Kevin Ohashi - Entrepreneur I Love Learning New Things.

No more visits to GoDaddy Auctions.

You can now search for domains from within the Investor app and add them to your watchlist or place a bid.

GoDaddy has added search functionality to its Investor app.

Until now, domain name investors had to place an initial bid or place a domain on their watchlist on GoDaddy’s website before they could bid in the app. Now, investors can search for the domain name from within the app. They can then place a bid or add the domain to their watchlist.

The search function gives results related to the keyword, not just domains that include the keyword. For example, a search for ‘hockey’ shows results for domains with other sports topics, such as soccer, football and basketball. A search for ‘science’ gives results including physics and math.

The new functionality will be welcomed by domain name investors. Now, if GoDaddy could just fix the glitch where the watchlist and bidding list are null when you first log in to the app. You have to force close and reopen it to see the domains.

 

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3. Glitch causes GoDaddy auction confusion

Want to own a dead drug lord’s IP?

Escobar Inc. holds a number of trademearks for “Pablo Escobar”, the infamous druglord. The company sells a flamethrower (pictured).

Last year, Pablo Escobar’s heirs won control of the domain name PabloEscobar.com. Now they are putting the domain and the late Colombian drug lord’s intellectual property rights up for sale.

Media Options, a domain name brokerage firm, is handling the sale.

Pablo Escobar’s brother and the former accountant for the Medellin Cartel, Roberto Escobar, re-formed Escobar Inc in 2014. It proceeded to capture as much intellectual property rights as possible.

Now Escobar, Inc. is trying to sell the rights for $1.9 million. The package includes:

• PabloEscobar.com Domain Name
• other related domain names including: Escobar.Life, Escobar.World, PabloEscobar.Club, PabloEscobar.us & others…
• Over 30+ Trademarks
• Copyrights
• Successor-in-interest rights in all 50 United States
• A painting (fresco) given to Pablo Escobar by his mother on his last birthday before he was killed
• A video of Roberto Escobar holding the painting mentioned above and telling the story of how his mother gave the painting to Pablo
• All documentation available providing the details regarding the rights, provenance, chain of custody & authority related to such rights

I’m sure any serious buyer will perform due diligence on the intellectual property. Escobar, Inc. has tried to extract payments from Nexflix for its Narcos series, and has threatened Elon Musk for selling flamethrowers.

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Domain investing conference will hold its 2020 summer show in Budapest.

Just a week before its big show in Austin, NamesCon has finalized the dates for its summer show in Europe.

The conference will take place August 6-8, 2020 at the Budapest Marriott Hotel on the bank of the Danube.

Budapest appears to have beautiful weather in August, with an average high of 82° Fahrenheit and an average low of 63°.

The European version of the show is smaller than the United States show, but that means more intimate conversations and connections.

Pre-sale passes are available for €249.

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Related posts:

1. Domaining Europe to transition to NamesCon Europe

Some companies trade in longer .coms for shorter second level domains in other extensions.

I love watching the Chinese domain market because it is full of surprises. Recently, I read a news story that a Chinese startup changed its domain from .com to .top. That challenges the conventional wisdom of .com being the ultimate upgrade.

Cryptocurrency exchange DCPPlus was founded in 2017 (apparently in Hong Kong) and it operated from the brand-matching domain DCPPlus.com. The exchange handles multiple digital currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. Recently, its name was shortened to simply DCP. To accompany the name change, the founders acquired DCP.top for reportedly 100,000 yuan (about $15,000) on December 6, 2019.

DCP.top has gone live and DCPPlus.com forwards visitors to the new site. Why not upgrade to DCP.com? Well, this is not possible because DCP.com is already being used by the American M&A firm District Capital Partners.

This reminds me of the company Supply whose founders pitched successfully in Shark Tank and received a $300,000 investment last year. The company then changed its domain from GetSupply.com to Supply.co. Why the change? Founder Patrick Coddou later tweeted “it will forever be worth it to not be called Get Supply anymore”. In other words, GetSupply.com misled consumers to believe the company’s name was actually “Get Supply”.

In these two cases, we can see that the founders consider the name part of a domain more important than its extension. In choosing a domain, its name is considered first, followed by its extension – and the name must match the brand.

Of course, the ultimate upgrade remains the exact match .com. Carrot founder Trevor Mauch told Domain Name Wire that people referred to his company as “On Carrot” when his company used the domain OnCarrot.com. He upgraded to Carrot.com.

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Here’s a handy way to find out what domains are selling for in China.

From time to time, I get asked to look at a list of domains for advice on how much to sell them for in China. My reply is always the same: do your own research. One thing you can do is to look at similar domains being sold in China. So, today I’ll write about a website you can use to do your research.

eName is one of the Top 10 domain registrars in China and it also offers some content in English. Just visit eName.com and click the English button. From the Find Domains menu, select BIN. This gives you all domains listed with a price. From here, you can set up filters to find selling prices of specific types of domains you are interested in. Here are some examples of use.

Suppose you want to know the selling prices of 4 letter .com domains. Click the Category drop-down list and select “4-letter”, then click the Suffix drop-down list and select “.com”. Finally, click the Search button. When the search result appears, click the Cur Price heading to sort the prices from the lowest to the highest, and change “Each page shows” to 100 so that you can examine a significant size of the domains. If you want to know details of a domain, just click its name. Since some information is still available in Chinese, you can use Google Translate to get a rough idea of the content.

This is the result of the 4 letter  .com search that I see as of this writing: there are 41,714 domains listed with a price. The cheapest domain is UQTG.com at 550 yuan (about $80) and the cheapest 100 domains are priced at less than $150. Now you can compare your domain with the displayed domains and try to arrive at a price for your domain.

How about 7 number .com domains? From the Category list, select “Pure Number”, then enter 7 to 7 for the Length. The result shows that there are 6,574 domains listed with a price. The cheapest domain is 4177778.com at 75 yuan (about $11) and the cheapest 100 domains are priced at less than $45. Again, compare your domain with the displayed domains and try to arrive at a price for your domain.

You can look at many types of domains such as Pinyin, mixed characters, and Chinese IDN, as well as a variety of extensions such as .net, .org, and .club. So, be sure to spend some time and learn how to use the filters for your purpose.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Let’s cut through the clutter and falsehoods.

