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 23rd June 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
TechCrunch Covers The New Google Domains Registrar & Google Talks About New gTLD’s - TechCrunch.com just covered the new Google Domains name registrar. The only surprise for TechCrunch is that its taken Google so long to get into the business: “The move makes enough sense that it’s actually kind if surprising that it’s taken Google this long. ” “While domains aren’t generally considered a massive-margin business, they’ve always seemed like a glaring omission in Google’s offerings; a missing puzzle piece, almost. Need email for your domain? Google does that. Need ... read more ...
 
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In A Very Long Opinion The UDRP On Dune.com Is Denied Did DomainSponsor Save The Day? - Dune Holdings Limited of London, United Kingdom just lost its attempt to grab the domain Dune.com The domain holder Jeffrey Greenberg was represented by John Berryhill, Esq. who also represents my company has owned the domain since 2004. The opinion is unusually long and contains not only the majority opinion but two separate Concurring opinions thereby all three panelist filed an opinion in this case. The majority UDRP opinion was written by Adam Taylor. The panel decided the case solely on the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
The United States Federal Government Now Owns Escorts.com - It was back in November 2011 that we reported that  National A-1 Advertising Inc. and R.S. Duffy Inc. agreed to plead guilty to money laundering and will forfeit $4.9 million in revenue, pay a $1.5 million fine and serve 1 1/2 years of probation for its activities in operating Escorts.com as well as forfeiting the domain names Escort.com and  Escorts.com. However the domain names have stayed in the name of R.S. Duffy Inc until today when then domain name Escorts.com changed ownership information ... read more ...
 
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$50,000 Per Post for Breaking A Social Media Contract ? - Social Media is finding its way into prenuptial agreements. Social Media clauses are being put into prenuptial agreements in case of marriages going bad and one spouse tweeting say a nude pic of their former love. According to Fox News some couples are agreeing to pay one another $50,000 per post if they break the social media contract. Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com   ... read more ...
 
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.Global Online Auction Signup Is Live; You Must Sign Up Even If You Pre-Bid With Namejet -                   The signup for the .Global online Live Domain Name is now active. If you want to participate remotely in the .Global Live domain name Auction which is being held during ICANN London, you need to go and sign up here. The auction will be held starting at around 12:30 PM EST; 5:30 PM London time. Even if you have pre-bid bid on NameJet.com for the .Global auction, you need to register at the online auction provider which is here: http://apps.ams1.auctionsolutions.com/registration/rotd/rotdprod001/bregister.php If ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
CENTR Reports Total Worldwide Domain Registrations of 278.8 Million - CENTR’s the not for profit organization dedicated to supporting the interest of country code TLD managers which represent around 80% of the total number of ccTLD domain name registrations worldwide, released its quarterly publication covering basic domain name statistics with a focus on European ccTLDs (country code Top Level Domains). As at May 2014 the total number of domains across all Top Level Domains (TLDs) stood at 278.8 million Registrations        % Change (Quarter) ccTLD     ... read more ...
 
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NetNames: .New gTLD’s Will Overtake .Com/.Net Registrations By 2020 - According to NetNames‘ Internet 2020 report, 92% of large companies in the US, Britain, France and Germany are planning to invest in new domain names (new gTLD’s) over the next three years, and 46% say they already have begun to invest in this area. The telegraph.co.uk, wrote about the NetNanes’ report and chatted with CEO Gary McIlraith: “Although .com will remain popular, registrations of new domain names will significantly overtake new registrations of .com and .net, as these established ... read more ...
 
