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 25th May 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CoinDesk Reports On "War" Over Bitcoin.com Domain Name - CoinDesk.com is reporting a dispute between Roger Ver and OKCoin over the domain name Bitcoin.com which is describes as a War over the domain: The issue stems from the management of the Bitcoin.com domain, after the two sides struck a five-year deal last December to control the property. Under the agreement, OKCoin was set to redesign the site and pay Ver a percentage of the revenue generated each month, with a minimum of $10,000 per month. according to the article. There is a reported contract dispute ... read more ...
Sun 24th May 2015
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Report: Bitgold, Inc. Purchases GoldMoney.com for Nearly $52M - According to CoinTelegraph.com, BitGold has just acquired Goldmoney.com for CA$51.9 million (US$42.3 million), incorporating more than 135K of the website’s “gold bugs,” or gold-hoarding enthusiasts”. “Founded in 2001 by James Turk…Goldmoney is a service that allows users to trade and safely store their gold assets, controlling over CA$1.5 billion worth of precious metals in their storage facilities. GoldMoney’s “low cost storage” fees for gold ranged between 0.12% and 0.18% per ... read more ...
 
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Is Go Daddy Too Expensive to buy ? - GoDaddy negatives 1) Valuation and Debt – I think that GoDaddy can be an attractive investment but at a much lower price. The company’s stock price has jumped by more than 30%, since it did its IPO at $20. The company is not making a profit, though it is generating a free cash flow of more than $100 million. The valuation at more than $4 billion is a bit too high for a company that’s operating at moderate margins and does not have a great growth profile either. The company’s underwriters ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Afnic: "2017, year of converging for a domain name market?" - Afnic published a report that looked at consolidation in 2017 for legacy tlds. The report looks at retention rates for legacy tlds and cctlds. Projections are put forward relating to annual creations and deletions. New gtlds were not included in the report. The key takeaway being, the level of deletions should reach and exceed the level of creations in H1 2017 for the two segments of TLDs. From the report: For the purposes of this study, we relied on ICANN reports for Legacy gTLDs and ccTLDs, and ... read more ...
Sat 23rd May 2015
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Must Read This Very Troubling UDRP; 18 Year Old Playworld.com Lost in UDRP After Domain Is Parked - Playworld Systems, Inc. just won control of the 18 year old domain name playworld.com in a UDRP which I find to be very troubling. Playworld Systems owns and operates PlayWorldSystems.com which was registered in 1996. PlayWorld.com was registered on October 30, 1997 Playworld System apparently made an offer of $30K which the domain owner rejected, countering with $120K According to the facts and findings the domain holder at one time turned down $80,000 for the domain years earlier from a third-party. The ... read more ...
Fri 22nd May 2015
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The Psychology of Pricing - For many domain investors negotiation and pricing is some of the trickiest and hardest things to learn. While there is no exact science, experience and a ton of previous transactions help the most, there are strategies you can employ to help with your negotiation and pricing. Mike stumbled across a very extensive article from Nick Kolenda that deals with the psychological aspects of pricing. The article is very long and detailed, so I would suggest you bookmark it as it is a lot for one reading. ... read more ...
 
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After It's Disastrous Super Bowl Commercial Godaddy Maybe Looking For New Ad Agency - GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE: GDDY) seems to be looking for a new advertising agency in wake of the disastrous Super Bowl Commercial and the less than impressive, at least in my opinion,  of its Claude Van Dam commercials Godaddy has put out a global brand agency request for proposal (RFP) to help promote and personalize the GoDaddy brand globally. Chief Marketing Officer Phil Bienert is quoted as saying; “This next phase in GoDaddy’s marketing strategy will fuel brand messaging globally while leveraging ... read more ...
 
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Report: 4 Million AdultFriendFinder.com Members Personal Information Stolen - click2houston.com, is reporting that the personal information from as many as four million members of AdultFriendFinder.com may have been stolen. The information includes the sexual preference, marital status and other personal data, like dates of birth and email addresses. According to the story, the site boasts 64 million members, but it’s not known which of those had their information stolen. Its one of those sites that people in and out of relationships use to hookup. For those in relationships ... read more ...
 
