy it, basically telling ICANN you created the mess and we warned you ahead of ... read more ...
 
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A Second German Court Rules AdBlock Software is not illegal - In April we wrote about a German court upholding the rights to block ads, now a second German court has come out and ruled the same way. German publishers seem to be up in arms and have promised to appeal these rulings. Venture Beat wrote: One month after a German court ruled online ad-blocking technology is perfectly fine, a second legal challenge has now arrived at the exact same conclusion. Back in April, a court in Hamburg ruled that blocking advertisements was legal following a four-month trial ... read more ...
Sat 30th May 2015
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State of Washington Says Domain Registrations Are Subject To Sales Tax - According to a ruling from the State of Washington this week “Internet domain name registration services are generally subject to retail sales or use tax. This article only addresses the initial sale of a domain name by a registrar. The Domain Name System helps users find their way around the Internet. Every computer on the Internet has a unique address, called an Internet Protocol (IP) address. Website owners then buy an easy-to-remember domain name. For example, instead of typing in an IP address ... read more ...
 
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Prudential Denied URS On Rocksolid.financial Despite Trademark & Parked Page - The Prudential Insurance Company of America just lost the attempt to get the new gTLD domain name rocksolid.financial suspended through a Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) proceeding. The domain owner is Terrance McQuilkin who was represented by Mark Jeftovic of Toronto. The Examiner Antonina Pakharenko-Anderson, denied relief to Prudential despite having a trademark going back to 1986 for financial services and the domain being parked, finding the term Rock Solid was generic Here are the highlights: “”The ... read more ...
 
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PicMonkey Inc DENIED PickMonkey.com in WIPO Filing - PicMonkey Inc. filed a complaint with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center on February 26, 2015 for the domain name PickMonkey.com and has been denied the claim by a sole panelist. Some Facts: PicMonkey Inc. filed 3 trademarks for PICMONKEY (2) and PICKMONKEY ROYALE (1), all on June 4, 2013. The PickMonkey.com domain name was registered on May 20, 2004. The Site: PicMonkey.com offers photo editing software and is founded by several original members of Picnik, who Google acquired in 2010 and ... read more ...
Fri 29th May 2015
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Facebook is Opposed to Designbook removing trademark - Facebook opposes trademark of start up Designbook WPTZ is reporting that Facebook wants to block the trademark of Vermont based Designbook, Facebook seems to think they are the only one’s entitled to use the word book. From the article: Designbook is a nearly year-old online community that connects startup businesses with investors and collaborators. In its quest to protect the name, to thwart any potential imitators or “Designbook 2’s” as Pollak says, the company hit a major roadblock. Facebook ... read more ...
 
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Co-Founder Fred Krueger Sells Over 10% Of His Shares of Minds + Machines -       Minds + Machines announced today that Fred Krueger informed the company that he sold 14,000,000 shares on May 28, 2015. Based on his last disclosed interest, Fred Krueger now owns 114,481,604 ordinary shares representing approximately 13.7% of the issued shares capital of the Company. On May 26th Mr. Krueger announced he was leaving the company as executive chairman and would be succeeded by Keith Teare at which time he owned 128,481,604 shares representing over 15% of the company. Shares ... read more ...
 
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IamWire Creates Infographic of Future Of Domain Names - IamWire.com has created a very informative and detailed infographic on the future of domain names, highlighting the article from the first domain created in 1985 with Symbolics.com to several new gTLD’s. This was the first time I read an article from IamWire but writer Sujata Sangwan really did a well balanced article that is very informative for people in and out of the domain name space. Several high profile names appear in the article with Rick Schwartz, Paul Stahura and Monte Cahn,  even ... read more ...
Thu 28th May 2015
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Key-Systems Wins Control Of RRPproxy.me owned by Founder The of .TK Registry - Key-Systems GmbH won control of the domain name RRPproxy.me in a UDRP The domain appears to be owned by Joost Zuurbier who is the Founder of Freedom Registry which operates the .TK registry the second largest domain name registry in the world with around 30 million registrations. We did an interview with Zoost in March of 2012 which you can read here The domain name was registered in August 2014 and is in pending delete status. Key-Systems owns the domain names rrpproxy.com, rrpproxy.net and rrpproxy.org, ... read more ...
 
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All 32 NFL Teams Register a .Football Domain, But Only 10 Colleges Do - All 32 NFL teams applied for its domain name in the new gTLD .Football that launches into general availability next week. Interestingly some applied with their city and team like the BaltimoreRavens.football and the AtlantaFalcons.football while other teams just went with their name like 49ers.football and Bengals.football. If your keeping track 15 NFL teams went with their city and nicknames while 17 just registered the name of their team sans the city. A team that registered just its city and nickname ... read more ...
 
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Trademark Game Playing Results In Great Generic Domains Being Registered In .Casino Sunrise - Wynn,the Bellagio,the Borgata, the MGM, the Mirage and the Aira are just a few of the famous Casino’s which registered their name in the new gTLD .Casino extension during the Sunrise period. Each domain extension has to give first shot to trademark holders who have registered their global marks in the Trademark Clearing House (TMCH) but with each never gTLD launch I’m seeing more and more words, perfectly generic terms being successfully grabbed in the Sunrise period. .Casino launches into general ... read more ...
 
