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.

Wed 23rd July 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Netsol .XYZ Registrations Top 300,000, Back Over 85% of all .XYZ Registrations - ntldstats.com updated once again today and the number of .XYZ domain names registered at Network Solutions topped 305,000 registrations. The total number of .XYZ registrations is at over 355,000 The share of .XYZ registrations attributable to NetworkSolutions (NetSol) is now back over 85%. Network Solutions has been giving free .XYZ domain names to its existing customers on an opt out basis. The issue was the  “Total count of unprocessed Domains:” which  just a few days ago as  listed on ntldstats.com ... read more ...
 
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I’ll Say It, 10K .Tokyo Domain Registrations Is Not Good - .Tokyo launched and taking into account the 80+ Sunrise and Landrush application I would say a first day total of less than 10,000 registrations isn’t great. The price of a .Tokyo domain name registration was very reasonable priced at around $15, There were no premium registration and renewal priced domains although there were certainly reserved domains. There were no residence restrictions on registrants. Tokyo has a population of over 13 million people in the city and over 35 Million people in ... read more ...
Tue 22nd July 2014
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Amazon Settles a New gTLD Contention Set By Private Auction As Donuts Wins .Group -         Amazon has apparently participated in its 1st new gTLD private auction losing .Group to Donuts. There were 5 applicants for the new gTLD .Group Amazon (AMZN) Donuts Top Level Design, LLC (Raymond King .Wiki .ink) Straat.co (related to former owner of the .Co Registry) Tucows.com (TCX) All applications other than the Donuts application for .Group have been withdrawn from ICANN’s site. I haven’t seen any announcements from the two public companies in this auction or from anyone else. I ... read more ...
 
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.Tokyo Is Live & Got Over 800 Sunrise/Landrush Domains Led By Apple - .Tokyo launched today and is live for domain registrations which seem to be running around $15 a year. It is by far the largest city to have launched its own new gTLD extension with a population of over 13 million people. I went through the zone file and found Apple who rarely participates in new gTLD Sunrise periods seemed to get a lot of .Tokyo domain names. Anyway here is a list of some of the more interesting .Tokyo domain names taken in Sunrise and Landrush and may include some domains registered ... read more ...
 
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NameJet Releases New Domain Name Auction Bidding App for iOS -       NameJet.com  the aftermarket domain name auction company, has developed, in conjunction with WillowTree Apps, a new bidding application for iOS. The app has an easy-to-use interface, allowing customers to manage their bids, putting them in control of their auctions regardless of location. Matt Overman, General Manager of NameJet said, “We are always looking for new and innovative ways to improve our customers’ experience. This new app makes it easier for them to bid from their phones ... read more ...
 
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.Moe Launches Today & Predicts It Will Have 200 Million Registrations - “.Moe” Could Potentially Hit over 200 Million Registrations! ” Is the first line of a press release out this morning by Interlink Co., Ltd., a new Domain Registry Operator, announcing that the new gTLD .Moe is in general availability meaning it is open for live domain name registrations on a first-come, first-served basis. Interlink calls .Moe the “Internet’s most unique Top Level Domain (TLD)” Of course there are over 113 Million .com registrations so if the registry hit there predicted ... read more ...
 
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Strong View Systems Accuses Salesforce.com of Trademark Infringement over Social Studio, Neither Own The .Com/Net/Org - There is a battle brewing between software companies Salesforce.com and Strong View Systems. The battle is over a recently launched product from Salesforce.com called, Social Studio. The product was launched in May and Strong View Systems has had a trademark on the name since 2010. The domain name SocialStudio.com has been registered at Network Solutions since 1999, the domain is just a Network Solutions landing page and is under privacy. Matthew Klein who has really come on to the drop catching ... read more ...
 
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Design Start Up Canva gets $3.6 million in additonal appropriation and enters partnership with Go Daddy - Australian start-up Canva received an additional $3.6 million in financing and announced a partnership with Go Daddy. The product does seem cool for those that don’t have the skills of a trained graphic artist. Crunch Base – Canva makes graphic design amazingly simple for everyone, by bringing together a drag-and-drop design tool with a library of more than 1 million stock photographs, graphic elements and fonts. Computer World wrote: Australian startup Canva has announced an additional $3.6 ... read more ...
 