A lot has been said and written about Internet Society’s (ISOC) sale of Public Interest Registry, the group that runs .org, to Ethos Capital. Some of it is true, some of it is false, and some of it is up to interpretation. This goes both ways; ISOC and Ethos have some bad (or at least misleading) talking points, but much of the fuss on the internet is wrong or based on questionable data.

Here’s what you need to know.

The deal solidifies ISOC’s financial future

It’s hard to debate that this deal doesn’t make sense for ISOC, at least financially. It’s trading in an annual revenue stream for an endowment. As long as it has a reasonable way to invest that endowment, it should be able to generate steady cash flow going forward.

While the domain name business has been on a steady, mostly upward trajectory for .org, there is certainly risk that this could change in the future. I understand why ISOC views this as a good financial move for its organization. I’m sure it knew it would get some pushback, but it decided that the opportunity was too good to pass up.

PIR is not cash-strapped and and can easily reinvest in .org

One of ISOC’s and Ethos’ talking points is that, because PIR has to give its profits to ISOC, it is cash-strapped and can’t reinvest in the registry or new products and services.

There are two questions at play here: (1) is .org declining? and (2) is PIR cash-strapped?

First, let’s look at the so-called decline of .org. Advocates for the deal have argued that .org is declining, which appears to be true on a domains under management (DUM) basis. On NPR’s On Point this week, Ethos Chief Purpose Officer Nora Abusitta-Ouri said:

“If you look at the numbers, the sales of .org have been declining. The reason they have been declining is because, you know, PIR has not been able to, you know, invest in growing the business.”

This is misleading. The decline in domains under management is on purpose. Much of .org’s growth was from discounted, low-quality domain name registrations. In 2018, PIR shifted its strategy to focus on high-quality registrations and explained that top-line DUM numbers would decrease while profitability increased.

This leads to the claim of PIR being cash-strapped because it has to give all of its profits to ISOC.

First, it rarely hands over all of its profits. In 2017 it gave an extra gift to ISOC, but neither party has been struggling to keep the lights on.

Second, PIR has an easy mechanism for adding $10 million, $20 million or more to its bank account within a year or two: raise prices. If PIR needs money to reinvest in the registry or to create new products or services, it doesn’t need private equity backing. It just needs to raise prices a dollar or two.

It would be difficult for ICANN to stop this deal

Here’s what the contract between ICANN and Public Interest Registry for running .org says about a change of control:

“Except as set forth in this Section 7.5, neither party may assign any of its rights and obligations under this Agreement without the prior written approval of the other party, which approval will not be unreasonably withheld.”

So ICANN must give written approval for this transaction to proceed, but it can’t unreasonably withhold it.

What’s unreasonable? I’m not a lawyer, but I doubt, “I can’t believe our lawyers gave up so much in this contract, so we’re going to withhold consent” will work.

This section of the contract refers to ICANN verifying that the assignee has the financial wherewithal to run the registry and that its owners pass background checks. Certainly, if ICANN thought Ethos Capital didn’t have enough money or found out that its principles were crooks, it could reasonably withhold its approval. Beyond that, I doubt it.

If ICANN withholds its approval, we’d likely see a lawsuit. That might delay the deal, and if it’s delayed long enough, Ethos might reallocate capital elsewhere.

ICANN can’t just decide to transfer the .org contract to another party

The original ICANN Chairwoman Esther Dyson has teamed up with a couple of other people and organizations to form a cooperative that it says should run .org. It isn’t putting in a rival bid; it seems to be asking ICANN to just hand over the registry contract.

The only thing in the .org contract I see that refers to such a possibility is this:

…any consummated change of control shall not be voidable by ICANN; provided, however, that, if ICANN reasonably determines to withhold its consent to such transaction, ICANN may terminate this Agreement pursuant to Section 4.3(g)…

This says that ICANN can terminate the agreement if it withholds consent and PIR still goes through the change of control. That won’t happen. ISOC and Ethos won’t move forward with a deal until they get ICANN’s written approval.

It won’t cost PIR a lot more to run .org as a for-profit

The idea that PIR’s costs will go up seems to stem from a letter Packet Clearing House sent to ICANN. The letter suggests that for-profit companies are essentially subsidizing the operation of .org because it’s a non-profit. Afilias, the company that runs the technical aspects of .org, uses Packet Clearing House’s (PCH) services. PCH suggests that, as a for-profit, these other companies would stop subsidizing services to .org.

This is why you see some claims that it would cost PIR about $30 million a year for technical services to run the registry.

I emailed with PCH’s Bill Woodcock for clarification. He explained more of the thinking here, and I simply don’t buy it. There are plenty of capable registry providers that would charge less than the $18 million a year Afilias is charging Public Interest Registry. In fact, I suspect some bid less for the contract when Afilias retained it.

I predict that PIR will renegotiate its deal with Afilias or move to another provider as soon as it’s contractually able to because the fees paid to Afilias are PIR’s biggest line item.

Keep in mind that Ethos founder Erik Brooks is, or at least was, on top level domain company Donuts’ board. He led the deal for Abry Partners to acquire the company. It makes a lot of sense to strike a deal to combine these two entities, or to at least use the same technical registry.

I’d bet $1.135 billion that Ethos’ financial projections include cutting technical costs, and this should be easy to accomplish.

The idea of monetizing .org registry data seems overblown.

I don’t see this as a huge opportunity. I can’t imagine it’s a big, if any, part of Ethos’ investment thesis. I’m willing to listen to the other side, but they need to provide specific examples of how Ethos could (mis)use this data.

Censorship is certainly an issue, but it’s also overblown.

At play is a constant battle between intellectual property interests and internet libertarians. The former want every player in the internet ecosystem to take down websites. The latter don’t think any website should be taken down, at least not without a court order.

Admittedly, PIR has done some stuff to cause concern. But I think private equity backers will be more careful about these things than PIR has historically been.

Government censorship could be a more significant concern, though. We’ve seen many companies bow to Chinese requests in order to serve Chinese citizens. If China demands that .org engage in censorship in order to sell domains in China, would PIR operating as a for-profit bow to this pressure? Many domain registries have bent over backward to obtain Chinese approval to sell domains in the country.

And if you want to go down that path, an even bigger concern is if .org is sold to another (foreign) entity.