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.ninja Turns 1 W/ 35% Domains Pointing To Active Websites - Rightside has just published a news release that mentions that .ninja is celebrating its first birthday! With the birthday announcement comes some numbers for the new TLD: “In the last year, more than 48,000 .NINJA domain extensions have been secured, and 35 percent of domain names point to active websites. .NINJA is one of the top 25 most registered new TLDs and is rapidly growing among marital arts studios, business and creative agencies such as internetmarketing.ninja, a marketing agency out ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Co. Invests €350,000 to "Disrupt Domain Industry": 50 Million Registered But Unused Domains - According to a press release out today, Axivate Capital a VC firm has “invested €350,000 to disrupt domain industry in “Undeveloped.com, a domain marketplace Undeveloped , says they have “crawled and indexed over 50 million registered but unused domain names. ” Undeveloped’s co-founder and CEO Reza Sardeha is quoted as saying: “”With over 288 million registered domains finally everyone has access to these “hidden” domains. Undeveloped is changing the domain industry by making ... read more ...
 
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Domain Movers: InkTV.com, Jude.org, VirtualAds.com and More Domains - Domain Movers consistently delivers unique domain name data two times a week here on TheDomains, which contains recently registered, acquired and simply moving domain name from some of the largest companies around the world. Enjoy the recent domain movements that I have detected based on whois records and other sources: Daniel J. Edelman, Inc. (PR firm) has registered the domain name PaypalReady.com . This was a little odd to me as Paypal almost always registers its own domain names but eBay and ... read more ...
Wed 27th May 2015
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ICANN Reports On Security Breach Of New gTLD Applicant Portal: 60 Searches: 200+ Records - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today provided an update on its investigation into a data exposure issue in the New gTLD Applicant and GDD (Global Domains Division) portals, first reported on 1 March 2015 In its 30 April announcement, ICANN noted its intention to disclose to affected users the identity of any user(s) that viewed their information without authorization by May 27th 2015. This activity has been completed. Specifically, ICANN: Notified the users whose ... read more ...
 
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Technology.ie Interviews Jothan Frakes and they are giving divided giveaway tickets to DomainFest - Technology.ie is giving away 20 free tickets to DomainFest. Their website posted today, Technology.ie has got twenty tickets to give away to DomainFest Bulgaria next week. It’s just one of the events which form part of Bulgarian Internet Week, in a country which ranks second in the world for Internet use (average: 16 hours per person per week). There is a podcast with Jothan Frakes of NamesCon and  DomainFest. Jothan discusses New gTLDs being the new normal and starts out discussing a growing ... read more ...
Tue 26th May 2015
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Minds + Machines Reports Earnings For 2014: Profit $22 Million: $46 Million in a Bank - Minds + Machines (LON:MMX) reported its audited results for the year ended 31 December 2014. Minds + Machines reported a profit before in 2014 of $22.06 million against a profit of $1.14 million in 2013, largely as a result of receiving $33.72 Million for withdrawing applications for new gTLD’s that were in private auctions. The company made $6.44 million in 2013 for withdrawing applications Revenue from registry and registrar services, and this totaled $1.92 Million in 2014, up from $56,000 the ... read more ...
 
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Bought a Month Ago For $12K Fbet.com Leads Sedo's $1.1M Transactions during $50,000 Euros - Over the past week, 598 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.1 Million The domain selling for the highest amount is this week is Fbet.com which was purchased on Sedo just a little over a month ago for $10,099 and just sold again on Sedo for 50,000 Euro’s which is over $54,000 53% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. The Top ccTLD: cz.cc at 10,000 Euro’s The highest selling other TLD’s were  zb.org which sold for $10,099 and Joy.Eu that ... read more ...
 
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Domain Movers: SJ.com, Ploom.com ShoppingCart.com and More - Welcome to Domain Movers where I dig tens of thousands of domain names to find recently acquired, registered and domains simply moving mainly by all large corporations. These domain names often highlight new brands, services, advertising campaigns and much more. I do the legwork, you enjoy a bunch of unique content that can give you ideas to something in the works! Here we go with the latest domain movers: JoinTheFlock.com has been acquired by a currently unknown CSC Corporate Domains client. The ... read more ...
 
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The Co-Founder Of Minds + Machines Fred Krueger Is Leaving The Company - Fred Krueger, executive chairman and co-founder of Minds + Machines (LON:MMX) is stepping down according to a press release by the company today. Fred Krueger will be succeeded as chairman by Keith Teare, with the role now being a non-executive one. “”The changing of the guard marks the evolution of Minds + Machines from a company set up to take advantage of the liberalisation of generic top level domains (gTLDs) to one that offers both registry services – maintaining the database of all registered ... read more ...
Mon 25th May 2015
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One Company Just Spent Over $150K In .Apartments Domains & Donuts Makes Over $220K Just In Day 1 - Donuts just I believe set a new gTLD record for selling 21 new gTLD’s on the 1st day of the Early Access Program (EAP) in which wholesale prices are $10K and retail prices range from around $11K to $12,500. Meaning that Donuts took $210,000 in just EAP fees for day 1 of EAP plus many of those domain name also had a premium price. One company, registered 16 domain names on the 1st day EAP spending what basically amounts to what they could have spent to apply for the whole .apartment new gTLD by ... read more ...
 
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Report: Only 14 TLDs Are "Legal" in China - Allegravita published a paper that looks to be a bit troubling for registries looking to do business in China moving forward. The Chinese government is looking to regulate the Chinese domain industry while The MIIT will not interfere with existing domain registrations for unapproved registries; however, new registrations will not be permitted to be sold by Chinese registrars to Chinese registrants. New gtlds look like they are going to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to make sure they are ... read more ...