Tag Archives: registrars

Mon 25th February 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Network Solutions, ICANN - Lawsuit stems from “customer protection measure”. My prediction has come true: Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP has filed a class action lawsuit against Network Solutions for its practice of preemptively registering domains names searched for on its site. This issue was uncovered on the DomainState blog in January and set off a media firestorm. On the day the news broke, I wrote: “If Network Solutions doesn’t stop this practice immediately, they are guaranteed ... read more ...
Wed 20th February 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows Reveals Depth of Domain Portfolio - Company discloses valuable domains and number of domains held. Domain registration “wholesaler” and service provider Tucows (AMEX: TCX) has revealed data about its domain holdings. With over 150,000 domains, the portfolio makes up a significant part of the company’s value, which likely hasn’t been fully captured in its stock price. Its shares on the AMEX are sitting at $.63, just off a 52 week low of $.53 and well below a high of $1.41. (I’m assuming ... read more ...
Fri 18th January 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Are Domain Registrars Web 1.0? Yes, and that’s good. - Domains are the core of the web. Web 2.0? We don’t need that bubble. TechCrunch is known for covering web 2.0 companies. So when the blog recently covered Oversee.net’s acquisition of Moniker, one reader commented that this wasn’t right for the site: “Only domainers even know about this Web 1.0 company. How is this Web 2.0 news?” You know buddy, you’re right. Moniker is a web 1.0 company. Here’s how it’s different from a web 2.0 company: 1. It ... read more ...
Thu 17th January 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ItsYourDomain Working to Fix Whois Bug - Bug affects 600 domain names according to company. ItsYourDomain, a registrar purchased by Tucows (AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) last year, is working to fix a bug that keeps whois records as “Pending Renewal or Deletion” when domains are won at SnapNames. According to Elliot Noss, CEO of Tucows, the bug affects about 600 domains. It affects existing ItsYourDomain customers who win expired domains through SnapNames. After winning the domain, the whois record remains as ... read more ...
Mon 7th January 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
RegisterFly Restarts Marketing Machine - Disaccredited registrar restarts familiar marketing emails. RegisterFly, a once-ICANN-accredited registrar that imploded in a wave of scandal last year, has restarted its familiar email marketing campaigns. The company was famous for sending e-mails with too-good-to-be-true prices, including .com domains at far below wholesale prices. These emails were usually sent weekly. For example, here are some of the offers in these emails: 6/6/06: $2.75 .net domains 6/20/06: ... read more ...
Tue 20th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows Relaunches Parking Services for Resellers - Domain registrar and software download site Tucows is relaunching its reseller parking programs. Will this help its sagging stock price? November has been a dissapointing month for shareholders in Tucows (AMEX: TCX). After opening November 1 at $.97 a share, the stock has fallen to a low of $.69 a share. Shares closed yesterday at $.79. At the heart of the drop was a dissapointing earnings announcement. Tucows blames reduced registration fees it is charging resellers. ... read more ...
Tue 13th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A Run on a (Domain Name) Bank - Could a domain registrar face a “run on the bank”? Shockwaves hits the financial world yesterday when an analyst said financial institution Etrade (NASDAQ: ETFC) may go bankrupt. This creates a so-called run on the bank, in which people pull their money out of savings and brokerage accounts for fear of losing the money. Deposits and brokerage accounts are insured, but that doesn’t mean people will get their money immediately in case of failure. NetBank, one ... read more ...
Fri 2nd November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Has GoDaddy Done a 180 on Invalid Whois? - It appears that GoDaddy no longer cancels domains for invalid whois. Back in February, GoDaddy canceled the domain registration for FamilyAlbum.com because its customer had invalid whois information. The domain was given to another customer who had backordered the domain. This story caused a heated debate, as many people criticized GoDaddy and many others shared their frustrations with invalid whois data. If you missed the story, here’s some background: GoDaddy ... read more ...