This would be a nightmare scenario, and it doesn’t seem like one that people are paying attention to. What if Ethos decides to sell out to Chinese investors, Russian investors tied to Putin, or a Saudi sovereign wealth fund?

That would be a huge deal. It wouldn’t just be partisan displeasure in Washington. .Org is a huge part of the internet’s infrastructure.

Which gets me thinking…is there anything in the contract between ICANN and PIR right now that would prevent a sale to foreign investors? It brings me back to how ICANN has fumbled its contracts for legacy TLDs. It has turned them into saleable assets rather than limited “stewardship” agreements.

For what it’s worth, I think .org’s next step will be to combine with Donuts and some other domain assets, followed by an IPO or packaged sale to another private equity firm. But if another investor comes along with deep pockets, Ethos would be tempted.

.Org prices will go up; it’s just a matter of how much

OK, let’s dig into pricing. Hold on tight.

First, Ethos has said that it won’t raise prices too much. 10% a year on average. Possibly. Maybe less.

Here’s what it wrote on KeyPointsAbout.org:

“…Ethos Capital has stated that it plans to live within the spirit of historic practice when it comes to .ORG pricing. This means, potentially, that any annual price increase could be no more than 10 percent on average — which today would equate to approximately $1 per year.”

There’s a semantics issue here. Saying it will live within “the spirit of the historic practice when it comes to .ORG pricing” is false if it equates this to 10% per year. The historic practice has been to not raise prices every year, and even then, not by 10%.

What I think Ethos means is that it will live within the spirit of the historic contract, not practice. That contract allowed PIR to raise prices up to 10% per year.

If Ethos raises prices 10% per year, .org prices will escalate much faster than under ISOC’s control.

I’ve read several reasons why Ethos won’t raise prices much even though PIR’s contract with ICANN has no price caps.

1. “Ethos won’t raise .org prices much because people can easily switch domains” – this is the worst argument I’ve read. I’d encourage anyone making this argument to switch the domain their company uses for its website and email. Switching costs are high.
2. “Ethos won’t raise .org prices much because it will kill the domain” – it depends on how much it raises prices. Sure, $5,000 overnight would kill the domain. But I think it could easily raise prices to $15 next year and $20 the next without losing many registrations. And on from there.
3. “Ethos can’t raise prices too much because registrars would balk” – this argument might hold some water. While PIR has a monopoly on registrars when it comes to selling .org, registrars can push their customers to other domain extensions. Registries try to stay on registrars’ good sides. In fact, PIR paid Godaddy over $1 million in 2018 to promote .org to the registrar’s customers. If Ethos suddenly changed prices to $1,000 a year, this would be a bad customer experience for GoDaddy’s customers and the registrar could downplay .org on its site. It’s worth pointing out that .org has some market power, though, particularly for non-profits. And .com has full market power; registrars that downplayed .com would lose a lot of business.

I’ve also read claims that PIR could introduce variable pricing in which it charges some domain owners more to renew their domains. For example, they could tell NPR that it’s now $5,000 to renew the NPR.org.

This is contractually forbidden. PIR can introduce variable pricing, but it has to get the registrant’s agreement at the time of the initial registration. So we are likely to see variable pricing added for domains that expire and are re-registered, but if PIR wants to hold NPR’s domain for ransom, it has to hold everyone’s domain for ransom at the same price.

I’ll end the pricing discussion on this note: while Ethos can say it won’t raise prices over 10% a year on average, this isn’t in the contract with ICANN. Even if Ethos is true to its word, the next company to own .org won’t be held to that. Ethos could assuage these concerns by agreeing to have ICANN re-introduce the price cap in the contract. But it won’t do that; it would make the asset less valuable.

PIR’s employees are stuck in the middle

Lost in much of the discussion about ISOC selling PIR to Ethos is PIR itself. It’s kind of stuck in the middle. If I worked for a non-profit serving the greater good and then woke up one morning to find out I was working for a private equity firm, I would be disillusioned.

PIR has a good staff that does a good job. Hopefully, they don’t get the short end of the stick on this.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Related posts:

1. Ethos paid $1.135 billion for .Org
2. ISOC chapter breaks ranks, criticizes deal to sell .Org
3. Non-Commercial users ask for three changes to .Org contract

Ad agency files “egregious” cybersquatting claim.

Media Bridge Inc., which does business as Media Bridge Advertising, has been found to have attempted reverse domain name hijacking to get the domain MediaBridge.com.

The company filed the complaint against Mediabridge Infosystems Inc., which registered the domain name in 1994. The UDRP decision states that the Complainant claims rights dating to 2010.

It’s quite apparent that the domain name owner has rights or legitimate interests in the domain name, and that it couldn’t have registered it in bad faith in 1994 to target an as-yet-non-existent advertising agency.

The Respondent didn’t specifically ask for a finding of reverse domain name hijacking, but panelist Dennis Foster said that “given the egregious nature of this filing,” it should be addressed.

In this case, the Panel believes that it should have been obvious to Complainant that the first (and dominant) term of Respondent’s corporate name, “Mediabridge Infosystems, Inc.,” mirrored the disputed domain name, mediabridege.com (sic), and that the name had been registered by Respondent some sixteen yeas before Complainant was even created. Ergo, Complainant could never have hoped to prevail with respect to the last two elements required under the Policy, because Respondent most likely would have been commonly known as the disputed domain name to a relevant public and there was absolutely no basis to claim that the name was registered in bad faith…

…As a result, the Panel finds that the Complainant in initiating this proceeding has attempted reverse domain name hijacking.

Media Bridge, Inc. was represented by Alexander J. Farrell. The decision does not indicate that the Respondent was represented by counsel.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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A regional grocery chain, an apartment rental service and a men’s clothing brand bought domain names.

Wegmans grocery store chain led this week’s end user sales list at Sedo. The popular Northeastern U.S. grocer bought Meals2Go.com for its Meals 2GO app.

Here’s a look at some of the domains end users bought at Sedo this past week. See prior end user lists here.

Meals2Go.com $44,200 – The grocery chain Wegmans bought this catchy domain name. GrubHub owns MealsToGo.com.

Course.de €7,050 – Tutor Platform hosts online courses in a wide variety of subject matters such as languages, pre-med and more.

ASAPTravel.com $5,500 – Dyninno Group, an international development, lead generation and in-house IT company that focuses on travel, entertainment, and financial technology.

