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.

Sun 24th August 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New gTLD Domain Name Registrations Break 2 Million But There Are Lots Of Caveats & Asterisks - According to nTLDstats.com the number of new gTLD registration broke through the 2 million mark today and sits at 2,011,549. However there are plenty of caveats and asterisks to go around. Its interesting to note that there are only 666,394 distinct registrants for the over 2 Million domain names, meaning that the average registrant owns over 3 new gTLD domain names. cnnic.cn the registry of two IDN gTLD extensions registered and reserved over 55,000 of the 2 million domains just this week.  You ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Registry Registers & Reserves over 33,500 New gTLD’s For .公司 (Business Organizations) - The registry we wrote about the other day which registered and reserved over 23,500 domain names for a new gTLD IDN has done it again with another new gTLD IDN. This time Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences (China Internet Network Information Center registered and reserved over 33,500 domain names for the extension .公司 which means “business organization” You can read more about this application here The number of reserved and registered domains in .公司 (Business ... read more ...
Sat 23rd August 2014
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Snapnames World Domain Day Auction List - Snapnames  auction for the World Domain Day WDD (World Domain Day) is an international event for the promotion of domain names and to educate people on building successful online businesses. A WDD spokeswoman said, “WDD is being held in India for the first time on 24.08.14. Join us to network with hundreds of domain investors, web professionals, startups and venture capitalists to learn all about creating successful businesses online! Register for the event to listen to international speakers, ... read more ...
 
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Dave Zatz Explains Amazon Ad Network - Dave Zatz runs a very popular gadget blog on Zatznotfunny.com. First off this does not look like its going to be an Adsense competitor, the ads are going to be CPM  impression based and not pay per click, so I don’t see this being a parking alternative. Of course Amazon could change their mind down the road. The program is invite only currently to a select group of Associates. Tech Crunch wrote: According to Amazon’s description of the new CPM ads, the ads are tailored to the user using Amazon’s ... read more ...
 
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Best News For Domainers Ever? Amazon Developing Product To Compete With Google Adwords - In what appears to be the best news for domain investors in many years, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon.com is gearing up to directly challenge Google’s dominance of the online advertising market, developing its own software for placing ads online that could leverage its knowledge of millions of Web shoppers. “Initially, Amazon plans to replace those ads on its pages that Google chiefly supplies with a new in-house ad placement platform, In the future, that system could challenge ... read more ...
Fri 22nd August 2014
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Google Gains Victory in German Publisher Dispute - Back in June, Jeff Jarvis wrote on Buzz Machine about German publishers banding together to go after Google for linking to their content. As Jarvis pointed out Google News does not show ads so the desire to get 11 % of something, would be 11% of nothing. From the article: German publishers are not just fighting Google. They are fighting the link and thus the essence of the internet. Half the major publishers in Germany have started a process of arbitration — which, no doubt, will lead to suits ... read more ...
 
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UDRP Panel Refused To Find RDNH Despite Finding TM Holder Failed To Disclose & Misrepresented - The majority of a three member UDRP refused to find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) despite the fact they found the complainant failed to disclose a previous relationship between  the parties and a previous UDRP between the domain holder and the former company that the trademark holder acquired. The majority of the panel also found that the complaint’s failure to disclose a previous UDRP did not effect the outcome of this UDRP saying “The Panel recalls that the present decision is limited ... read more ...
 
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The Future of Google Glass Lies in Health Care According to the Inventor - Mark Sullivan of Venture Beat did a story on the inventor of Google Glass and his belief that the future of the wearable lies in health care. From the article: Google didn’t design its Glass wearable for medicine, but that use continues to be a hot topic of conversation among medical technologists and the investors who love them. The”Augmented Humanity” panel at today’s Rock Health’s Health Innovation Summit spent much of its time on Glass-based medical apps. This is because one of the ... read more ...
 