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AlpNames.com Becomes 2nd Largest New gTLD Registrar In The World - AlpNames.com has become the 2nd Largest New gTLD Registrar In The World  according to ntldstats.com. The domain name registrar which was little known and used before the new gTLD program has skyrocket into having the 2nd most new gTLD registrations with over 430K registration passing Network Solutions that has over 427,000 registrations. Alpnames.com now accounts for over 7.5% of all new gTLD domain name registrations Alpnames.com seems to have a special relationship with one new gTLD portfolio ... read more ...
 
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.GOP Video Promotes Use, But No Major Presidential Candidate Seems To Own One - In a new video posted by the .GOP registry, they boast about it being the only new gTLD owned by a political party and of course that is true, as the other political domain names, .Democrat, .Republican. .Vote and .Voting are owned by for profit non-affiliated registries. The .GOP gTLD is owned by Republican State Leadership Committee, Inc. an affiliate to the republican party. The video’s most talked about site is  StopHillary.Gop which is being forwarded to a .com; a site under GOP.com which ... read more ...
Thu 21st May 2015
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ICA Sounds The Alarm: Tell ICANN No to URS during .Travel – Or It Will Travel to .Com - Phil Corwin of the Internet Commerce Association (the “ICA)  just published a post,  sounding a very loud alarm, to head off what would be the first step that would make all .Com domain name subject to the Uniform Rapid Suspension Policy (URS) which allows “trademark holders” to go after domain names. To remind everyone the URS which is only in effect for new gTLD’s is now being proposed in the new contract for the .Travel Registry which is not a new gTLD but an incumbent Top Level Domain ... read more ...
 
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Name.com: 50% Off Premium Priced Domains On 4 New gTLD's Extension For 2 Hours Today - The domain name registrar, Name.com is offering 50% of of premium registrations (first year only) for the following new gTLD  extensions today only for 2 hours: .CONSULTING .SOFTWARE .MARKET .REVIEWS. The Domain Happy Hour is from 3–5 p.m. MST today. “That includes some pretty great available premiums, like Colorado.market, StockMarket.consulting, Action.software, and Gaming.reviews.” The promo code will be revealed on the Happy Hour page at 3 p.m. Thursday. “The Promotion does not apply ... read more ...
 
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STDCheck.com Wins Rights To STDChecks.com In UDRP Based On Common Law Trademark Rights - FPK Services, LLC d/b/a STDCheck.com (“Complainant”), represented by Brett E. Lewis of Lewis Lin LLC, New York, USA.  just won the rights to the domain name stdchecks.com in a UDRP based on a finding of common law trademark rights The domain name STDChecks.com was registered on April 11, 2014 The Domain name STDCheck.com was registered in August 2012. The one member panel of  John J. Upchurch found that since the domain holder was a former affiliate of the Complainant they had knowledge of ... read more ...
 
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Domain Movers: eGrad.com, Glimpse.com and More Domains - Welcome to Domain Movers! We do the dirty digging to bring to light domain names that have been recently registered, acquired or simply moving by some of the largest companies in the world! Set back and enjoy some interesting domain data! 3M Company appears to be in the process of moving all of its domain names from MarkMonitor TO CSC Corporate Domains. This isn’t the first large company to do this, as Allstate Insurance is another in the process as I mentioned before. 3M owns about 16,000 domain ... read more ...
 
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Fadi Chehadé Stepping Down As ICANN President & CEO in Mar 2016 -             The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced that President and CEO Fadi Chehadé has informed the Board he will be stepping down in  March 2016 to move into a new career in the private sector (outside the Domain Name Industry). At the request of the Board, Chehadé will be available to work closely with ICANN after March 2016 to support the transition to a new leader, as well as to advise the Board on any issue they require including the implementation ... read more ...
 
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1st Day New gTLD Totals: .One 3,434; .Chat 1,826; .Style 1,033; .Tennis 733; .Bingo 472 - Five new gTLD new domain extensions launched into general availability (GA) yesterday. Including domain names registered during the Sunrise period by Trademark holders and those registered for an extra fee in the Early Access Program (RAP) here are the totals after the first day of GA. .One 3,434 .Chat 1,826 .Style 1,033 .Tennis 733 .Bingo 472 As for .One a substantial percentage, over 45% were registered at German based United-Domains and their sister registrar 1and1.com. At 1and1.com the ... read more ...
 
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Google Launching InstaWeb Or Beat To The Punch? - Is Google Inc. launching a website builder called “InstaWeb” or did they get beat to the punch is the question. Here are somethings that I found: Google Inc. became the owners of the domain name InstaWeb.net from a Joshua Marantz according to whois records. The domain has been registered since September 6, 2004 and according to whois records, Google secured the domain on March 23, 2015. InstaWeb.com was owned by a David Lowy of Vancouver Canada and the domain was using Sedo Parking until April ... read more ...
 