Thu 18th October 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Demand Media Offers Cash For .TV Channels - .TV advertising deal shares revenue with eNom resellers. Demand Media is adding advertising to customers’ .TV channels, and eNom resellers will earn a portion of the revenues. .TV channels are social networking tools offered to registrants of .TV domains. It’s all part of Demand Media’s goal of applying social networking to domain names. As owner of the world’s second largest registrar, Demand Media uses its eNom resellers to promote the domains. Starting ... read more ...
Sat 13th October 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Increases .Com Prices 12% - Registrar tacks on $1.04 to domain registration prices. The world’s largest domain name registrar, GoDaddy, has increased its base price for .com domains to $9.99, plus an ICANN fee of $.20, for a total of $10.19 for new registrations. This move is surprising. Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) increases the wholesale price of .com domain names from $6.00 to $6.42 effective October 14. GoDaddy spoke out about this change on Capitol Hill. But now that the $.42 fee increase ... read more ...
Mon 1st October 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Network Solutions to Launch Domain Name Auction Service? - Trademark creates suspicions about Network Solutions’ plans. Network Solutions has applied for a trademark on “NameJet”. According to the application, filed on September 24, NameJet’s trademark class includes: “On-line auction services; on-line auction services featuring domain names; on-line auction services for businesses, consumers, domain name holders; domain name registration and sales services; on-line bidding services featuring domain names; domain ... read more ...
Sat 22nd September 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy May Have to Stop ’60 Day’ Transfer Policy - ICANN advisory would clarify the circumstances when a registrar can deny a domain name transfer request. Many people who have tried to transfer a domain name from GoDaddy to another registrar have faced a hurdle. If they’ve changed their whois information within the past 60 days, GoDaddy will deny the transfer for “security reasons”. Only one other major registrar, Network Solutions, has been known to do this. But the practice may come to an end thanks to ... read more ...
Thu 30th August 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eWEEK Chases Down Google-GoDaddy Story - Clint Boulton runs with Domain Name Wire speculation and digs for the facts. Citing Domain Name Wire’s speculation of a possible Google acquisition of GoDaddy, eWEEK writer Clint Boulton chased down Bob Parsons and a few analysts to vet the theory. In Boulton’s article, Google-GoDaddy Marriage on Tap?, Parsons alludes to an expanding relationship with Google: When asked whether Google and GoDaddy are working on expanding their existing relationship or discussing ... read more ...
Tue 28th August 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Names for Bootstrappers - A domain name overview for newbies. Last night I led a discussion for the web subgroup of Bootstrap Austin, an organization for people starting or running a bootstrapped business. I discussed finding the right domain name for their businesses without breaking the bank. Here’s the outline I provided. Rules to live by when selecting a domain • Never use a hyphen • Always a .com • If domain includes a digit, include the spelled out version as well ... read more ...
Wed 22nd August 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Files Patent for “Domain Name Expiration Protection” - Registrar continues patent filing campaign. GoDaddy isn’t just the world’s biggest registrar. It might be the biggest filer of patents in the industry as well. Last November I wrote about the almost 50 patents pending for GoDaddy. The company didn’t stopped there. One of the more recent filings was January 24 of this year and was just published in May. The patent is a continuation-in-part of GoDaddy’s U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/811,677 filed ... read more ...
Tue 7th August 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows Revenues Falls Short, Stock Tumbles - Shares of domain name company Tucows are down over 15% in early trading after announcing earnings. Domain name company Tucows reported lower than expected revenue growth for the second quarter of 2007. Its shares (AMEX: TCX) are down $.20 to $1.01 USD on the news as of this morning. “We delivered solid financial performance in the second quarter, which benefited from the sale of a block of 2,500 domain names from our portfolio,” said Elliot Noss, President and ... read more ...