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Bitcoin Stock Winners - Money Morning put out an article on who they see as likely winners in the market as relates to Bitcoin. Among their Bitcoin stock winners are companies such as Overstock.com and Tiger Direct. These were a couple of the early movers when it comes to accepting Bitcoin on the retail level. From the article: Just because Bitcoin is a disruptive technology doesn’t mean we won’t see some Bitcoin stock winners – companies that will exploit the digital currency for the benefit of their own businesses. We ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Only 20% of Vietnames Businesses Have Registered A Domain Name - Only 20% of Vietnamese businesses have registered domain names. There is an article out on how domain names are traded in Vietnam without any actual legal guidelines for the domain trading business. Domain names are traded in Vietnam, even though there is no legal framework for the business. The involved parties go ahead with sales because they say they cannot wait for the legal framework to be completed for transfer deals. The Ministry of Information and Communication in 2008 released a circular ... read more ...
Sun 22nd June 2014
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I Don’t Get Why France Thinks Special Protections Should be Granted To One Product On Earth, Wine - I have been following the .Wine/ .Vin issue for what seems like years now. I get why Wine makers from Napa and France and Italy and Germany are concerned about the .Wine New gTLD and .Vin New gTLD. Like any other business on earth, the new gTLD program has the potential to  verticalize  the internet providing a new gTLD for each business sector, class of products,  professions or services. Having said that the some in the Wine industry  is seeking to make the granting of a .Wine and or .Vin new ... read more ...
Sat 21st June 2014
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Go Daddy Now Carrying $1.5billion in debt - Jeff Bailey wrote a good piece on Seeking Alpha about the upcoming Go Daddy IPO. This article is worth reading for those contemplating investing in Go Daddy. Bailey does a good job at looking at the metrics Go Daddy uses and a look at their past financial history. As far as metrics go Bailey points out that Go Daddy likes to focus on bookings rather than revenue. In its IPO filing, GoDaddy makes clear it prefers different metrics. It likes bookings, which are all the cash receipts taken in during ... read more ...
 
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Namejet.com’s .Global Live Auction Closes Tommorow & 50% Of The Domains Have Bids - Namejet.com’s pre-bidding for the  Live ICANN .Global Auction ends tomorrow Sunday June 22nd at 11pm EST and as of publication 50% of the domain names have bids. The live auction will be held on Tuesday in London during the ICANN 50 meeting. The event will be held at Hilton London Paddington, 146 Praed Street, London, which is just blocks from the hotel the ICANN meeting will be held and is one of the recommended ICANN hotels for the meeting so many of you will be staying there as well. If your ... read more ...
Fri 20th June 2014
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Fallout From CentralNic’s Acquisition Of Internet.bs, European Clients Getting Hit With VAT - It shouldn’t be news to any domain name holders that live in the Europe but if you do and use a European domain name registrar they are required to collect Value Added Tax (VAT) for each transaction. The VAT is like a sales tax in the United States but higher than any state’s sales tax. Up to now Bahamas.bs a domain name registrar originated under the country of the Bahamas was not required to collect or charge any such taxes however now that the registrar has been acquired by CentralNic a company ... read more ...
 
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.Trust Makes .Rich Look Cheap - Kate Vinton from Forbes is out with an article today on the .Trust extension and can it make the Internet safer ? From the article: Describing the internet as the new Wild West, NCC Group hopes to create a secure “gated community” though a new generic top-level domain (gTLD), aptly named .trust.  The British security company hopes the new domain will be an elite island of safety within the dangers of the Internet for companies willing to pay to use the domain. In a world of ever increasing cybersecurity ... read more ...
 
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Almost 4,000 .Berlin Domains Deleted - I was just reviewing RegistrarStats.com and noticed at 3,933 we deleted yesterday at the registry. Like .com domain names new gTLD domain names have a five day grace period in which they can be deleted. Not sure whether these are “free” domain names that were deleted or paid for .Berlin domains that were deleted once the free period started. Certainly if you paid for a .Berlin registration the days before the free domain promotion went live, you would not be a happy camper. I certainly would ... read more ...
 
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Frank Schiilling’s Name Adminstration Hit With UDRP on Puket.com From Puket.com.br - Frank Schilling’s Name Administration Inc., Hit been hit with UDRP on the domain name Puket.com The complainant is IMB Textil S.A. which seems to be a fairly large textile comapny in Brazil. The company’s website is at puket.com.br According to its Linkedin Page (translated by Google Translate from Portuguese): “The company was formed in 1988, the result of the dream of two brothers, Adolfo and Claudio Bobrow. Today has two industrial units with over 9000 m², located in São Paulo and Campo ... read more ...
 