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PayPal fined $25million Related to a Pay Later Button - PayPal got hit with a $25 million fine for deceiving their customers. The pay later button is at the root of the problem, I know when I first started seeing it I thought it was annoying. I just want to pay for my domain registration, not looking to pay later for $10.99. Rob Beschizza wrote on Boing Boing covered the story: A few months ago, I noticed that PayPal put a “pay later” button where the usual payment button would be. It’s a tricky way to snooker users into the credit/debt treadmill, ... read more ...
Wed 20th May 2015
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Enom.com Informs Customers of "Very Sophisticated Attack" But No Domains Were Stolen - In an email to tonight from Taryn Naidu CEO of Enom.com told its customers that they “recently became the subject of what appears to be a very sophisticated attack by a group that targets large internet infrastructure companies. Within hours of this attack, we were in contact with federal law enforcement and the affected parties. This attack hijacked the DNS traffic of 4 domains for a very short period of time before we mitigated the situation.” “You have not been impacted by this incident ... read more ...
 
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This Guy Want You To Pay A Tax On "Parked" 'Unused" Or "Idle" Domains - In a story published by Circleid.com written by  Alex Tajirian, CEO at DomainMart,  Mr. Tajirian suggests that all parked, “unused” or “idle” pages need to have a Tax imposed on them to reduce cybersquatting, even if the domain name is generic. Mr. Tajirian proposes that all “parked” domains or “unused” or “idle” domains be subject a tax similar to a property tax for real estate: “We need a tax.” “Right now a tax is the weapon needed by the domain name community. We face ... read more ...
Tue 19th May 2015
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Sedo Weekly Sales Total $1.3 Million .TV and .Net Top The Charts - Over the past week, 607 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.3m. 57% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings.  Top Sales: Top .com: dopo.com at 10,000 USD Top ccTLD: astrology.tv at 25,000 EUR Top “other” TLD: bd.net at 29,500 USD Dot Com took a breather from the top spot and nice to see a big .tv sale, the domain was registered since 2005, the name has been under privacy for awhile. Last registrant looked to be from Sweden, the domain was ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Rick Schwartz Maybe "Retired" But He Is Still The Domain King & Still Schooling Them Up - A lot of people in the domain world miss Rick Schwartz since he retired. His “Biggest Fan” who writes onlinedomain.com openly stated last week he was eagerly waiting for a new post from Rick on RicksBlog.com. The Domain King remains retired but of course he still owns a lot of domain names and gets offers  to which he responds to. Rick shared with me an exchange he had with a someone about a domain name he owns over the weekend, Flaunting.com What follows, with Rick’s permission is the email ... read more ...
 
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UDRP Filed on SoapBoxDerby.com Domain - A currently unknown entity has filed a UDRP on the domain name SoapBoxDerby.com that has been registered since 2001 and is owned by Vertical Axis. As it currently stands, it appears that Vertical Axis only defense is Laches (14 years since the domain was registered), as a live trademark filed in 1976 may be the ones who filed the UDRP: Owner (REGISTRANT) International Soap Box Derby, Inc. CORPORATION OHIO 789 Derby Downs Drive Akron OHIO 44306 International Soap Box Derby, Inc. uses the domain name ... read more ...
 
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Apple Inc. Secures AppleID.com Domain Name - Apple Inc. has secured the domain name AppleID.com according to whois records from a Hiroshi Kaneko of Toyko. The domain name was registered May 26, 2004 and held the same registrant email ever since being created, which indicates that Hiroshi has owned the domain name ever since creation. The Apple Id is a “user name” used for iTunes, iCloud and many of Apple’s products and services. Interesting to note, Apple also registered the domain name AppleIdStore.us on May 16, 2015.  The .com was ... read more ...
Mon 18th May 2015
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Donuts To Release Over 1 Million New gTLD Domains Starting Jun 10th - According to an email we received tonight Donuts is going to release more than one million previously unavailable new gTLD domain names, including permissible two character addresses Donuts will offer registrations via our Early Access Program (EAP) for the first seven days of their availability The release of these names will begin on June 10, 2015 and will be staggered in batches (see dates below).   Here are the new gTLD extensions associated with each category: ... read more ...