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Hair loss cybersquatting fight ends in reverse domain name hijacking
I can understand why the Respondent was pulling his hair out over this dispute.
A National Arbitration Forum panel has found Florida company Gapardis Health and Beauty, Inc. to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name MinoPlus .com.
The Complainant offers a natural topical product called Mino Plus that it says aids with hair growth. The Respondent, Jose Rojas of Haiti, sells a product called Minoval Plus for hair regrowth using Minoxidil, the same active ingredient found in Rogaine.
Rojas registered the domain name MinoPlus .com and it resolves to a page that states, “This product is a fake…”
If you look at the two products’ packaging, it sure seems like Mino Plus has the same color and general package design as the Respondent’s Minoval Plus.
In addition to trademarks for Minoval Plus, Rojas has a trademark in Haiti for Mino Plus. Rojas said he got this trademark right after opposing a trademark application submitted in Haiti by an entity associated with the Complainant.
According to panelist David Sorkin, Gapardis Health and Beauty, Inc. did not disclose these pertinent details in its Complaint:
The Complainant identifies Respondent by name but does not indicate that Respondent is a competitor nor provide any other information regarding Respondent or his activities or trademark rights, let alone the fact that Respondent is the senior user of similar marks. Indeed, Complainant’s accusation of bad faith appears to have been carefully drafted to avoid referring to Respondent as a competitor, even though that is a condition of the applicable provision of the Policy. The Complainant also fails to mention Respondent’s rights in the MINOPLUS mark in Haiti, a fact which almost certainly would have been known to Complainant. While Complainant acquired the U.S. trademark rights in MINO PLUS subsequent to that dispute, the Panel notes that Complainant has the same physical address as its predecessor in interest, shares at least one director with the entity involved in the Haiti trademark dispute, and is represented by counsel in this proceeding. The Panel therefore considers it unlikely that Complainant could have been unaware of this prior history or its relevance to this proceeding.
Complainant knew or should have known that it could not prove that Respondent lacks rights and legitimate interests in the disputed domain name, and nevertheless initiated this proceeding in an improper effort to obtain the domain name. Furthermore, Complainant withheld relevant information in an apparent attempt to mislead the Panel regarding Respondent’s rights or legitimate interests and the circumstances under which the disputed domain name was registered. Accordingly, the Panel finds that the Complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding.
Post link: Hair loss cybersquatting fight ends in reverse domain name hijacking
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RCEP could boost demand for domains
Kassey Lee discusses RCEP and what it could mean for domain names.
A virtual signing ceremony for RCEP.
I have been busy reading about RCEP in the last few days. I think it could have a positive long-term impact on demand for domains in China.
RCEP stands for “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership,” which was signed on November 15 to cover the 10 Southeast Asian countries and South Korea, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Once ratified by member countries, the pact will formally enter into force in 2021.
This pact signals Asia’s rise as an economic powerhouse, as evidenced by the joining of even the traditionally “western” countries Australia and New Zealand. The 15-member group already accounts for about 30% of the world population and 30% of the global GDP, and it is expected to become the largest economy in the world.
This agreement also suggests the arrival of the largest digital economy in the future, which will become the dominant venue to do business. Domains will increase in demand because they are the foundation of any digital economy.
RCEP is not just about tariff removal and free trade. It also means the creation of common standards. For example, intellectual property rights registered in a member country will be recognized by all member countries of RCEP. The common standards will encourage domestic companies to go across their national borders to do business in other member countries.
Chinese companies have long been encouraged by their government to go outside of China. Top companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com are heavily invested in Southeast Asia. RCEP will make it even more appealing to go global and expand into the RCEP region.
Going global will drive Chinese companies to adopt .com in general and English-based domains in particular because .com is the global extension and English the global language. I have seen many Chinese companies already using this domain strategy, such as Netease.com, Ctrip.com, and VIP.com. .Com is already the most preferred extension in corporate China. This trend will only intensify because of RCEP.
For domain investors in the west, the implication of RCEP is that it will increase demand for English-based .com domains in China. Therefore, if you have such domains, make sure they are exposed to and can be easily bought by end users in China. For details, read my article “How to sell domains to China“.
Post link: RCEP could boost demand for domains
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Categories: Domains
GoDaddy’s for-sale landing page wishlist
These are some great options but could be better.
You can forward your domain to a page on GoDaddy that looks like this.
Last week, Michael Cyger of DNAcademy posted a guide about how to choose from GoDaddy’s five “for sale” landers for your domains.
Five landers? Yes, I was surprised to learn that there are so many options. Four of them involve forwarding a domain visitor to a page on GoDaddy’s website.
Forwarding a domain directly to the purchase path on GoDaddy is a smart idea that I’ve heard people tell me about in the past. But I don’t want GoDaddy to advertise other domain options when I forward the traffic, which is the default for GoDaddy’s search pages. Cyger’s post shows that there are a couple of options to avoid this. One is to send the visitor to a GoDaddy auction page, and the other is to forward them to a page that only shows the premium domain for sale and no others (see picture above).
