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.

Fri 6th November 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Bloomberg: "Candidates Continue to Miss Obvious Domain Registrations" - Bloomberg just published another post on presidential candidates and the domain names they failed to register. In a post BNA.com calls out Jeb Bush for failing to register the matching domain of his  “new campaign slogan–“Jeb Can Fix It!” “Jimmy Flanagan, a 2014 candidate for the Austin, Texas, City Council, had registered the domain name out from under the candidate.” “Bush isn’t alone. While no startup company nowadays would launch without making sure it owned its own name online, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
RightofTheDot/Namescon Domain Auction Is Opened for Submissions - RightoftheDot.com is holding a live and online auction with Namejet.com from the Namescon conference. RightoftheDot.com has now formally opened up submission for the auction. We are looking for great domain names, especially one word .com and new gTLD’sm along with short domains in all extensions, along with brand domains, category killers, Geographic domains. Domains should have a low reserve price. The reserve price is not the price you would quote to sell the domain if you got an offer on the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Report: Vegas.com Bought LasVegas.com in 2005 For Up To $90 Million Dollars - George Kirikos spotted an SEC document showing that Vegas.com purchased LasVegas.com  in 2005, for what could be up to a $90 Million Dollars. “In June 2005 , VEGAS.com, LLC entered into an agreement for the purchase of LasVegas.com on the following terms: The agreement specified that a $12,000,000, one-time payment be made upon execution of the agreement along with monthly payments of approximately $83,000 for 36 months, $125,000 for the next 60 months, and then $208,000 for the next 36 months. Per ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Former VP of ICANN Hired By Facebook For "New Domain Name System Strategy & Management Team" - Denise Michel who was formerly with ICANN as VP of Strategic Initiatives and Advisor to the President,  has been hired by Facebook to work on Facebook’s new “Domain Name System Strategy and Management Team” which she says “will help improve the global framework for domain names, IP addresses, numbers and related elements.” Denise “will be working across Facebook departments and collaborating widely with a range of stakeholders to help increase the opportunities and mitigate the risks ... read more ...
Thu 5th November 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
There Goes Another Two Letter .Com To China: Telepathy Sells WG.com - The domain name WG.com has sold to a Chinese buyer. WG.com was owned by Nat Cohen’s Telepathy.com and is now over at GoldenName.com (4.cn) Earlier today we reported that the domain name Ak.com appears to have sold as the site where the domain was listed for sale at just short of $5 Million dollars was updated to note that the domain had been sold. A couple of readers to thedomains.com noted that two other, 2 letter .com domain names, EQ.com and ER.com that were previously for sale are now showing ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Owner of Houses.co.uk Who Paid £40,000 Blames Sedo For Auction Price of £2,999 - Remember the story a few weeks ago about the domain name Houses.co.uk  which was purchased a few years ago for  £40,000 was on sale for £2,999 on Sedo? The owner of the domain name blames Sedo and its automated valuation tool. Peter Thornton told SellingUp.com, that the domain name Houses.Co.Uk is for sale but it was never actually available for £2,999. “Instead, he has blamed domain name sales website Sedo.com for putting an automated valuation on his domain which he feels was several ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Ak.com is tentative sale - Taking a look at AK.com tonight it looks like the domain is now pending sale. Below is a cached version of AK.com from a couple months ago, you will see the $4,995,000 asking price. Below that is the current look of the website showing a pending sale. Current website The domain has been under privacy at Go Daddy since May of 2014, before that it was owned by Utah based Ogio International. ... read more ...