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Canadian Court Rules Google Must Remove Websites Worldwide - We wrote previously about a ruling by the European Union with regards to the “right to be forgotten”. Now a Canadian court has ordered Google to remove sites worldwide. Amy Gesenhues covered the story on Search Engine Land, from the article: On the heels of Europe’s “Right to Be Forgotten” ruling, a British Columbia court in Canada has ruled Google must block a group of websites worldwide. The case was opened by industrial networking devices manufacturer Equustek Solutions, Inc. to block ... read more ...
Thu 19th June 2014
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Shocking: Verisign Backed Study Shows 80% Of Small Businesses Prefer .Com over New gTLD’s -                                                                   The results of a survey of small- and medium-sized (SMB) business owners which already conduct business online, was released today by SCORE and Verisign, the registry of the .Com and .Net registries. An inforgraphic was also published which appears above. Unlike almost study I have read, I cannot find in any of the material how many SMB participated in the study,  how the study was conducted and what ... read more ...
 
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1st Day Of New gTLD Launches .Community 2,206; .Cards 1,027; .Catering 854; .Cleaning 751 - For new gTLD launched yesterday and the total registrations for all four of Donuts strings after the 1st day of general availability came under 5,000 registrations including Sunrise and Early Access Program registrations. Here are the totals for the new gTLD that launched yesterday according to ntldstats.com: .Community 2,206 .Cards 1,027; .Catering 854 .Cleaning 751 It certainly caught my eye that the new domain extension that had the most registrations after its first day was the longest of the ... read more ...
Wed 18th June 2014
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Radix Announces Timeline for .Press “The Changing Face of Journalism” - Radix, announced today the timeline for rolling out their new gTLD .Press .Press will be available starting June 24th for Sunrise, the Landrush phase will follow starting on August 26th, 2014 “where anyone can register short and generic domain names by paying a small premium and .Press hits general availability on September 17th after which domains become available to everyone on a first-come and first-serve basis.” .Press according to Radix is “for the global journalism, PR, media and publishing ... read more ...
 
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ReTweet.com Is Over $11K On Godaddy With 2+ Hours to Go - I just noticed a pretty interesting auction going on Godaddy.com right now The domain is ReTweet.com The high bid as of publication is $11,250 There are 127 bids as of the moment and 19 bidders The auction closes at 01:09 PM (PDT) subject to Godaddy’s auction closing rules. I’m not going to get into the possible TM issues, or lack thereof,  but its a very interesting domain that appears will sell for some decent to big money. Its not my domain, I’m not bidding in the auction, nor do I own ... read more ...
 
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DNA Asks Apple To Recognize New gTLD’s in It’s Safari Browser, Apple ID & Apple Devices -           The Domain Name Association (DNA) asked Apple yesterday to update its Safari Browser to recognize new gTLD domain names. Writing on behalf of the Association Executive Director Kurt Pritz in a letter sent to Apple, Mr. Pritz wrote: “” On behalf of the Domain Name Association (DNA), the trade association that represents the domain name industry and the interest of companies that provision and sell domain names, I write to inform you of our concern that Apple has not more quickly ... read more ...
 
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ThoughtSpot.com Acquired On Afternic For $9,500 Last Aug Raises $30 Million -                 The domain name Thoughtspot.com sold on Afternic in August 2013 for $9,500. Today Term Sheet is reporting that the company who bought the domain is now named  ThoughtSpot, it is located in a Redwood City, California and is a  “provider of search-based business intelligence solutions, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. ” “Khosla Ventures led the round, and was joined by Aaron Levie and return backers like Lightspeed Venture Partners. www.thoughtspot.com In ... read more ...
 
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Breaking: Facebook Acquires & Launches Sling.Me To Use As SnapChat Competitor -   Just two months ago the domain name Sling.me was acquired in a Sedo auction for $9,600 Today its become clear that Sling.me is going to become VERY big. The buyer was Facebook and Sling.me is going to be used for Facebooks new SlingShot  product which is Facebook’s answer to SnapChat. Engadget.com has already covered SlingShot, and TheVerge.com, who says that Slingshot is is much more than a “SnapChat Clone” You can check out the new Facebook service at Sling.me Facebook does not own the ... read more ...
 
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.Global Event At ICANN Set For Jun 24th; Networking, Food, Drink, WorldCup & Live Auction - As we hinted at the other day, .Global is having an event at the 50th ICANN meeting in London next week Tuesday June 24th. The event will be held at Hilton London Paddington, 146 Praed Street, London which is just blocks from the hotel the ICANN meeting will be held and is one of the recommended ICANN hotels for the meeting so many of you will be staying there are well If your going to be at ICANN you can register for the event by clicking here. Registration is limited to 350 people and with some ... read more ...