Coevo.com €4,000 – Forwards to Coevo.co.kr, the site for men’s clothing brand Coevo.

AST-International.com $3,895 – This company appears to have been formed last year, combining the assets of a couple of different companies. AST develops and manufactures sensors, switches and electronic assemblies for vehicle technology, white goods and industrial electronics.

Storyland.net €3,500 – Forwards to StorylandStudios.com, a master planning, design, and fabrication studio in California.

Cosana.com $3,000 – This domain was bought by Cosana Europe GmbH, a nutritional supplement company in Munich that also specializes in Manuka honey and related honey products.

Stayery.com $2,995 – Forwards to Stayery.de, an apartment rental reservation website for several locations in Germany including Berlin.

ScreenToMachine.com $2,888 – Planit Solutions, Inc., which provides software for woodworking machines. This might be a case of a company owning a domain, letting it expire, and then buying it back.

Mana.ch €2,200 – Website still in development for Swiss jewelry designers.

FamilyServ.org $2,149 – The YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago bought this domain, presumably for a campaign or special project within that community.

StickerWinkel.nl €2,000 – Forwards to StickerKoning.nl, a sticker manufacturer in the Netherlands.

Softice.com $2,000 – This domain was bought by Newtec Engineering, a manufacturer of weighing, packaging, and sorting machinery.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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3. 18 end user domain name sales

[Editor’s note: The following is a guest editorial from Nat Cohen, who provides interesting details about the birth of Public Interest Registry and its role with Internet Society. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of the conclusions, I think it’s a good contribution to current discussions about the sale of Public Interest Registry to Ethos Capital.]

The Internet Society (“ISOC”) generates tens of millions of dollars for itself each year through its control of the .org registry, Public Interest Registry (“PIR”), which makes money each time a .org domain name is registered or renewed.  Running .org has become so lucrative that PIR is now a target for acquisition by private equity firm Ethos Capital.  Much of ISOC’s revenue comes from nonprofit organizations[1] which predominantly use .org domain names.[2]  As a consequence, funds needed by those nonprofit organizations to pursue their own worthwhile missions are transferred to ISOC.  This raises the question as to whether ISOC’s control over .org serves the public benefit.

The way the nonprofit funding model usually works is that the nonprofit does good work and raises funds from contributors who voluntarily wish to support the mission of the nonprofit.  A nonprofit, such as Doctors Without Borders, must demonstrate that it is a good steward of donated funds in order to be able to attract continued contributions.

In contrast, ISOC uses its modest financial support of the Internet Engineering Task Force (“IETF”), where most of the actual work is carried out by “thousands of volunteers from around the world”,[3] to justify fat compensation packages for its own executives, while imposing a $70 million upcharge on its base of .org registrants, and enjoying control of a public resource valued at over a billion dollars.  The funds it extracts are not contributed voluntarily but come from compelled payments from those wishing to use .org domain names.[4]  It spends vast sums of money without needing to justify that the money is being put to a worthwhile or efficient purpose and with no accountability to discipline its spending.

ISOC’s Purpose and its Profligate Spending

ISOC’s primary mission is to support the modest funding needs of the IETF.[5] The IETF is an Internet standards body made up of thousands of people volunteering their time and effort[6] to accomplish the IETF’s goal of “making the Internet work better.”[7] The IETF conducts three meetings per year, runs mailing lists and publishes Internet standards documents.  ISOC contributed $3 million to the IETF in 2018,[8] yet most of that was merely passing along outside contributions earmarked[9] for the IETF.[10]

ISOC raised more than $70 million in 2018 from its control over the .org registry.  ISOC paid $18 million to Afilias[11] to do the work of actually operating the registry, paid $2.65 million in fees to ICANN, and yet charged .org registrants $93 million for the right to register or renew their .org domain names.

Where did the bulk of the $70 million go?

• Nearly $7 million went to pay PIR staff and executives. PIR contracts with Afilias to do the actual work of running the .org registry; PIR handles marketing and registrar relations and it lobbies ICANN to look after ISOC’s interests.  PIR has ten key employees, including top executives, each compensated in excess of $200,000 per year.  The combined compensation for the CEO position[12] exceeded $770,000 in 2018.[13]   In contrast, Doctors Without Borders, whose size and scope of operations dwarfs that of PIR, paid its executive director less than $300,000 in 2018.[14]
• ISOC pursues several vaguely defined initiatives:[15] [16] global engagement, such as removing impediments to Internet growth in developing countries ($9 million), communicating about what it does ($4 million), providing briefings on policy issues ($4 million),[17] reaching out to new stakeholders ($2 million), and elevating “identity” to a core issue and educating end-users to the importance of Internet security ($3 million).[18]
• $17 million in compensation[19] was paid to a staff of over 100 people in 2018.[20]
• $7 million was spent on travel and attending conferences.[21] [22]

The Controversial Award of .org to ISOC

How did we get into this situation? ISOC leveraged its role in partially funding the IETF to gain control of .org  with the help of its connections at ICANN.

In the early 2000s, ISOC faced “a looming financial crisis”[23] – it needed funds for itself.  Meanwhile, ICANN needed a new manager for .org.  ICANN put .org up for bid in 2002.[24]  ISOC was one of eleven bidders.  ISOC did not fare that well in the initial evaluation process.  ISOC received poor marks from the bid evaluators on the “good works” criterion, with its support for the IETF being its only saving grace:

“the Committee notes that although it has made no commitment to support ‘good works,’ profits from the registry will go to ISOC. On the arguable proposition that support for IAB/IETF standards processes constitutes ‘good works’ we awarded ISOC a ‘Low’ ranking in this category rather than a ‘None.’”[25]

The bid evaluators noted that ISOC’s public support came primarily from ISOC itself:

“The Internet Society demonstrated support for its proposal by mobilizing its own membership and chapters. With one late exception, the British Computer Society, it does not seem to have sought or received organizational endorsements from outside of ISOC.”[26]

Another bidder, Unity, ranked far higher in the evaluation performed by the nonprofit constituency than did ISOC’s bid, and received far broader support from the nonprofit community.[27]

