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 24th November 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
A Survivor of The Dot Com Bubble – Cufflinks.com - Maria Halkias of DallasNews.com wrote a piece on a survivor of the .com bubble of the late nineties. Cufflinks.com. Halkias did a good job conveying where the company is now and how it got there from those crazy bubble days of 1999 – 2000. From the article: Cufflinks.com was founded in 1999 during the dot-com bubble, when lots of startups were created based on the business model of a category word followed by “.com.” But this one survived beyond its cutesy domain name. And the company is thriving ... read more ...
Sun 23rd November 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
Nearly 60% Domains in China Hijacked in 2014 Ended in .Com - WantChinaTimes.com published an article about the number of .Com domains that have been hijacked in China in 2014. The number is pretty big if the report is accurate, close to 60 %. The report claims close to half are controlled by overseas IP’s. From the article: Nearly 60% of domain names in China that were hijacked by backdoor programs in the first half of 2014 ended in “.com” and 48.8% of them were controlled by overseas IP addresses, the Beijing-based China Securities Journal reports. Huang ... read more ...
Sat 22nd November 2014
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SEO-For-Lawyers on a significance of .attorney names for marketing - Luke Ciciliano did a post for Seo-for-lawyers.com on why he thinks .attorney and .lawyer will hold significance for lawyers in their marketing efforts. In the article he references a Dallas related name being used and showing in the search results, he also mentioned some lawyers he spoke with did not see the point of the new law related domains and did not want to bother with them, until they started showing in the search results. Luke has written a series of articles on why these new tlds will help ... read more ...
 
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Last Call For Domain Submission For Namescon Live Domain Name Auction - RightoftheDot.com which is running the Live and Online domain name auction at the Namescon conference on January 13th, 2015 at 4:30 PM PST in Las Vegas, is putting out its final call for domains to be submitted to the auction. The live auction will have 100+ domain names. Online bidding will also be available  on Snapnames.com. The final catalog will be locked down and pre-bidding will open up around December 15th on snapnames.com After the live auction, a extended online auction with any domain ... read more ...
 
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This Weeks “Black Friday” Domain Count: .Com 559; .Net 60; .Blackfriday 16 - A week from today actually marks the day know as “Black Friday” which is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States which traditionally is one of the busiest shopping days in the US. Like much else in life when retailers got a good thing, they try to extend it and maximize it. Now a full week before Black Friday, sites like Amazon.com is rolling out their Black Friday sales. Amazon registered the domain name Amazon.Blackfriday back in the Sunrise period when .Blackfriday launched and now ... read more ...
Fri 21st November 2014
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From Brussels With Love – Europe Wants Google Split Up - Europe Wants Google Split Up We have seen countries in Europe propose a “Google Tax” we have seen several initiatives with regard to privacy and the right to be forgotten. Now Europe looks to be mulling a proposal to split the company up. Bill Gates can only be thinking to himself, “Larry, Sergey, Welcome to my life” The Financial Times Reported: A draft motion seen by the Financial Times says that “unbundling [of] search engines from other commercial services” should be considered ... read more ...
 
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UDRP Panel Passes On Reverse Domain Name Hijacking: It Was Complainant & Lawyers 1st Case - A one member UDRP panel passed on making a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on the domain name DateLikeaGrownUp.com in large part because; “fact that this appears to be the first time this Complainant or its representative has brought a proceeding.” Happy as Clams, Inc. of Long Beach, California brought the UDRP. Here are the relevant facts and findings: 4. Factual Background Since 2009 the Complainant has operated a website at at which its principal Bobbi Palmer offers dating ... read more ...
 
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Google Rolls Out “Contributor” Which Allows Users To Block Adsense Ads For A Fee - According to CBS News,  Google is rolling out a new service called “Contributor” that will allow users to block seeing AdSense ads on site  users visit for a charge. “Working with a handful of websites, including Mashable, the Onion, Science Daily, wikiHow, Imgur and Urban Dictionary, Google is offering subscriptions for $1, $2 or $3 per month that will block AdSense advertising on those sites, replacing them with a subtle gray box and a note that says, “Thank you for being a contributor.””Part ... read more ...
 
