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 9th February 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Popular Torrent Site Kickass Torrents has the Somalian Web Address Seized. - Kickass Torrents is a very popular torrent website, the traffic probably totals in the seven figures daily, but according to Torrent Freak they just had their domain seized. They were using the Somalian extension of .So and resided at Kickass.so. ***Update*** 10:22 It looks like they have brought the site back up on the old Kickass.to. From the article: With millions of unique visitors per day KickassTorrents (KAT) is one the most used torrent sites on the Internet. The site’s popularity has made ... read more ...
Sun 8th February 2015
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Report: Web.com Largest Shareholder Could Be Activist & Shake Up The Board - According to TheFly.com FBR Capital says Okumus Fund Management, Web.com’s (WWWW) largest shareholder, could potentially take a more activist stance going forward. “FBR added that it would not be surprised if announcements were made soon, potentially including a change in the board composition, a review of the company’s operations, accelerating share buyback activity, or the exploration of strategic alternatives. FBR Co. (Nasdaq:FBRC) provides investment banking, merger and acquisition advisory, ... read more ...
 
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Former AFRINIC CEO Adiel Akplogan joins ICANN to Aid Global Outreach - ICANN has selected the  former  CEO of AFRINIC (Africa’s Regional Internet Registry) Adiel Akplogan as its vice president for technical engagement, a newly created role expected to deepen the organization’s efforts to improve its international presence and participation. Akplogan headed AFRINIC, from its creation in 2005. His role as AFRINIC CEO ended at the end of last month, and he is expected to start work at ICANN  on March 1st and will be  based in Montreal, Canada. Akplogan has been ... read more ...
Sat 7th February 2015
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Flippa Domain Sales for The Past Week Led by Pharmaceuticals.com during $50,000 - Flippa had a nice week and they released their sales numbers on their blog and Pharmaceuticals.com was the top sale. Pharmaceuticals gets 6600 exact searches a month according to the Google Keyplanner Tool. CasinoDeals.com at $10,000 is a nice name that I think could do really good with all the affiliate programs for online casinos, combined with selling direct advertising to land based casinos all around the world. Notable Flippa Domain Sales from This Past Week Pharmaceuticals.com  @ $50,000  ... read more ...
 
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Marchex Hit with a UDRP on The Domain eBottle.com By Owner of eBottles.com -       Marchex has been hit with a UDRP on the domain name eBottle.com The Complaint was filed by Lerman Container Corporation. Marchex has owned the domain name since at least 2009. The Complainant Lerman Container Corporation, has a federally registered trademark on the term eBottles.com which is applied for on May 21, 2013, which was Published for Opposition on October 28, 2014 and was finally granted 3 weeks ago on January 13, 2015. The domain name eBottles.com is registered to a Josh Erlanger, ... read more ...
 
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UDRP Filed on 15 Year Old Domain GreatRun.com By Owner Of GreatRun.org -   A UDRP has been filed on what seems to be a very generic term GreatRun.com which was has been owned by the same owner, Product Reports, Inc which has owned the domain name since at least 2007 by the owner of the non-profit GreatRun.org Actually the only change in the ownership of GreatRun.com since November, 2007, is that the owner moved its address from to Melville, New York to Levittown, New York in 2010. The domain name GreatRun.com currently does not resolve and according to Screenshots, ... read more ...
 
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.Com Top 116 Million Active Domain Names For The 1st Time & Is Up 600K Registrations Since Dec 31 - The number of active .Com domain names has passed the 116 million mark for the firs time in history. At the end of 2014 there were 15.3 million .Com domain registered in the active zone file, meaning that .Com registrations have increase 600,000 domain names in the first 5 weeks of 2015. The number of new gTLD’s is stilling at 4,288,778 according to ntldstats.com up from the 3,650,000 new gTLD domain names registered at the end of 2014, which appears to be a gain of almost 600,000 domain registrations However ... read more ...
 
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Google vs a Mississippi A.G. Could Set A Precedent for a State's Right to Regulate Online Content - Matt Schruers wrote an article yesterday on an upcoming legal battle that could set a precedent for content censorship. This is Google going up against the Attorney General of the State of Mississippi. Schruers makes the point that this is like SOPA at the state level. From the article: Far from Washington or any other place associated with Internet policy-making, a federal district court in Jackson, Mississippi is considering a case that could dramatically alter the regulation of Internet speech. ... read more ...
Fri 6th February 2015
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Do Cheap Domain Names Fuel The eCrime Economy ? - It looks like the business of cheap domain names will be getting its own track at a security conference. RSA Conference draws nearly 30,000 attendees per year, and according to them makes them the world’s largest info security event. The description for track goes like this: To stay agile and avoid detection, cybercriminals need plentiful and “too cheap to meter” domain names and the DNS industry is only too happy to comply. The result is that most new domain names are created for wicked purposes. ... read more ...
 