ISOC, however, had influence at ICANN.  Many of the founders and early leadership of ICANN had ties to ISOC.  At the time the .org bid process was run, the ICANN Board included Vint Cerf, the former head of ISOC, as the Chair and another ISOC member as the Vice Chair.[28]  In addition, eight more ISOC members sat on the Board.[29]  The ICANN Board awarded .org to ISOC.[30] [31]

Commenters at the time decried the outcome as an “insider deal”.[32]  They recognized that ISOC was proposing a parasitic arrangement in which ISOC would bleed .org registrants to feed itself: the “ISOC proposal nakedly says it will take money from .org registrants to support ISOC”.[33]  ISOC’s relationship to .org was essentially rent extraction.  As Bret Fausett noted at the time in his ICANNWatch blog, “the idea that funds from .org registrants will be skimmed to support ISOC programs is not only bad policy but contrary to what the Board has previously expressed.”[34]

The Lull Before the Storm

ISOC’s early years in control of the .org registry imposed a fairly modest burden on .org registrants.  The price of .org domain names was fixed at $6.00 for the term of the 2003 agreement,[35] which retained the existing pricing.  In 2004, ISOC generated around $5 million in disposable funds,[36] from which ISOC contributed $1.25 million to the IETF, such that 25% of the funds at ISOC’s disposal reached the IETF.

As is often the case when ICANN renews registry agreements,[37] the terms that ICANN and ISOC negotiated in the 2006 renewal of the .org agreement resulted in more money for ICANN, more money for the registry, and an increased financial burden imposed on registrants without their meaningful participation in the decision and without any increase in benefit to them.  The 2006 .org agreement renewal introduced a fee surcharge for ICANN, and gave ISOC the ability to increase .org prices by an aggressive 10% per year.[38]  No safeguards were included in the agreement to ensure that the amount of money extracted from .org registrants corresponded to the funding needs of the IETF, nor did it couple prices to operational expenses, nor did ISOC need to provide any justification for raising .org prices.  The first 10% price increase took effect on November 9, 2008, when ISOC increased the price of .org domain names to $6.75 (including a $0.15 ICANN fee).  Prices stayed at this level for around two and a half years, until April 1, 2011, when ISOC raised the .org prices to $7.21.[39]

Things changed after 2011.  ISOC developed an appetite for extracting substantially more revenue from its control of .org.  ISOC raised .org prices in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2016, when it reached the current level of $9.93 per year.  A combination of growth in .org registrations, sharply lower fees negotiated with Afilias for running the registry, and the leap in .org prices produced an ever-rising river of funds to ISOC.

By 2018, ISOC’s surcharge had grown to $75 million, a fifteen-fold increase over the $5 million level in 2004, while ISOC’s contribution to the IETF had somewhat more than doubled, to $3 million.  ISOC pocketed 25 times the amount it needed to fund the IETF and passed along around 4% to the IETF of what it took from .org registrants.

A Broken Funding Model

Awarding ISOC control of the .org registry as a means to raise funds for the IETF may have been done with good intentions, but after 18 years it is a funding model run amok.  A structure intended to deliver a few million dollars per year in funding to the IETF is now pulling in more than $70 million per year in excess funds.  The money flowing to PIR will grow rapidly even if annual price increases are limited to 10% per year.[40]  Ethos Capital has placed a (low end)[41] valuation of $1.135 billion on future cash flows from PIR.[42]  This valuation is a measure of the harm that ICANN is causing .org registrants as a consequence of the ISOC/PIR funding structure.  The good done in ensuring that a volunteer-run organization covers a small budget shortfall,[43] is dwarfed by the tens of millions of dollars of financial burden placed each year on .org registrants to accomplish this modest goal.

ISOC’s ability to overcharge .org registrants, through its control over PIR, is now dangerously unconstrained as a result of its perpetual control of the registry and the recent lifting of price caps.  It is this power to exploit .org registrants that has attracted Ethos Capital.  That a private equity firm finds operating a name space intended for nonprofits to be a compelling investment opportunity demonstrates that the resource is being grossly mismanaged.

While ISOC’s stated mission is to promote the Internet “for the benefit of all people throughout the world”,[44] much of the $70 million extracted by ISOC is skimmed from the charitable contributions intended for nonprofits working to address pressing global social needs – hunger, disease, climate change, homelessness, intolerance, the refugee crisis, among countless other worthwhile missions, as well as from the tithes and other donations made to religious institutions and local houses of worship.

ICANN should recall its own mission[45] and purpose and restructure how .org is managed

ICANN has a duty to act in the public interest.  Blocking the sale of PIR to Ethos Capital,[46] while necessary, is insufficient.  Ethos Capital’s interest in PIR is due to the underlying defects[47] in the .org registry agreement negotiated by ICANN.  ICANN took a stable, growing namespace and destabilized it by removing protections from registrants and making them vulnerable to financial exploitation by the registry.  Rejecting Ethos Capital’s purchase offer, without taking further steps, would merely perpetuate the current broken system in which ISOC extracts enormous sums from .org registrants and dissipates those funds to enrich its own executives with no public benefit commensurate to the resources consumed.

It is time to put an end to the financial exploitation of .org registrants.  If at all possible, it is time to end the PIR/ISOC funding model which has long outlived its usefulness.  Now is the time for ICANN to rethink the operation of .org so that, at long last, it represents and supports the nonprofit community rather than being parasitic upon it.

I’d like to express my gratitude to those who reviewed and provided feedback on this article.

[1] See here

[2] In the United States, at least, the majority of 501(c)(3) websites are on .org domain names.   See also.

[3] See here

[4] See here

[5] “In contemplation of the need for a mechanism for aggregating funding from many sources, it was proposed to form an Internet Society and to use its resources, in part, to provide funds in support of IETF.” See here.

[6] ISOC reports the involvement of 4,096 volunteers on its 2018 990, see pdf.

[7] See here

[8] See here

[9] See, for instance, “Mirjam Kuehne (RIPE NCC) said the RIRs contribute membership money into ISOC specifically earmarked to support IETF and wondered what will happen with that.”

(https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/wg/services/minutes/ripe-71-ripe-ncc-services-working-group-minutes)

[10] ISOC’s $3 million grant to the IETF was nearly offset by $2.6 million in outside contributions and grants received by ISOC, over and above the funds received through PIR, as reported on ISOC’s 2018 990, Part VIII, 1f.  These additional contributions are nearly sufficient to cover ISOC’s grant to IETF, even in the absence of any funds received as a result of PIR’s control of .org. See pdf.

