Tag Archives: registrars

Thu 19th January 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
LiveDoor executive found dead - An executive linked to Domain registrar and portfolio owner LiveDoor, under investigation by Japanese authorities, was found dead. The LiveDoor case is starting to look more and more like the fallout from Enron, although LiveDoor’s businesses aren’t shams. LiveDoor owns an ICANN-accredited domain registrar. Last year it purchased the ClickDario network of domain names, including Spanish-language domains such as Deportes.com (Sports), Salud.com (Health), Mujer.com ... read more ...
Wed 18th January 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
LiveDoor Raided - Domain registrar and portfolio owner LiveDoor has been raided by Japanese authorities. LiveDoor, a large internet company based in Tokyo, was raided by Japanese authorities on suspicion of violation of securities laws by giving false information. This development is a large part of the story behind the massive two day drop in Japan’s stock market. A recent DNJournal cover story discusses Matias de Tezanos, a Guatemala resident who sold a portfolio of domains (through ... read more ...
Tue 17th January 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NFL to examination GoDaddy ads? - GoDaddy doesn’t need to place an ad in the Super Bowl. It’s already getting the publicity it wants. Credit GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons with mastering the media. Placing an ad in the Super Bowl last year garnered much more publicity than the 30 seconds of airtime. The media picked the story up as “dot.coms returning to Super Bowl”. Before the commercial even aired, GoDaddy was covered on TV shows, in print, and on the airwaves. Then Parsons decided to make ... read more ...
Mon 16th January 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Free domain name – register for Beta - Sign up for the Microsoft Office Live beta to get a free domain name. Microsoft Office Live, a suite of small business tools that will help companies get on the web, is accepting registrations for its beta program. The Microsoft Office Live service includes a free domain name, free webhosting, free web site, and more. Microsoft caught the ears of domainers with its original announcement of the service. But domain investors looking to snap up free domains need not ... read more ...
Wed 11th January 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Spammers stealing behind Whois privacy - Spammers are increasingly hiding behind anonymous registrations using Whois privacy services. A recent article on Silicon.com and subsequently published on ZDNet discusses the use of Whois privacy services for spammers to hide their identities. Many of the identified domains with anonymous registrations are behind large amounts of message board comment spam–mostly for casinos. As a blogger myself, comment spam is a constant battle. The article references Moniker’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.CN domain passes 1 million mark - China’s .CN domain has topped 1,000,000 registrations. 1.09M, to be exact, according to official Chinese news reports. For the record, that’s about one .CN domain per 1200 people in China. (The China Internet Network Information Center still shows only 976,253 domains registered, but that’s as of November 2005). Now if we could just get the Chinese government to stop censoring web sites. Also keep in mind that if your web site is set up in China you need to ... read more ...
Tue 3rd January 2006
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Casinos.ws keeps .ws domains in a spotlight - Casino.ws sold at Sedo for $1,500 — not bad for a .ws domain. Let’s face it. .Ws domain names haven’t traded hands for tons of money. But savvy internet marketers realize the value of a good keyword CC TLD. Sedo just completed the sale of Casinos.ws for $1,500. I imagine that Casino.ws would sell for a bit more. This sets a good standard for popular keywords like Mortgage.ws, Loans.ws, etc. Other top .ws sales include: WhoIs.ws – £2,610 (November ... read more ...
Fri 30th December 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is GoDaddy Typosquatting? - Is the world’s biggest registrar typosquatting some of the world’s biggest brands? Typosquatting refers to registering domain names similar to popular sites but with misspellings or missing/added characters. For example, typosquatting would be registering yaho.com instead of yahoo.com. Millions of people type ‘yahoo.com’ into their browsers every day, and many of those accidentally neglect the second ‘o’. Typosquatting is a big business, and typo domains ... read more ...
Thu 29th December 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NYTimes: Free Domains “Gadget of a Year” - Just days after Wired Magazine called the .xxx domain delay one of the top 10 worst tech moments of 2005, The New York Times has called Microsoft’s free domain offer one of the top 10 “Greatest Gadget Ideas of the Year.” An article by David Pogue published today refers to Microsoft’s Office Live service, which will offer a free domain to all users: “It took Microsoft, of all companies, to make getting your own dot-com name free. Its new Office Live online ... read more ...
Mon 19th December 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic gets ICANN accreditation - Oh, how far we’ve come… Domain name aftermarket Afternic just received accreditation as a registrar from ICANN. Those who’ve been in the domain business for a long time remember when Afternic originally applied for accreditation prior to being snapped up by Register.com (and later sold again). Originally, ICANN didn’t want to offer accreditation to the exchange because it was enabling people to make profits on domain names and sell them in the aftermarket. ... read more ...
Fri 16th December 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy offers giveaway Whois privacy - Domain registrar GoDaddy just announced a special offer for free domain name Whois privacy. To take advantage of the offer you must register or transfer 3 or more domains (no limit). Whois privacy services typically provide fat margins to registrars. GoDaddy’s normal fee is $8.95 per year–the same price as a domain registration. But competition is driving the price down. 11 offers free privacy with its $5.99 domains and iPowerWeb also offers free privacy. Should ... read more ...