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Defending Internet Freedom Act of 2014 Introduced To Stop US From Giving Up Control Over ICANN - A Bill was introduced into the House of Representatives, yesterday the Defending Internet Freedom Act of 2014 which would prevent the Obama administration, or that of any future president, from relinquishing the critical functions of the Internet to any other entity without enhanced congressional oversight and until explicit, freedom-protecting requirements are met. The bill is co-sponsored by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX), who also serves as chairman and co-founder ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Z.com Sold For $6.8 Million Dollars -           GMO Internet, Inc. is a  publicly traded company and one of Japan’s largest ISP and operator of the country’s largest domain registrar, today announced they acquired the domain name Z.com for JPY800 million which is at today exchange rates equals  $6,776,448 USD. GMO Internet a also an applicant for several new gTLD’s including .Shop  and .Inc and is running the .Tokyo; .NAGOYA and .OSAKA new gTLD registries on behalf of each of those cities and .GMO as well. GMO in the press ... read more ...
Thu 20th November 2014
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UDRP filed ON 3 minute domain RVK.com -                     A UDRP was filed today on the three letter domain name RVK.com The domain is owned by domain name investor Gregory Ricks The domain name was registered under privacy for many years. R.V. Kuhns Associates, Inc is the Complainant who filed for a trademark on the term back on August 20, 2003 for “Investment consulting services, namely, investment reviews, analysis, asset allocation advice, reporting and advisory services” and is now know as simply RVK. The page is ... read more ...
 
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Uniregistry: No Reserved Or Collision Domains Held Back Except For Single Characters -               We just received this from Uniregistry which is launching .Click on November 25th. Pricing for a .Click domain will be $6.88 or less at retail. “We will no longer have a registry reserved list at the time of launch for any domain name beyond single-characters. If your registrar has been accepting pre-registrations, please note that we have removed this list from the Production Web Console and there is no longer a need to check against these names. .click has already completed ... read more ...
 
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Godaddy Is Looking For a $4.5 Billion Dollar Valuation In Its IPO Rolling Out Next Year - According to the New York Post, GoDaddy.com is pushing ahead with an initial public offering early next year that would value the world’s biggest domain registration service at roughly $4.5 billion GoDaddy is stressing its desire to diversify from a domain registrar to a business that builds out  Web sites for customers and helping them to process transactions on their sites. GoDaddy has an average revenue per user, of $112 up from $102 9 months ago Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation ... read more ...
 
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Why The Right Domain Name May Help In Landing You A Job - AfterCollege.com did an interview with Predrag Lesic the CEO of .ME. The interview talks about his own career path and why he believes in today’s current job market there is a need for a student to create a personal brand. From the article: Why do you feel a student’s personal brand is such an important part of the job search? The labor market is highly competitive, with rising numbers of graduates with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and fewer job openings. Generally, when we are seeking ... read more ...
 
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.Music LLC CPE Reconsideration Request Denied - .Music LLC sought reconsideration for Community Priority Evaluation in an effort to be given priority over others who are interested in running .music. .Music LLC believed that when their application was looked at that the panel failed to comply with already established ICANN policies.  The board governance committee denied the reconsideration request. From the report released by ICANN The Requester, .music LLC, seeks reconsideration of the Community Priority Evaluation(“CPE”) Panel’s report ... read more ...
 
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1st Day New gTLD Totals: .Top 10,298; .Quebec 4,902: .ENGINEER 523 - We have numbers for the three new gTLD’s that launched this week. .Top which launched on the November 18th has according to ntldstats.com 10,298 domains registered. The registry for .Top is “Jiangsu Bangning Science Technology Co.,Ltd.” which is also the backend for the extension and is also a  domain name registrar Out of the 10,298 domain names registered, Jiangsu registered 2,521 of the domains. Another China based registrar, Chengdu West Dimension Digital Technology Co., Ltd. had the ... read more ...
Wed 19th November 2014
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Rin.com Sells for $35,000 on Sedo – Sold on Sedo for $14,000 in 2011 - Crossing the Sedo feed this afternoon is Rin.com at $35,000. Looks like it was the second time it sold on Sedo, DN Journal reported it sold for $14,000 in 2011. Affordable Webhosting Inc out of Oregon looks to be the seller and had the domain parked. Eli Shoval looks to be the buyer of the name. The name has been registered since 1995, at one time legendary domainer Garry Chernoff owned the domain back in 2004 and looks like he was the person who sold it on Sedo back in 2011. The buyer looked to ... read more ...
 