[11] See here

[12] PIR transitioned to a new CEO in 2018, with a Director serving as interim CEO for several months.  The $770k figure represents the total salary and benefits provided to the former CEO and interim CEO in 2018.

[13] See here

[14] See pdf

[15] “ISOC has a reputation for being a bit of a hammer looking around for nails.” at https://medium.com/savedotorg/well-that-was-a-surprise-1d8d8d3d3dfa.

[16] Figures reported net out grants reportedly given to other organizations, so that expenses shown better reflect expenses incurred by ISOC itself.

[17] See pdf

[18] See here: The “stakeholder” and “identity” initiatives were broken out in the 2017 990 but are lumped together in a $14.6 million program in the 2018 990 (Part III, 4b) that also includes support for the IETF.  The 2017 figures are used here.

[19] See pdf

[20] See here

[21] See pdf

[22] See also Ayden Féderline’s detailed review of ISOC’s spending in this Twitter thread.

[23] See here

[24] See here

[25] See here

[26] Ibid

[27] Ibid

[28] See here

[29] “Ten of the ICANN Directors are members of the Internet Society”

[30] Reports at the time accused ICANN staff of reweighting the results, in effect “lying with statistics”, to enable ISOC to come out on top in the ICANN staff evaluation.

[31] ICANN’s General Counsel addressed allegations of conflict of interest in his report on the award.  He found no impropriety: “Directors are members of the Internet Society, but none of them would financially benefit in any way, directly or indirectly, from the selection of the Internet Society as the successor .org operator.”  He further found that ICANN’s conflict of interest policy “does not prohibit Directors from voting on matters merely because those matters involve a philanthropic society which the Directors may philosophically support”.  See here.

[32] See here

[33] See here

[34] Brett Fausett cited here.

[35] See here

[36] ISOC paid Afilias around $4.00 per domain name, generating about $5 million for itself on a growing base of 2 – 3 million .org domain names.  Disposable funds refers to the revenues ISOC receives in excess of what is required to pay Afilias for performing the technical functions of operating the .org registry and to pay fees imposed by ICANN for its own support.

[37] See here

[38] See here

[39] See pdf

[40] See here

[41] See here

[42] See here

[43] Or as little as $400,000, as much of the funding for the IETF comes from outside contributions earmarked for the IETF.  See footnote 9 above.

[44] See pdf

[45] “ICANN’s mission is in part to preserve the operational stability of the Internet. Eliminating price caps and endangering the online credibility of the global nonprofit community is not consistent with ICANN’s mission.”, ASAE comment on the proposed renewal of the .org registry agreement.

[46] See here.

[47] “In its attempt to justify this current proposal, ICANN is pushing the misguided rationale that registry operators of legacy gTLDs should effectively be treated as owners entitled to whatever fees they deem appropriate even though they did not create the legacy domain names they currently manage.”, ASAE comment on the proposed renewal of the .org registry agreement.  See also: PDF, comment, comment.

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2. ISOC chapter breaks ranks, criticizes deal to sell .Org
3. Ethos paid $1.135 billion for .Org

China sucked up a lot of domains, and now Western end users are bringing some of them back.

China is known for buying domains from the west. Examples such as 360.com, JD.com, and OFO.com are readily found. It’s a trend we all know. However, isn’t it reasonable to expect the opposite to also occur after so many good domains have gone to China? Two recent transactions remind me of such a possibility.

In September last year, Chinese domain company 62.com reported that it facilitated the sale of MPT.com. The buyer is the American public company Medical Property Trust. The exact price was not disclosed but reportedly more than 7-figure yuan (more than $150,000). Medical Property Trust’s corporate domain is Medicalpropertiestrust.com so MPT.com is the perfect upgrade. The company also owns MPT.net. Currently, MPT.com redirects to Medicalpropertiestrust.com.

In November last year, Chinese domain company West.cn announced the sale of Viafintech.com from its marketplace. The buyer is Barzahlen Cash Payment Solutions GmbH in Germany. The domain was sold for 46,980 yuan (about $7,000). The fintech startup owns the Viafintech and Viacash brands. It also owns Via-fintech.com, so Viafintech.com is a nice upgrade. Currently, Viafintech.com redirects to Viacash.com. The seller was Lu Chen, located in China, according to the Whois record.

These two sales may be a sign of what is to come. If it does become a trend and we see end users in the west buying domains from China, is there any implication for domain investors? That will mean you can find good domains in China for sale to end users in the west. This further means that you need to spend time watching the Chinese domain market. Reading my articles as well as my daily posts on LinkedIn may help.

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Sellers can now let buyers pay over up to 60 months.

Dan.com launched an improved domain financing system today, allowing payments to be spread over up to 60 months.

Domain name sales platform Dan.com has upgraded its domain name financing options.

Previously, sellers could allow buyers to extend payments over 12 months. The new financing tool extends this to up to 60 months and adds a premium if buyers extend payments more than 12 months. The premium ranges from 10% to 30%. Half of that amount is shared with the seller and the other half goes to Dan.com for managing the payments and escrow.

Dan.com’s base charge remains 9%.

Sellers only have to list a buy now price and opt into the financing option. Dan.com calculates the rest. Sellers have an option to limit payment plan duration.

The minimum monthly payment under installment plans is $99, but the service hopes to reduce this in the future.

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On Point hosts discussion about .org sale to Ethos Capital.

NPR’s On Point featured the .org debate this morning. Host Meghna Chakrabarti was joined by Esther Dyson, founding chairwoman of ICANN, Andrew Sullivan, CEO of Internet Society, and Nora Abussita-Ouri, chief purpose officer for Ethos Capital:

They didn’t really break new ground, but the point was to try to express their views to the general public.

Sullivan and Abussita-Ouri kept repeating the fallacy that PIR isn’t able to invest in .org because it has to give all of its profits to ISOC. (It could just raise prices a dollar or two and have plenty to invest.)

Abussita-Ouri also kept repeating that Ethos wouldn’t raise prices more than 10% per year, which she defined as the previous norm. That’s not quite true. While the old contract allowed price increases of up to 10% per year, Public Interest Registry rarely took advantage of this. So while it’s true that, assuming it sticks to its word, this could have happened under the old contract, it’s not “the historical practice.”