Wed 4th November 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Godaddy May Be The World's Largest Domain Registrar But Not For New gTLD's - Godaddy.com, which is the world’s largest domain name registrar (having the most domain names under management) is no longer the number 1 domain name registrar for new gTLD domains. According to ntldstats.com, Godaddy.com has fallen into the 2nd position worldwide when it comes to domain registered with new domain extensions, known as new gTLD’s. A China based domain registrar, Chengdu West Dimension Digital Technology Co., Ltd. whose website is West.cn has passed Godaddy when it comes to domain ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.XYZ Did Not Block 12K Domains on Request of China; Liberty.xyz is Owned & We Have His email - Its been an interesting couple of weeks for the .XYZ registry. It all started when Domainincite.com published a post on October 12th, talking about that .XYZ might block almost 40,000 domain names at the registry level on the request of China. That number of 40,000 words and phrases seemed to be reduced down to 12K in a Twitter post that now seems to have been deleted. Since the Domainincite post, several publications and organizations jumped on .XYZ for seemly to agree to ban domain names at the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New U.K. Surveillance Bill includes monitoring users' online habits - BBC.com broke down the details of the new surveillance bill to be passed in the U.K. No surprise there are opinions from all sides with some saying the bill goes too far and are too intrusive, this type of surveillance is not legal in and other European country or the U.S. Those in favor say these measures are needed to keep the country safe. The article goes on to show what is allowed now: What can the agencies do at the moment? They can listen to phone calls, intercept emails and even hack devices ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Sex is Live - ICM Registry, the registry operator for the .XXX, .PORN, .ADULT and .SEX top-level domains (TLDs), announces the launch of its general availability period for .SEX. Domain names in all of ICM Registry’s extensions are now available for public purchase. Retail prices vary by registrar but Godaddy is charging $72 for a .sex domain name. According to ntldstats.com .Sex got just over 3,800 domain registrations through Sunrise and the .XXX matching program although the registry told me that .sex had ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
eTagsDirect.com Upgrades to eTags.com - November 4, 2015 by Michael Berkens 2 Comments According to a press release out today eTagsDirect.com has upgraded and acquired the domain name etags.com “The company launched as a Florida-based company offering fast and easy online vehicle registration services to people all over The Sunshine State. “Since its launch last year, the company has experienced notable growth with their most recent achievement in the successful launch of services in California after securing a business partnership ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
3 Applicants For New gTLD .Radio File For Independent Review Process - According to a press release out today, BRS Media, has filed, in conjunction with two other applicants, an Independent Review Process in accordance with Article IV, section 3 of the ICANN Bylaws re: The .RADIO gTLD and .RADIO Community Priority Evaluation Results. Although not mentioned in the press release the other two applicants are Afilias and Donuts. “”On Sept. 10, 2014 ICANN announced that the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) Results “Prevailed” ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Checklist for how to name a startup - Dharmesh Shah wrote an article on Inbound.org that detailed his checklist for choosing a start up name. Shah writes he has been thinking about naming and branding for 20 years. He also mentions some of the data points he looked at when coming up with his checklist. He looked at over 4,000 start up names, he looked at length of name, starting letters, TLD, etc… From the article: The S.M.A.R.T. Startup Name Checklist So, let’s start with my handy-dandy checklist for what makes for a good startup ... read more ...
Tue 3rd November 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo Weekly Transactions Total $1.7 million led by Material.com during $100,000 - Over the past week, 688 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.7m. 57% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings.    Highlights of public sales are: Top .com: material.com at 100,000 USD Top ccTLD: devils.tv at 10,000 USD Top “other” TLD: steam.net at 17,250 USD New Gtld sales: expeditions.online    2,000    EURbid.taxi    2,000    EURvictory.church    1,999    USDemmanuel.church    1,999    USDmesse.news    1,750   ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Namejet.com Reports Over $1M In Domain Sales In October - Namejet.com just published its domain name sales list for October 2015. As usual only domain sales of $2,000 or more are included in the report and only domains that were paid for by the end of the month are included. In all NameJet.com reported over $1 Million in sales in October led by 742.com at $142,000. 17 domain names sold in the five figures including 7 LLL.com domain names. We bought Blazed.com for $10,000 that is included in the report Here are the sales:   ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Club Sells $125K in Domains in Oct Led By VIP.Club At $40 & The.Club $19K - The .Club registry published it’s October premium name sales report. Total premium name sales for October, including SnapNames sales and auctions, came to a record $125,372.25. As of October 31, 2015, total cumulative sales of registry reserved premium .CLUB names came to $1,268,199.27. The highest single sale remains Wine.club at $140,000.00 which was sold at the RightoftheDot.com auction at Namescon in January of 2014. We at RightoftheDot.com also brokered the domain name The.Club for $19,000 ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