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This Weeks New gTLD 1st Day Totals: .Bio 2,679; .Haus 1,261; .Tax 1,135; .Cash 1,026; .Investments 876; .Fund 772 - The zone files for the new gTLD that launched on Wednesday updated later than usual this week but here are the 1st day totals for the new gTLD’s that launched this week. The totals include domain names registered in the Sunrise period by trademark holders as well as those registered in the Early Access Program (EAP) or Landrush, as well as during the 1st day of general availability. .Bio 2,679 .Haus 1,261 .Tax 1,135 .Cash 1,026 .Investments 876 .Fund 772 Haus is the German word meaning house. .Investments ... read more ...
 
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Registry For New gTLD IDN .网络 (Network) Registers & Reserves Over 23K Domains - A new gTLD IDN .网络 which means network in Chinese (xn--io0a7i) registered and reserved over 23,500 domain names yesterday increasing the overall number of new gTLD registered to 1.96 million according to ntldstats.com. The registry of the IDN new gTLD is Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences （China Internet Network Information Center) You can read more about about their application here. The extension which seems to either be in landrush or  has wrapped up its ... read more ...
Thu 21st August 2014
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Beiersdorf AG, Hamburg, Germany Guilty Of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Beiersdorf AG, which is located in Hamburg, Germany has just been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on the domain name BeiersdorfChina.com They were represented by in-house counsel In this case the Respondent is Beiersdorf (Tianjin) Petrochemical Co., Ltd., which is located in Tianjin, China. The decision was issued in Chinese and I used Google translate to turn it into broken English “”The complainant is a company registered in Germany, mainly engaged in the production and ... read more ...
 
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SnapNames Holding 4 Themed Auctions, All Ending On Sep 4th + 2 More - Snapnames.com is holding 4 themed domain auctions all of which are live and all of which end on  September 4th. The verticals at auction are Insurance, Legal Service, Real Estate, and Accounting. As of publication of the hundreds of domains in these auction only 2 have bids. All auctions close on September 4th at 3:15Pm in accordance with Snapnames.com normal closing rules. In addition to these auctions,  Snapnames is also holding a BuyDomains.com auction which closes on August 26th which has bids ... read more ...
 
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Take The Start Up Names Quiz - For those that specialize in the brandable niche of domaining, you know you have seen some funky names get picked by start ups and some go on to get pretty sizable funding. It is the subjective nature of domain names and branding. You will always think I got names much better and they never get a bite and this name that just got $5 million in funding flunks the radio test, has many different possible spellings when heard by a consumer etc… The Verge put together a little quiz to match the domain ... read more ...
 
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ANA: “Hard to Imagine That Most of The Already-Launched TLDs Will Be Around in 2 Years - The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) an opponent of the new gTLD program wrote a post on its corporate blog today asking “Already Launched New gTLD’s : Is Anyone Out There?” The post is a “report” written by their general counsel Reed Smith LLP, and Brad R. Newberg of the firm wrote the piece which gave its rundown of the state of the new gTLD program and is definitely worth a read. Here are the highlights: This post asks the question: Putting aside cybersquatters, domainers (those ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
How Many Domain Investors Are There? JustDropped Newsletter Hits 100K Subscribers - We have often wondered just how many people are domainers or domain investors, well today  the deleted domain names data provider Justdropped.com announced today that it has reached 100,000 subscribers to it popular domain name newsletter. “The newsletter which offers high quality domain names at low reseller prices is published daily.” The newsletter has been in publication since 2004 and is considered one of the largest and longest running newsletters in the expired domain name space. “The ... read more ...
Wed 20th August 2014
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.XYZ Claims Its The Most Used New gTLD Extension - In a blog post Daniel Negari the CEO of the .XYZ registry claims that .XYZ its the most used new gTLD extension. The post uses the numbers furnished by ntldstats.com that we disclosed  in our post the other day that looks at the percentage of registered new gTLD domain names that are parked by extension. “”Let’s look at utilization on a few levels: 1. Registration numbers 2. Active website statistics 3. Quality of these active websites 1. Registration numbers .xyz has received the most registrations ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
The Results Are in Frank Schilling Tops the Poll “Greatest Domain Investor of All Time” - One month ago we asked you to vote on who you thought was the greatest domain investor of all time. Frank Schilling took 31% of the vote and won the title. Yun Ye who sold his portfolio to Marchex for $164 million came in second with 17% of the vote. Rick Schwartz came in third with 11% of the vote. There were 252 votes in total. Thank you for participating. Who Is The Greatest Domain Investor of All Time ? Frank Schilling (31%, 77 Votes) Yun Ye (17%, 43 Votes) Rick Schwartz (11%, 27 Votes) Mike ... read more ...
 