Dyson repeated the idea that the .org registry’s operations are being subsidized, and as a for-profit it would cost a lot more to run .org.  I think this is based on a Packet Clearing House analysis which doesn’t make much sense. When Public Interest Registry put the technical contract out for bid, it cut its cost nearly in half. And I can guarantee you Afilias wasn’t the low bidder. In fact, I suspect Ethos Capital’s financial plan includes a reduction in technical registry costs.

There was also that unfortunate point at which Dyson compared selling .org to slavery. Hey, live radio is hard.

Chakrabarti did a good job of pushing for answers, even if she didn’t get the answers she wanted. For example, she pushed Abussita-Ouri for what Ethos’ return on investment will be. She didn’t get the answer, although Abussita-Ouri did say the “public will know in due time.” (I don’t think that’s true; those finances will be kept private unless .org goes public.)

Chakrabarti also pushed back hard on the idea that it was just a coincidence that Ethos struck this deal immediately after the price cap on .org was removed.

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A payroll service company bought the .com to match its .net.

PayStubs.net bought PayStubs.com.

If I were to take my pick of PayStub.com or PayStubs.com as a domain investor, I’d definitely pick the former. It can be used for many personal finance purposes. But if my business was just about creating pay stubs, it would be a different matter. It’s an exact match, product-defining domain name.

That’s the case with the buyer of this week’s top domain at Uniregistry. Here’s a look at the other sales at Uniregistry, including notes when I could figure out who bought them.

Here are the Top 20 sales that can be reported.

1. paystubs.com $68,750 – As best I can tell, the business acquired PayStubs.net within the last two years. It was listed on various platforms for about $2,000-$3,000. The buyer set up the website and then acquired the matching .com, which now forwards to PayStubs.net

2. loopy.com $15,000 – Mobile phone case company Loopy Cases. It forwards the domain to LoopyCases.com.

3. rockspring.com $8,625 – Texas real estate investment company Rockspring Capital forwards this domain to RockSpringCap.com.

4. countryboots.com $8,000

5. creativebeauty.com $6,000

6. magicphoto.com $5,200 – Someone in New York

7. nprc.com $5,000 – Northern Pennsylvania Regional College

8. themortgagestore.com $5,000

9. ufff.com $5,000

10. billetera.com $5,000

11. ganjagrow.com $4,200

12. fastfiber.com $4,000

13. hellogenie.com $4,000

14. racestorun.com $4,000

16. partshare.com $3,500 – Automotive Distribution Network

17. smokingjackets.com $3,250

18. gemmology.com $3,000 – The domain now forwards to LustreGemmology.com.

19. puebloweb.com $3,000

20. brandbiz.com $3,000

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Valuable domain names will be sold in live auction next week.

Right of the Dot is holding its annual live domain name auction in conjunction with NamesCon next week in Austin.

The auction starts at 4:30 pm on Thursday, January 30 at the Omni Hotel in downtown Austin.

In addition to live bidding, remote bidding is available through ProxyBid.

The auction list hasn’t been set yet, but pre-bidding is running on GoDaddy Auctions. On January 27th, the final list of domains will be selected based, in part, on pre-bidding activity. At that point, bidding will continue in the live auction.

Several domains have high bids in pre-bidding, although most of these have not met their reserves. Add.com has a $201,000 bid but the reserve is over $500,000. Illionois.com is at $102,000 with a reserve somewhere between that price at $500,000.

Names that have met their reserves include HRB.com at $18,550, MGV.com at $8,000, Med.org at $5,200 and 70a.com at $3,050.

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This company’s Chinese name would not have worked globally.

I like 3 letter (3L) domains so I spend a lot of time in this space. I have a database of Chinese companies that could benefit from an upgrade to 3L domains. I also have a database of Chinese brands created from 3L domains that startups can use. One powerful feature of 3L domains that you may not know is that they can help Chinese companies go global.

Zhu Ba Jie (猪八戒) is a name familiar to every Chinese. In the classic novel “Journey to the West,” a Chinese monk travels to far off places filled with mystery and adventure. One of his companions is Zhubajie, a soft-hearted and optimistic pig who often gets into trouble.

In 2005, Zhumingyue (朱明跃) registered the 3-pin Zhubajie.com and started a marketplace to connect businesses with individuals offering professional services such as logo design, translation, and IT. Within a short time, his company has grown into a unicorn with 4,000 employees. Considered the largest crowdsourcing website in China, Zhubajie has expanded globally as well, with presence in Singapore.

While ZhuBaJie.com is an excellent choice for the domestic market, Mr. Zhu knew the brand/domain would be too long and difficult to remember outside China. Therefore, in 2016 he acquired the matching acronym domain ZBJ.com as the new corporate domain. As an added benefit, web traffic was reported to skyrocket after the upgrade.

In terms of branding, Mr. Zhu’s company is remembered as Zhubajie at the digital address of ZBJ.com. Outside China, his company is known as ZBJ.com or simply ZBJ. No rebranding was required in the process of going global. So, you can see the power of the 3L domain in this upgrade story.

Mr. Zhu registered Zhubajie.com not because of the classic Chinese novel, but because the domain was available and it also happens to start with his name. As it turned out, ZBJ.com has made Mr. Zhu’s own journey to the west easy. He also understands the power of domains, for he once said, “If you cannot get the company name as well as its domain, then don’t run your business (公司名、域名，拿不下就不要干了).” This shows the domain is as important as the company name.

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If Ethos raises .org prices by 10% a year, the wholesale cost quickly rises.

With 10%-per-year increases, the price of .org domains begins to look like a hockey stick.

Ethos Capital, the private equity company that is trying to acquire Public Interest Registry and the .org registry, says it plans to raise .org prices, on average, up to 10% per year:

That said, Ethos Capital has stated that it plans to live within the spirit of historic practice when it comes to .ORG pricing. This means, potentially, that any annual price increase could be no more than 10 percent on average — which today would equate to approximately $1 per year.

This 10% number is based on the cap in the 2006 agreement between ICANN and Public Interest Registry (PIR). The 2006 agreement allowed PIR to raise prices 10% per year starting in 2007.

But PIR rarely increased prices, let alone by 10%. Matt Riggott examined PIR’s price increases since the 2007 contract and found that there have been 7 price increases over those 13 years. Three of these price increases were 10%, and the other four were less.