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Judge Grants Government Permission To Access All Content in a Gmail Account - Privacy may be taking a hit if a recent ruling becomes the norm with regards to the contents of your email. Brenda Barron wrote on Venture Beat about a ruling from a judge in New York, that said the government can access all the content and files in one users Gmail account. This is not the first time that an email account has come before a judge for a decision on whether the government may have access. The article points out that in other rulings the judges have not granted this permission. From ... read more ...
Mon 21st July 2014
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HA.com Live Domain Auction Is Thursday: Bitcoins.com; Bitcoin.Club; Digital.com; SEM.com - The third Heritage Auctions domain event closes for online bidding Wednesday July 23rd at 10PM Central time. The live auction is Thursday July 24th at 1PM Central time. The live auction will be in Dallas, Texas, but you can bid online from anywhere in the world. However please note that it appears you have to sign up for the “live” online bidding separately from the online bidding only, so if you want to bid online during the auction and have not qualified yourself to do so you need to do it ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Fox; NHL; SXSW: Here are The .Media Domains Taken In Sunrise & EAP - The just reviewed the zone file for the new gTLD .Media which launches in general availability on Wednesday July 23rd to see what domain names were taken in Sunrise and the Early Access Program (EAP) . Sunrise domains have to match marks in the Trademark Clearing House (TMCH), while there is an extra charge to register a domain though the EAP. Generally speaking the largest registrants appear to be Fox, the NHL and its member teams, South by Southwest and as you will see we grabbed a few too Some ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
New gTLD’s Pass 1.6 Million Domain Regsitrations - The new gTLD program has passed 1.6 Million domain registrations, with.XYZ leading the way with 343K registrations now well past 100,000 registrations without Network solutions. .Berlin is adding less that 5 registrations a day but is solidly in 2nd place with over $137K . .Club Continues to add around 500 new registrations a day and is now closing in on 90,000 registrations at 87K domains .Guru passed 65.000 registrations .Photography passed 41,000 registrations to round out the top 5. However registrations ... read more ...
Sun 20th July 2014
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Poll Results: “What Will Google Domains Market Share Of The Registrar Market Be A Year After Launch?” - The results from our latest poll question are out and most don’t think Go Daddy should be crawling under their desk as one IPO analyst remarked. Google getting into the registrar space caused quite a stir a few weeks back. We had 240 voters and 19% do not see Google in the top 20. 13% see Google in position number 10 and 12 % see them in position number 20. What Will Google Domains Market Share Of The Registrar Market Be A Year After Launch? Not in Top 20 (19%, 45 Votes) 10 (13%, 32 Votes) 20 ... read more ...
 
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Dell To Accept Bitcoin - Dell has become the latest company to accept Bitcoin, the company posted on their website they will now be accepting Bitcoin and providing a 10 % discount  on an AlienWare purchase to those using Bitcoin as their payment option (up to $150). From their website: Now you can buy digital with digital – starting today, we’re accepting bitcoin on Dell.com. We’re piloting bitcoin, the world’s most widely used digital currency, as a purchase option on Dell.com for consumer and small business shoppers ... read more ...
Sat 19th July 2014
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Very Quietly .Luxury Which Had a Domain Registration Fee of $799 Passes 1,000 Registrations -             We haven’t heard much about .Luxury since the new gTLD launch with the eye popping price of up to $799 per domain, per year  registration for a non-premium domain. Since the launch which saw over over 600 hundred Sunrise applications of brands grabbing their new .Luxury gTLD’s. However since the launch .Luxury has added another 400 registrations and sits at 1,027 registrations which of course means the registry long ago made back its registration fee. One of the the types ... read more ...
Fri 18th July 2014
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Businessweek: Pitbull Looking during Domainer Merlin Kauffman $7.5 Million Bitcoin Fund - Bloomberg/Businessweek.comm, just published a piece on the hip-hop artist known as Pitbull,  one of our South Florida celebs and his business ventures outside of the music world. According to the article  Pitbull’s attorney is trying to get his client Pitbull to possibly invest in Bitcoin and are looking forward to a meeting none other than Merlin Kaufman, who in addition to being a world-class domain investor is running a Bitcoin Fund: “Zigel slides over a stack of articles about Bitcoin and ... read more ...
 