10 Digit .Com's Domain Hit NameJet.com - The numbered .Com domain name frenzy continues as I see today 10 digit domain names in pre-release on NameJet.com with multiple backorders. The two domain names that are now in pending delete with bids are 8888888833.com and 8888888835.com. The backorder deadline on these domain names is 11pm EST tonight. ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Frank Schilling's Name Administration Wins Another UDRP on 16 Year Old Torneo.com - Frank Schilling’s Name Administration Inc represented as usually by John Berryhill, Ph.D, Esq., has won another UDRP this time on the domain name Torneo.com which was registered on September 28, 1999. “Torneo” is the common Spanish and Italian word for “tournament” The UDRP was filed by Sport and Fashion Management PTE. LTD. of Moscow, Russian Federation which owns the domain name torneo.ru The Complaint was filed on July 15, 2015. The panelists of Christopher J. Pibus, Irina V. Savelieva ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Domain KanyeForPresident.Com Goes Up For Sale - The domain name that made international news, KanyeForPresident.com has gone up for sale on Flippa.com Back in August at the MTV Video awards Kanye West announced he will be running for President of the United States in 2020. A 24-year-old Tramal Ferguson of Marietta, Georgia registered the domain name KanyeForPresident.com “on a whim back in April 2015” and reportedly turned down offers as high as $80,000, shortly after Mr. West’s announcement. Now the domain is at auction on Flippa.com. The ... read more ...
Mon 2nd November 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
French Regulators wish .com enclosed in right to be forgotten - We have written before about Google and their battle with certain European countries on the “right to be forgotten”. Google has contended that results should only be removed from the local country code results, so if someone from France makes a request, then the results no longer show on Google.fr. The E.U. would like to see the results removed from everywhere including Google.com. Google does not see things that way and has argued removal should be on the local level. Recently Google made an ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Club 2 Letter Domains Auctions Go 10 for 10 Hitting Reserve on EachNic.com - .Club which is holding an auction on the Chinese Auction platform EachNic.com sold all 10 two letter .Club domains that closed over the weekend. Each domain name had a reserve price of $5,000. The domain names that reach reserved and sold over the weekend were:   HJ.club JC.club YM.club JS.club GZ.club PK.club QC.club YX.club DK.club PC.club I don’t know what any of the final bids for the any of the 1o domains were except for PC.club which sold for $9,750. I know how much PC.club sold for because ... read more ...
Sun 1st November 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Owner of Realestate.com.au Offers To Buy iProperty.com For $750 Million - According to themercury.com.au,  Online property advertiser REA Group which owns and operates of Realestate.com.au has launched a $750 million takeover bid for Southeast Asia-focused iProperty.com REA Group’s subsidiary Realestate.com.au today said it was proposing to purchase all iProperty Group’s shares at $4 per share, or $1.20 a share plus 0.7 shares in a newly formed unlisted company with an indirect interest in iProperty. The $4 per share offer represents a 55% premium to iProperty’s ... read more ...
Fri 30th October 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Upset With Symantec Over False Security Certificates - According to PCMag.com Google is rather peeved at Symantec for issuing fraudulent security certificates for numerous domains, including Google. This started out with just a few bad certs and then Google started looking into it themselves. Google found more bad certs than what Symantec first quoted, a few weeks later Symantec found more on their own after their own audit. From the article: So Google issued an ultimatum: Starting next summer, all Symantec-issued certificates must support the Chromium ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Biggest New gTLD Registrants: 23 of Top 30 Are From China; 38 out of Top 50 - According to ntldstats.com registrants from China are dominating the list of the top 100 Biggest New gTLD Registrants 23 of the top 30 domain names registrants are from China; 38 out of Top 50 domain names registrants are from China; and 72 of out 100 are from China. If you consider that of the 7 registrants of domain names using the new domain extensions, 3 of those are affiliated with new gTLD registries, that only leaves 4 out of the top 30 new gTLD registrants from coming from a country other ... read more ...