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Which Brands Got The Biggest Brand Lift From The Super Bowl ? That Little Registrar Named Go Daddy Tops The List - AdWeek published an article that looked at what brands won the Super Bowl. The survey conducted by Bully Pulpit Interactive surveyed 700 people before the Super Bowl and another 700 after. Go Daddy was getting their rear end handed to them before the big game and pulled their puppy mill ad, but like Tom Brady and the Patriots made a big comeback and actually had the highest numbers when it came to gaining favor with consumers. From the article: All of the respondents watched the game, and 200 were ... read more ...
Thu 5th February 2015
Written by The Domains in EN
SeekingAlpha.com Covers Qihoo Purchase of 360.com - SeekingAlpha.com just covered Qihoo 360’s (NYSE:QIHU) purchase of 360.com saying it “looks smart strategically, but it needs to improve its search and cellphone businesses to win back investor interest”. “Qihoo has paid a record $17 million for the 360.com web domain. This news was almost certainly leaked by Qihoo, since companies pay large sums for domains all the time and the news never makes big headlines since it’s kept private.” “That hints Qihoo may have big plans for 360.com, ... read more ...
 
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Verisign Reports: Revenue adult 4.7%; Profit Margin 55.9% & $1.4 Billion In The Bank - VeriSign, Inc. (VRSN), today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2014. Fourth Quarter GAAP Financial Results VeriSign, Inc. and subsidiaries (“Verisign”) reported revenue of $256 million for the fourth quarter of 2014, up 4.2% from the same quarter in 2013. Verisign reported net income of $65 million and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.48 for the fourth quarter of 2014, compared to net income of $292 million and diluted EPS of $1.94 in the same quarter in ... read more ...
 
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Today's The Day: RightoftheDot Extended Auction From Namescon Ends Today On Snapnames - The extended auction held by RightoftheDot at the Namescon conference ends today on Snapnames.com at 3:15 PM EST. As of publication 10 domain names have hit reserve and will sell led by Tamales.com which has a high bid of 12,000 The live auction at Namescon did just under $1 Million in domain name sales. There are two bids on 877.com with a high bid of $235,000 but is below reserve. With this years sale of 345.com for $800K and the $17 Million dollar blockbuster sale of 360.com should make all three ... read more ...
 
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Trademark Holder of Dana & Spicer Loses URS On Dana.parts & Spicer.parts; Told To File A UDRP - Car parts manufacturer, Dana Limited of Maumee, Ohio, just lost a URS on the domain names Dana.parts and Spicer.parts which are owned by FleetTruckParts.com of Blue Island, Illinois. Dana has a federally registered trademark on both the terms DANA and SPICER. The examiner Anne M. Wallace found despite owning the trademark Dana did “not established through clear and convincing evidence that Respondent has no legitimate right or interest to the disputed domain names. ” “Furthermore, Respondent ... read more ...
 
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Google To Get Access To The Twitter Firehose - Google will get access to the Twitter firehose once again and tweets should become indexed in Google right after they are posted. This could maybe be beneficial to those tweeting domains for sale if those tweets get indexed under the targeted keyword. Bloomberg Business broke the story. From MarketingLand: Twitter and Google have reached a deal to make tweets easier to find online, according to a report by Bloomberg Business tonight. The deal will give Google access to Twitter’s firehose — the ... read more ...
Wed 4th February 2015
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Chinese Retailers Playing Poker in Empty Malls as Their Customers Shop Online - Online sales are having a real impact in China, and while that is good for companies like Alibaba and JD.com, it is taking a toll on the brick and mortar retailers, along with the property market. Bloomberg published an article that said that Chinese retailers are playing poker in empty malls, their customers have gone online. China Online JD.Com’s Liu started renting a booth in Zhongguancun in 1998 with an initial investment of 20,000 yuan. Back then, China had 2.1 million users connected to ... read more ...
 