I like the latter option best. But there’s a weird drawback to this page: it doesn’t show the domain’s price.
GoDaddy representatives have said that the company tested buy now pricing on its main landers and found that having people fill out an inquiry form works best, so that’s why its official landers are set up without a buy now option. But I believe these tests were run a while ago, and not since the company switched from Afternic to GoDaddy branding on its landers. I think it’s worth testing again, at least for low-cost domains.
This would make it much easier for domain investors to point their domains to a GoDaddy for-sale lander.
Check out Cyger’s post, and read the comments there if your domains are registered at GoDaddy.
Post link: GoDaddy’s for-sale landing page wishlist
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Crypto company Ternio tries reverse domain name hijacking BlockCard.com domain name
Company that uses GetBlockCard.com filed cybersquatting dispute against BlockCard.com domain name.
Blockchain and cryptocurrency company Ternio has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name BlockCard.com. The company offers a service called BlockCard that uses the domain name GetBlockCard.com.
Simply Wireless, Inc., the Respondent in the case, acquired the domain name at Sedo on January 11, 2018.
Ternio said that it filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office On January 15, 2018 and that the Respondent acquired the domain on January 16, 2018. It used as evidence a TheDomains.com report of Sedo sales that was dated January 16, 2018.
But World Intellectual Property Organization panelist Nick Gardner pointed out that the story on TheDomains referred to “weekly” sales at Sedo, so this doesn’t show that the domain was acquired on January 15, 2018. Indeed, the Respondent submitted evidence showing that it acquired the domain on January 11.
This information is public, too, if you dig for it. NameBio has an entry showing the sale on January 11, 2018 for $6,200.
It turns out that the evidence Ternio submitted shows that the Whois data for the domain was updated on January 14, 2018. Apparently, Ternio ignored this date in its complaint.
Ternio originally filed the trademark on an intent-to-use trademark. This was not discussed in the decision, and it probably doesn’t matter. If the Respondent had acquired the domain the day after the Complainant filed a trademark application, it would look suspicious.
But this is simply not the case, and the Complainant should have known this.
Panelist Gardner found reverse domain name hijacking for many reasons. In addition to the date issue, the Ternio submitted over 400 pages of material that it said showed the fame of the Block Card mark. But most of it was general corporate publicity that didn’t mention Block Card at all. Further, the publicity postdated the Respondent’s purchase of the domain.
Garner wrote:
Overall the Panel has reached the conclusion that the Complaint deliberately overstates the Complainant’s case in a way which could well have misled the Panel, particularly if no response had been filed. The Panel considers that merits a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.
Zlatkin Wong LLP represented Ternio, LLC. No lawyer is listed as representing Simply Wireless.
Post link: Crypto company Ternio tries reverse domain name hijacking BlockCard.com domain name
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New TLD marketing with Mina Neuberg – DNW Podcast #313
Mina Neuberg, Chief Marketing Officer of Donuts, talks about marketing new top level domains to registrants.
Last week, Donuts announced it was acquiring Afilias in a blockbuster deal. My guest this week is Mina Neuberg, Chief Marketing Officer of Donuts. Mina discusses branding, whether Donuts should market individual TLDs, and her view of the domain industry so far coming from the outside.
Also: Donuts acquires Afilias, two reverse domain name hijacking cases, GoDaddy launches new product, and more.
Sponsor: DAN.com
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)
Post link: New TLD marketing with Mina Neuberg – DNW Podcast #313
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GoDaddy breach is latest reminder to use registry lock
Websites that handle financial transactions should add Registry Lock to their domains.
Brian Krebs wrote this weekend about a recent attack on cryptocurrency services via the domain name registrar GoDaddy.
In at least two cases, it appears that attackers were able to either transfer a domain to another account and modify its nameservers or otherwise modify nameservers on the domain names.
Social engineering attacks on tech company employees are likely to become more common as people work from home. Registrars must remain vigilant.
Site owners also need to take precautions. Websites that handle financial transactions (including cryptocurrency transactions) should use Registry Lock.
Registry Lock is different from typical domain locking offered by registrars. Domain locking merely prevents a domain from being transferred unless someone logs in to the account and unlocks it.
Registry Lock is much more sophisticated. It’s a service offered by the domain name registries through the registrars. Most Registry Lock products prevent people from transferring a domain or changing its nameservers without going through a multi-step process that involves both the registrar and registry.
In the case of Verisign, which operates .com, a domain owner who wants to change their nameservers would first contact their registrar. This would trigger a process in which the registry manually verifies the request.
It’s not foolproof and could be overcome with social engineering. But it’s a good second layer of protection. And while the service is much more expensive than a domain name, it’s a minimal expense as part of a business’ security budget.
Not all registrars offer Registry Lock. GoDaddy does not currently offer the service.
Post link: GoDaddy breach is latest reminder to use registry lock
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Tess Diaz and Tim Hargis join Buckley Media
Buckley media expands its team with two new hires.