The net-net is that prices have increased from $6.00 to $9.93 from 2007 to now. That’s a 4%-on-average increase. (Riggott calculates closer to 3%, but he uses the years prior to 2007 in which prices were capped at $6.00.)

Had PIR increased its prices by 10% a year starting in 2007, wholesale .org prices would currently be $20.71, more than twice the current cost.

What happens if Ethos raises prices by 10% per year? The magic of compounding makes .org prices look like a hockey stick.

As you can see in the chart above, the wholesale price of a .org would increase from $9.93 today to $28.33 in 2030. By 2040, you can expect to pay $73.48 plus your registrar’s markup.

This assumes 10% increases, but ICANN removed all price caps last year. So the sky is really the limit.

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Chinese companies often choose an English name.

Like many Chinese companies, Airlook chose an English name.

I started using the term “EnglishDotCom” several years ago to describe what I saw in the Chinese domain market. I was really amazed to see startups in China using an English brand on the .com extension for their corporate website. This trend has not stopped, and the startup we’ll look at today is another example.

Airlook is a Beijing-based mapping company. It produces 3D maps to model the real world. Major clients are government agencies, research institutes, and domestic and foreign companies. Its technologies are used in land survey, highway control, city planning, and many other fields. Founded in 2015, the startup has already raised several rounds of funding, with the latest $150 million round completed just a few days ago.

Airlook’s Chinese name is 埃洛克 (Ai Luo Ke), which is a phonetic translation from its English name. In other words, the founders were thinking of an English name for their venture first. Once they settled on the English name, they translated it to Chinese phonetically. See how it is different from the conventional wisdom of thinking of a Chinese name first. The startup’s corporate domain is the brand-matching Airlook.com. It does not own Ailuoke.com (for sale now, though), indicating the emphasis is the English brand.

The EnglishDotCom strategy is very useful for startups aspiring to go global. In the internet age, this also means almost every startup. English is the global language and .com the global extension. The EnglishDotCom domain strategy prepares a startup as a global player from day one, and its founders won’t have to worry about rebranding or acquiring the matching .com domain later when they become big enough to go global.

If you watch the Chinese domain market regularly, you’ll notice a lot of companies following the EnglishDotCom domain strategy — BabyTree.com, VIPkid.com, SenseTime.com, Keep.com, Tencent.com, and many more. The implication is that there is a large market in China for English-based .com domains. Domains based on simple English words can be sold to Chinese buyers.

So, don’t worry if you don’t understand Pinyin. Focus on English and there will still be a lot of fish to catch in your domain game.

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Nikul Sanghvi struggled to get a foothold in domain investing until a big sale in 2015.

A domain investor’s journey is often filled with ups and downs. On today’s show, you’ll hear Nikul Sanghvi’s story. He was selling vinyl records online and living with his parents when he got bogged down by carrying so much physical inventory. He started investing in domain names in 2009 and didn’t have much success at first. Then, in 2015, he got his big break: a six figure sale that helped him buy a new home for his family and start getting serious about domain names. It’s a great story with many lessons for domain investors.

Also: Bad .org talking points, Naturals and more.

Sponsor: Name.com

Show links: Nikul’s posts on NamePros referred to in podcast: original post, .co post

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, view on Google Play Music, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)

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Deal delayed another 30 days as ICANN works through deal blowback.

ICANN and Public Interest Registry have mutually agreed to extend the time that ICANN has to review Public Interest Registry’s (PIR) answers to its questions about the sale of .org to Ethos Capital by 30 days. ICANN also says that it will be asking more questions.

Separately, The National Association of State Charities Officials has written to ICANN (pdf) to ask it to allow time for regulators to review the transaction. The association’s members include attorneys general, Secretary of State offices and other groups in charge of preventing the misuse of charitable assets.

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Related posts:

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3. Video: watch the Q&A with Ethos, Internet Society and PIR

No big reported sales, but a good mix of end users.

Ageist bought Ageist.com, a big improvement over its domain WeAreAgeist.com.

Uniregistry’s top reported sale of the week was only $8,500. Despite a lack of high-ticket purchases, some interesting end users bought domains at Uniregistry. I like Cryptocurrency .tax, which is a service that helps you calculate your taxes on cryptocurrency investments and create the forms necessary to file with the IRS.

The best-update-at-a-great-price award goes to Ageist.

Here’s the list:

1. rentpower.com $8,500 – Whois only discloses that the buyer is in Pennsylvania.

2. theinfinite.com $7,300 – An Estonian company called DigitalPoint.

3. aadam.com $6,000 – An organization in Dubai called WAO.

4. sejour-linguistique.com $5,500 – Google translate says this means “Linguistic Stay.” For context, it appears that the buyer is creating a service to learn languages while abroad.

5. hairstraightener.com $5,000 – Sutra Beauty, which sells hair styling equipment such as straighteners. It is forwarding the domain to its website.

6. greenhousedesigns.com $5,000 – Green House Designs is a kitchen and bath company that also owns the .net version of this domain.

7. speedygo.com $5,000 – Whois only discloses that the buyer is in London.

8. ageist.com $5,000 – This is a significant upgrade for Ageist, which advocates for living healthier and longer lives for middle-aged and older people. Its current domain is WeAreAgeist.com.

9. equipmentpro.com $5,000 – Michael Haas in Texas. The site still points to the Uni lander.

10. thetrend.com $3,700 – Whois only reveals that the buyer is in New Jersey.

11. inkism.com $3,500 – The domain forwards to Inkism.com.tw, which appears to be some sort of food/restaurant site.

12. stylepulse.com $3,500 – Lambert + Associates in France is a fashion and retail consulting company.

13. free-video .com $3,500 – Someone in the Czech Republic.

14. pristene.com $3,500 – The domain forwards to EyeCheck.com, which sells an eye health dietary supplement called Pristene.

15. cryptocurrency.tax $3,300 – Cryptocurrency.tax helps you calculate your taxes on cryptocurrency investments.

16. sundaygolf.com $3,000 – Whois only reveals that the buyer is in California.

17. sesamy.com $3,000 – Sesamy AB

18. bettechnology.com $3,000 – No information available.

19. wekids.de $2,750 – No information available

20. impulseaudio.com $2,500 – Whois only reveals that the buyer is in Michigan.

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