Wed 1st August 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Are GoDaddy and Afilias The Right Combination to Run .us? - GoDaddy and Afilias have made a bid to run .us. Are they the right parties to run this important domain? Domain registrar and webhosting company GoDaddy and registry Afilias have formed a joint venture to make a bid to run the .us country code domain name (ccTLD). The joint venture, called Domain Name Alliance Registry, submitted its proposal to the U.S. National Telecommunications Information Administration, which controls the contract for .us. There’s no doubt ... read more ...
Tue 31st July 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy, VeriSign Lobby Capitol Hill - Domain name companies spend hundreds of thousands lobbying politicians. Domain name companies such as .com/.net registry VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) and registrar GoDaddy are spending hundreds of thousands each year lobbying in Washington. An AP story published today disclosed that VeriSign spent $570,000 in the first half of 2007 to lobby the U.S. federal government. I searched the United States Senate’s records to find out which other domain related firms were busy ... read more ...
Mon 30th July 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Top Domain Name News Stories of Jul 2007 - Here’s a look at the top 5 domain name news stories of July. Following are the five most viewed news stories at DomainNameWire.com for the month of July, ranked in order of views. #1: New Domain Name Renewal Scam Hits Inboxes – yet another domain renewal scam is making its rounds. After publishing this story, the credit card processor that was an unwilling participant in the scam shut down the scammer’s account. Alas, the scammer merely started collecting ... read more ...
Mon 9th July 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Role of Domain Registrars to Change Over Next 5 Years - What role will domain registrars play in five years? Today, we think of domain name registrars as the place to go to register domain names. But this role will change over the next five years. Why? If you think “all of the good names are already registered” now, think about what the landscape will look like in five years. Here are some predictions for domain registrars: 1. Registrars become domain managers, not “registrars”. The central role of a registrar ... read more ...
Fri 6th July 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy to Launch “Signature Auctions” - Domain registrar GoDaddy is launching premium domain auctions through its TDNAM platform. GoDaddy, the world’s largest registrar, is the latest company to announce a new platform for auctioning high-end domain names. The company will launch “Signature Auctions” to auction off domains worth $10,000 or more. According to information recently posted on the GoDaddy web site: If you have a domain you feel is worth $10,000 or more, put it up for auction and then ... read more ...
Mon 11th June 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Name News Bytes – Jun 11, 2007 - There’s so much going on with domains right now…here’s a summary of news that has slipped through the cracks. Yet Another article from the mainstream press titled “Masters of their Domains“. Seriously, someone should have trademarked that term. (Paul Sloan of Business 2.0 owns the domain name, proving that he “gets” this domain name thing.) This time it’s The Canadian Financial Post which tries to figure out why there are so many big time domainers ... read more ...
Thu 7th June 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
128M Domain Names Registered, VeriSign Release Domain Parking Report - Two new reports from VeriSign shed light on the domain name industry. VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN), the registry for .net and .com domain names, released two new reports this month. The first is its quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief (pdf). Here are the highlights: 1. There are now 128M domain names registered, up from 120M last quarter. 2. .Org moved up to fourth place in terms of number of domains registered. It still trails .com, .de, and .net respectively. 3. ... read more ...
Tue 29th May 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
It’s Official: GoDaddy to Take Over RegisterFly’s Domains - GoDaddy to manage over 850,000 domains registered at RegisterFly. GoDaddy, the world’s largest registrar with over 20M domains under management, is picking up another 850,000 registrations. The company inked an agreement with ICANN and RegisterFly to take over management of the domains previously registered at RegisterFly. Ever since RegisterFly came under fire several months ago and lost its ICANN accreditation, domain owners have found it difficult to transfer ... read more ...
Wed 23rd May 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Launches TDNAM .Mobi Site - Domain auction fans can access TDNAM and bid on domains from their mobile phones. It’s only fitting that a domain registrar is making good use of the .mobi domain name. If registrars don’t use .mobi themselves, why should anyone else? GoDaddy recently launched a mobile version of its popular The Domain Name Aftermarket service, a site that offers expired domains and third party domains for sale. The company describes TDNAM.mobi: Manage your Domain Name Aftermarket ... read more ...