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ICANN Names 4 Initial Members of Accountability & Governance Public Experts Group - ICANN has named the first four members of the  Accountability & Governance Public Experts Group. ICANN’s President and CEO, Fadi Chehadé, will be responsible for the selection of up to seven Advisers to sit on the Coordination Group to assure that best practices are brought from the larger global community. Once selected by the Public Experts Group, these Advisers will contribute research and advice, as well as bring perspectives on global best practices to enrich the discussion, all while ... read more ...
 
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Be Warned: WIPO Taking Screenshots When A UDRP Is Filed & Giving It To Panel & Why Its A Problem - WIPO has been taking Screenshots of whatever is on a domain name as soon as a UDRP Is filed and they have been furnishing the screenshot to the UDRP panel who has been taking the screenshot into account as evidence in making their determination. This revelation came to light by  John Berryhill who read the following sentence in the recent 4Chan.com UDRP decision: “The Center generated, as it does as a matter of standard practice, a screenshot of the website associated with the disputed domain ... read more ...
 
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Tech Publications In China Giving Postive Coverage to .XYZ - Techweb.com.cn, gave a pretty good endorsement to the .XYZ registry. We had to use Google Translate to turn this into broken English but you get the general idea, that they are recommending to their readers they try .XYZ as an investment: 2014 has been in the past half more, this time in the domain name industry after another we see a lot of new top-level domains, such as Online, Chinese net, .club ,. move, .xyz, .wang more. Among them, have to say .xyz is a new top-level domain of the black horse! ... read more ...
 
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.Cash & .Tax Launch Today Here Are The Registered Domain Names - We have chatted earlier this week about the new domain names registered in two of the 5 new gTLD’s going live today, .Fund and .Investments and thought we would let you know what domain names were not going to be available when General Registration opens today for .Cash and .Tax. We think .Tax is going to be the weakest of the 4 new Donuts extensions launching today. Although its the cheapest of the four new gTLD’s  extension in terms of registration prices, we think the application for .tax ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Ask.com Buys Ask.Fm - According to a story in the NewYorkTimes.com, Ask.com has acquired Ask.Fm. The deal was announced last week  by IAC/InterActiveCorp, the owners of Ask.com Ask.Fm is not just a domain name, but a popular site 180 million regular monthly users . Forty percent of Ask.fm’s users are younger than 18, according to Doug Leeds, chief executive of Ask.com. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Under the terms of the sale The co-founders, brothers Mark and Ilja Terebin, will immediately cash out and leave ... read more ...
 
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INTA Issues 6 Month Bulletin on Results of URS Cases - The International Trademark Association (INTA) issued what it called a 6 month  Bulletin on the results of cases filed under the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) procedure. INTA says that a total of 92 URS cases have been filed to date 88 with the National Arbitration Forum in the United States (NAF) and four with the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre (ADNDRC) in Hong Kong. Suspensions have been issued in 71 cases (including one affirmed on appeal, as noted below), versus nine instances ... read more ...
 
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Twitter Wants To Mess With Your Timeline - Selena Larson wrote a piece on Read Write that Twitter is now going to selectively put tweets in your timeline from accounts you don’t follow. Selena points out that this may be being done to make Twitter easier for newcomers as they can see things they might have missed. On the flipside it is sure to piss off a lot of hardcore Twitter users who constantly pay attention to who they follow and unfollow. From the article: Your Twitter timeline is no longer reserved for people you follow. A recent ... read more ...
Tue 19th August 2014
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Sedo Transactions Total $1.1 Million - Sedo just listed its transactions report for the past week and in all 502 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.1 Million. 52% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales are: · Top .coms: dtp.com at 35,000 USD · Top ccTLD: eldebate.com.mx at 10,000 USD · Top “other” TLD: ewx.net at 2,300 USD         ... read more ...