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Braden Pollock’s Legal Brand Marketing Acquires 14 Premium Law-related .Co.com Domains -     According to a press release we received, co.com LLC, announced today that Legal Brand Marketing, LLC which was founded by Braden Pollock, acquired a premium portfolio of law-related .co.com domain names, including Law.co.com and Attorney.co.com. Legal Brand Marketing, plans to develop and launch websites for each domain. Financial terms were not disclosed. Legal Brand Marketing is a leading publisher of law-related websites and provider marketing services to law firms including: lead generation, ... read more ...
 
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.NYC Releases Numbers On Landrush: 145 Domains Sell For $1K-$9,999: 10 Sell For $10K+ - New York City released some numbers on the recently concluded Landrush period for the new gTLD .NYC, in which residents and businesses located in New York City were given the opportunity to apply for a domain for any extra fee before general availability started. TheDomains.com published a couple of posts on some unofficial sales here and here but these numbers came from the city: A total of 10,506 domain names were applied for in Landrush. 9,412 had only one applicant and became eligible for activation ... read more ...
Tue 18th November 2014
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Sedo Transactions Transactions Total $1 Million Led By Bohai.com - Over the past week, 554 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1 million dollars. 51% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales are: · Top .coms: bohai.com at 29,022 USD which was bought by a Chinese buyer. · Top ccTLD: erfahrung.de at 15,000 EUR · Top “other” TLD: jie.net at 4,800 USD The domain name hack T.im caught my eye which sold for 3,000 GBP.     ... read more ...
 
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Aruba.It Formally Announces It Acquired .Cloud Beating Out Google & Amazon -                                     10 days ago we told you at TheDomains.com that Aruba S.p.A. (www.aruba.it) beat out Amazon, Google and Donuts to win the new gTLD .Cloud Today the company finally put out a press release: “Aruba wins prestigious .cloud top level domain” “The Italian company has been awarded this gTLD instead of six of the most well-known internet companies who also applied. Aruba will set up the Official Registry for .cloud, expanding its already strong ... read more ...
 
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ICANN CEO: Government Attempts to Impose Rules on The Internet are Doomed to Fail - ICANN Chief Executive Officer Fadi Chehade told Bloomberg yesterday in an interview that government attempts to impose rules on the Internet are doomed to fail “Governments can’t effectively enforce laws on websites available in different jurisdictions. Any group that makes policies for the Web must be decentralized and involve the private sector and academia” “The Internet itself has morphed so fast” that policies may be futile” “We need mechanisms that are rapid, that are effective ... read more ...
 
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NYC.com Making Email Expensive - Gothamist did a piece about NYC.com offering email addresses and their not cheap. The article looks at all of the recent attention around “NYC” branding. The new .NYC extension is mentioned along with the offering of email addresses from NYC.com. From the article: The email addresses are not free, they come with a monthly rent ($69, $99, $199, and $999 a month are the current prices). So, for example: a three character one (you@nyc.com) costs $99/month, and a one character email (u@nyc.com) costs ... read more ...
Mon 17th November 2014
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Bids.com UDRP Denied As Being Outside The Scope Of UDRP Panel Decision - Insolvency Services Group, Inc., which is the Assignee for the Benefit of Creditors of BIDZ.COM, INC. just won the UDRP on the domain name Bids.com which is currently in an bankruptcy auction with several other domains including Bidz.com The sole panelist Sandra J. Franklin denied the UDRP finding the dispute is outside those cases that should be decided by the UDRP system. As the domain name is currently one domain in a lot of domain name being auctioned off by Hilco Streambank (actually bids for ... read more ...
 
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Robert Downey Jr. Wins Rights to The Domain Name RobertDowneyJr.Actor - Robert Downey Jr. won the rights to the domain name  RobertDowneyJr.actor in a one member UDRP panel handed down by the National Arbitration Forum. Although the domain in question was a new gTLD Mr. Downey filed the Complainant as a UDRP The registrant who lives in India, Shashank Agarwal, first said he was “publicly known by ‘Robert Downey Jr’ as a screen name in order to pursue his career in the Indian  cinema more popularly known as ‘Bollywood’…Respondent purchased robertdowneyjr.actor… ... read more ...