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Meet Two More Judges Of The Verisign 30th Anniversary Contest #internetofficial - Last week I was introduced as one of three judges for the contest Verisign the .Com Registry is running to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of .Com in which they are giving away over $100,000 in cash. Over the last couple of days Verisign announced two other judges (celebrity judge still to be announced) and though I would publish their information so you can see who will be judging the contest By the way you can enter the contest here. Best of luck to everyone. As I mentioned I’m the only judge ... read more ...
 
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The DNA.org Global Domain Name Preferences Survey: 85% Type Domains Into Browsers -         The DNA.org, a trade association whose members include new gTLD registries, domain name registrars and consultants to the industry (Disclaimer a company I’m a Director of RightoftheDot.com is a member of the DNA) released the results of a poll conducted by  Research Now a a global firm headquartered in the U.S., the Global Domain Name Preferences Survey. This Domain Name Preference study was conducted during the period of October – November 2014 in 10 countries and had over 5,000 ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
ThinkingPhones.com Acquires Klink.com and Contactive & Its 1.5 Million Customers - ThinkingPhones, a three-time Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS “Leader,” has announced its acquisition of Contactive.com, a big data solution that connects profiles and identities created by people and businesses online and associates them with a telephone number to create an identity graph and Klink.com which  leverages big data to provide in-depth customer profiles in real-time before and during calls. Klink.com automates the process of Googling phone numbers and names, scanning public directories, ... read more ...
 
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Flippa.com Sells $2.15 Million In Domains in 2014 - According to a  post on its company blog, Flippa.com sold $2.15 million dollars in domain names in 2014. “It’s been 13 months since Flippa’s Domains division officially put itself on the map. ” Beginning with less than 850 open auctions, our domains platform found itself accommodating over a quarter million by year’s end. We reached $2.15 million in gross sales, a 50% increase from 2013′s slate. ” In its blog post, Flippa.com is point to a DomainSherpa post calling itself one of ... read more ...
Tue 3rd February 2015
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My Top Picks From The RightoftheDot.com Extended Auction From Namescon - The RightoftheDot.com extended auction from the Namescom conference is running on Snapnames.com and closed out on Thursday at 3:15pm EST according to the normal closing rules for Snapnames.com As of publication 19 domain names have bids. Here are my favorite domain names in the auction;  Those I think are the best buys: Photographers.com Its a category killer A Huge category with 10,200,000 results on Google for the term. This is a developed website and all content is available for purchase as well. The ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Transactions Total $1.9 Million Led By KHC.com for $120K -

Over a past week, 616 exchange took place on Sedo’s marketplace and around SedoMLS, totaling $1.9m. 52% of sum sales were a outcome of Buy Now listings.

Highlights of open sales are:

· Top .com: KHC.Com during 120,00 USD
· Top ccTLD: anna.co during 10,000 USD
· Top “other” TLD: ysh.org during 6,950 USD

invisibly.com that sole for only 700 Euro’s looks to be a buy of a week

 

Via: thedomains.com

 
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Another Blockbuster Sale: Vodafone Sells 360.com to 360.cn; The 49th Most Visited Site On The Internet -                       In what appears to be another blockbuster domain sale in two days, publicly traded Vodafone Group (Nasdaq:VOD) has sold the domain name 360.com to the company that operates 360.cn. The domain transfer took place today. 360.cn is ranked by Alexa as the 49th most visited site on the internet worldwide and the 9th most visited site in China. 360.com gives 360.cn the ability to go global and like JD.com which went public last year give the site a reach well beyond China. The ... read more ...
 
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Donuts Expects To Wind Up With About 200 New gTLD's - In a press release it issued today Donuts said it expected to win up operating around 200 new gTLD’s. “”Donuts Inc., the world’s largest registry for new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs), marked the one-year anniversary of general availability of new Internet identities today, reporting that its 150 live gTLDs are home to more than 1.2 million registrations, accounting for nearly 1/3 of the 4 million total names registered across all new gTLDs.” The company, which expects eventually ... read more ...
 
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Wix Wins The Digital Bowl - Merkle/RKG a search and digital marketing agency, released the results of their 2nd Annual Digital Marketing Bowl. The top spots were taken by Wix and Bud Light. Wix was mentioned by CNN as the Super Bowl’s next Go Daddy. Wix and Bud Light Take Top Spots Wix brought a well rounded strategy to the table, taking home the Digital Bowl crown in paid search, SEO and social media. Its fake websites for NFL players’ ‘companies’ were just as optimized as the Super Bowl-focused landing page hosted ... read more ...