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Yahoo’s Share of Search Is Under 10% For 1st Time Ever & All Time Low - SearchEngineLand.com, is reporting that Yahoo’s share of search traffic has fallen below 10% for the first time and marks an all time low. “”Yahoo’s share has now fallen below 10 percent. “This is an “all-time low.” The combined Yahoo-Bing “search alliance” share remains flat at 29%: Bing growth has  almost entirely been at Yahoo’s expense. Here are the figures for June: Google: 67.6% Bing: 19.2% Yahoo: 9.8% Others: 3.4% According to the post, these figures do NOT include mobile ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Did Lebron James Lease or Buy Lebron.com? After 6 Years Domain Points To LebronJames.com -             CBSNews.com published a blog post about a week ago about a domain investor who owns Lebron.com since 2008. The story,  which in a very positive light,  chatted about a domain investor, Patrick Nagle. whom they described as a “Tech-savvy Maryland businessman”. “As millions of basketball fans search online for news of what team free agent LeBron James will be playing for next, Mr. Nagle has found a way to benefit. Type in LeBronJames.com and you go to James’s official Web ... read more ...
 
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Arena Football’s OrlandoPredators.com Gets Lost In Sale & Now Points To Sexual Offenders - The arena Football team the Orlando Predators was recently sold and the one thing that seem to have gotten lost in the sale is its domain name. According to a story in the orlandosentinel.com, the domain which served as the previous official site of the team OrlandoPredators.com now redirects visitors to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s archive of sexual offenders and predators. It seems the domain name was not in the name of the team or the league but in the name of the previous managing ... read more ...
 
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ICANN Publishes “Five Things to Know About ICANN’s 2015 Budget” -                   In a blog post ICANN Published “Five things to Know About ICANN’s 2015 Budget” Typically ICANN just releases its draft budget and then lets the domain blogs and other during and through the comment period rip into the budget dissect the numbers. The Draft 2015 CAN Operation Plan and Budget is 80 pages. Here ICANN seems to be doing damage control in advance by releasing its own notes along with the budget Here is the post: “If you are wondering what the future ... read more ...
Thu 17th July 2014
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After Losing MyArt.com in UDRP, Fed Court Awards Owner Domain + Damages + Attorney Fees - According to a post on the site of the law firm Lewis Lin, the domain owner of MyArt.com who lost a UDRP in April, filed a lawsuit in federal court and not only stopped the transfer of the domain name but got an award of statutory damages, attorney’s fees and litigation costs. We wrote about the UDRP back in April of this year and noted it was the 2nd UDRP filed by the same complaint on the same domain. David Lin, Esq. writing on his firm’s site in a post entitled: “Reverse Domain Hijacking ... read more ...
 
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CEO of .In (India) Alleges 40% of ccTLD’s Left Out Of IANA Transition Coordination Group - According to a press release we received today from Dr Govin who is the CEO of the .IN ccTLD Registry which is the ccTLD for India is claiming that about 40% of all ccTLD’s are being left out of the IANA Transition Coordination Group as part of ICANN’s plan to move away from US oversight. Basically Dr. Govin says that 104 of the 259 ccTLD are not being representative in this process. Balazs Marto of .HU (Hungary) also signed the email: The USG has recently announced its intent to transition its ... read more ...
 
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Google Reports Earnings Stock Up in After Hours Trading - Google is out with their earnings for Q2 2014 Google Inc. reported consolidated revenues of $15.96 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2014, an increase of 22% compared to the second quarter of 2013. Google Inc. reports advertising revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs (TAC). In the second quarter of 2014, TAC totaled $3.29 billion, or 23% of advertising revenues. The stock is currently up $6 or 1% in after hours trading.   Q2 Financial ... read more ...
 
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New York Looking to Regulate Bitcoin Businesses - New York Looking To Regulate Bitcoin There is news out today that New York is looking to regulate Bitcoin, there is a focus on protecting the consumer, while also making sure that cybersecurity is in place along with anti money laundering compliance. Mary Beth Quirk wrote on The Consumerist: New York has taken a step in the direction of keeping consumers’ safe with a proposed plan that sets up a regulatory framework for any business dealing with bitcoins. The New York Department of Financial Services ... read more ...
 
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After 8 Months we Finally Get A Notice On The New gTLD Paid Orders With Minds+Machines - Back In December 2013, I placed some paid pre-orders for some .Horse domain names and wrote a blog post about it. At the time we noted that what MindsandMachines.com says about these domain name registrations which are live on their site: “This is Not an “Expression of Interest” but a real reservation. The master list of reservations is kept by the registry, the authoritative source. A registrar can only hold your place in “their” line — and they have to compete with other registrars ... read more ...