Wed 14th December 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What about Bob? - Where’s Bob Parsons, the outspoken leader of GoDaddy? He hasn’t posted on his blog since November 17. He typically posts four or five times a month. Perhaps he’s learned that writing about why he’s a proponent of torture doesn’t help him sell domains, but it certainly loses customers. Or his November 17 post about time saving tips, which reads as though he’s now too important to talk to his (former) friends but has enough time to tell the world about ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Over 4M .org domains registered - This is a couple weeks old but hasn’t caught a lot of press yet… Public Interest Registry (PIR), the .ORG registry, announced that more than 4,000,000 .org domain names are registered worldwide. The .org domain was created in 1984 and is the 5th most registered domain including country code domains. By comparison, there are 45.4 million .com domains registered and 6.6 million .net domains registered according to Whois Source. There are more .org domains registered ... read more ...
Tue 13th December 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy $6.95 domain registrations - Don’t you just love competition? Now that Dotster has lowered its domain registration price to $6.99 through the end of the year, GoDaddy has created a special link that gives you registrations for $6.95 (plus the ICANN fee, of course). Offer ends Dec 31. You must use the special link to get the price: Go Daddy $6.95 Domain Sale ... read more ...
Mon 12th December 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Two fined $2.3M for promulgation feign domain renovation notices - If you own more than a couple domain names then you’ve surely received one of those emails or letters telling you to renew your domain or risk losing it. The notification is actually a trick to get you to transfer your domain to another registrar. Two fraudsters charged with copying Whois data from Nominet and pulling a similar scheme must pay $1.3M damages plus $1.0 million in legal fees. The pair copied 2.2 million records from Nominet’s Whois database. Scammers ... read more ...
Sat 10th December 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
2006 Domain Name Survey - Domain Name Wire is doing a study of the domain name market and where we’re headed in 2006. Please take a few minutes to complete our survey. Survey results will be provided free of charge at the conclusion of the survey period. If you have a domain name web site or service, please announce the survey link to your visitors. Click here to take the survey! Topics covered include registrars, parking services, sales venues, forums, ICANN, policy, etc. Thanks, Andrew ... read more ...
Tue 6th December 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dotster slashes domain registration to $6.99 - Dotster, known for being one of the first discount registrars, has slashed its domain registration prices to $6.99 on one and two year registrations. This offer is good through the end of the year. No additional purchase is necessary. Click here to go to Dotster and take advantage of $6.99 domains! ... read more ...
Mon 5th December 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
IPOWER adds giveaway Whois Privacy - Last month IPOWER sent a ripple through the domain name market by offering $2.95 domain names. Unlike offers from other registrars there were no strings attached. Now IPOWER is offering free Whois privacy as well. Some other companies charge $8-$10 for this feature. But I don’t recommend you run out to take advantage of IPOWER’s offer. The company is a Tucows reseller that uses the OpenSRS platform. Each domain you register generates its own unique login ... read more ...
Mon 28th November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN might auction off single-letter domains - ICANN is considering opening single letter domain names, such as e.com, for registration. ICANN stopped allowing registration of single letter domains in 1993. Only 6 single letter domains had been registered by then, including X.com which is now owned by PayPal through a merger. Some two letter domains also aren’t available for registration because of confusion with certain two letter country code domain extensions. Two character domains will not be affected ... read more ...
Wed 23rd November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The bottom only fell out of a domain registration market - A few years ago we paid $70 to register a domain. Then the likes of Doster and GoDaddy came around, offering domains for under $15. 11 offers them for $5.99, which means they actually lose a penny on .com registrations. Now you can register a domain for $2.95 with no strings attached. This isn’t like the GoDaddy offer that requires you to buy another service. After the first year the price increases to $8.25. That’s not bad, but if you want you can just ... read more ...
Thu 10th November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
France’s .FR prolongation to open to individuals - France’s .FR domain name extension is currently only available to companies and trademark holders in France. That will change by next summer when the extension is opened to registration for all residents of France. The .FR registry currently has about 400,000 registered domains. You can read an interview with a manager at the AFNIC registry, which manages .FR, here. Perhaps in a few years the .FR domain will open up to companies and people outside of France, ... read more ...
Mon 7th November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Spanish .ES domains prepared for general registration - Spain’s .ES domain has been restricted to registrations by Spain residents and businesses only–until tomorrow. .ES will be open for international registrations in a unique stagger-step approach. -Tuesday, Nov 8 at 7AM CET (US EST Time + 6 Hours, so 1AM EST) you can register domains beginning with numbers or the letters ‘a’ and ‘b’ -Wednesday, Nov 9 7AM CET you can also register domains starting with ‘c’ to ‘e’ -Thursday, Nov 10 7AM CET you can ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Enom to mangle out ICANN “tax” - On October 20th I wrote about GoDaddy and its practice of not including the $.25 ICANN “tax” in its registration prices (see GoDaddy should drop ICANN tax). eNom, which currently has almost 6 million domains registered by it and its resellers, has announced it will begin breaking out the fee as well. The difference is that eNom isn’t tacking it on to its existing prices but just breaking it out. For example, instead of listing domains for $8.95 they will ... read more ...
Thu 3rd November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy drops .com registrations to $6.95 - GoDaddy.comhas dropped its .com registrations and transfers to only $6.95 (plus $.25 ICANN fee=$7.20). It is unclear if this is only temporary. Unlike other deals offered by GoDaddy, you do not need to purchase other products at the same time to get this price. Click here to go to GoDaddy.com. ... read more ...
Wed 2nd November 2005
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft to offer giveaway domain names - It appears that Microsoft’s new Microsoft Office Live offerings will include a free domain name and webhosting to small businesses. Small businesses are high margin customers for domain name registrars because they often purchase overpriced hosting services from the registrar when ordering a domain name. It won’t be a big deal for domain name investors, but this is something worth keeping an eye on… ... read more ...