Tess Diaz (left) and Tim Hargis (right) are joining Buckley Media.
Domain name brokerage and branding company Buckley Media announced two new hires today.
Tess Diaz is making the move after 8 years at Media Options, where she was Senior Business Development Consultant and hosted the Domain Sherpa show. She worked for GoDaddy for six years before joining Media Options. She will be SVP, Business Development for Buckley Media.
Tim Hargis was the former VP of Marketing and Business Development for Tuft & Needle, a mattress seller that upgraded its domain name to TN.com. He was the subject of a recent Q&A on Buckley Media’s website about upgrading from TuftAndNeedle.com. Hargis will be the VP, Premium Domains for Buckley Media.
In a release, Buckley Media founder Kate Buckley said, “These strategic leadership appointments underscore Buckley Media’s key differentiator of providing an exceptionally talented and dynamic analysis of an organization’s critical requirements, understanding both who a brand is now and where it could go.”
Post link: Tess Diaz and Tim Hargis join Buckley Media
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Donuts is acquiring Afilias
A blockbuster transaction in the domain name industry as two registries combine.
Donuts, the largest top level domain name operator in terms of number of extensions, is acquiring domain name registry Afilias.
The deal includes Afilias’ “owned and operated” top level domains such as .blue and .global, as well as its registry services business. It does not include Afilias’ mobile software business Device Atlas, the 101Domains domain name registrar, and any interest Afilias has in the contested .Web top level domain name.
Afilias operates the backend registry for over 200 top level domain names. It also operates the large .info and .mobi namespaces.
The biggest prize of all is Afilias’ contract to run the backend for Public Interest Registry’s .org. That may be worth close to $20 million a year.
The combined entity will manage about 25 million domains; Donuts currently has 4.5 million domains under management across 242 top level domains and Afilias has 20 million. About half of Afilias’ domains under management are .org.
Afilias COO Ram Mohan told Domain Name Wire that the transaction was part of a competitive process. As to why now?
“We’ve had a really strong run, Mohan said. “We’ve been in business for 20 years now.”
Mohan, the second employee at Afilias, pointed out that this will be a good exit for Afilias’ shareholders after two decades. He also hopes that it will be a good opportunity for Afilias’ employees to grow their responsibilities.
Donuts CMO Mina Neuberg said it was premature to determine what Donuts will do now that it has two registry platforms. Presumably, it will combine them at some point in the future.
It’s also too early to know what will happen to the nearly 200 Afilias employees that are tied to the assets Afilias is selling. When Donuts acquired Rightside in 2017, it kept some employees from both entities. That acquisition was made under a prior management and ownership team.
Private equity company Abry Partners now owns Donuts.
When Ethos Capital, a private equity company connected to former Abry partner and former CEO Fadi Chehadé, announced its (now failed) plans to acquire .Org registry Public Interest Registry, my working assumption was that this new for-profit entity would eventually be combined with Donuts. Now, Donuts will get the lucrative .org contract as a registry services provider.
The transaction is just the latest case of consolidation in the domain name industry. One of Afilias’ rivals, Neustar Registry, was acquired by GoDaddy earlier this year for $218 million.
Afilias sold its stake in new top level domain company MMX earlier this week, perhaps as a step toward completing this deal.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
Post link: Donuts is acquiring Afilias
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Domain blocklists can ensnare the wrong targets
Blocklists don’t keep up with domain names as their use changes.
Michael Sumner, a partner at domain name sales data site NameBio, had a rough start to November. He woke up on November 2 to find a message from PayPal in his inbox with the subject “You can no longer use PayPal.”
In a follow-up communication, PayPal explained to him that some transactions were flagged because they mentioned domain names that have previously been used for malicious purposes. He wrote:
Imagine this… Example.tld is used for a file sharing site for years. That domain expires, one of you knuckleheads buys it, and then months later you try to auction it off. “I’ll buy a featured listing to promote the auction!” you say. Getting smarter, but not smart enough.
Now there is a PayPal transaction with the title “Example.tld featured listing for 7 days.” PayPal then implements a new system that flags transactions to/from file sharing sites. Only the list is out of date and Example.tld is still on it even though it expired months ago and hasn’t been used in that capacity since. Now PayPal thinks we’re involved with that file sharing site and taking payments on its behalf.
PayPal maintains blocklists of domains that set off alarm bells. To what extent it investigates the transactions before suspending an account is unclear. (PayPal did not respond to a request for comment for this story.) But it’s clear that PayPal uses domain blocklists to flag transactions and decides to suspend accounts before contacting the account owner for clarification. It also freezes funds in suspended accounts for 180 days.
It turns out this isn’t the first time that NameBio has faced a problem due to domains on blocklists. Its Mailchimp account was suspended earlier this year for a similar reason. Domain names it included in its daily emails were on blocklists at Mailchimp.
Like PayPal, Mailchimp operates with a “suspend first, ask questions later” policy. A Mailchimp spokesperson told Domain Name Wire:
Mailchimp uses a combination of third party and internally-maintained domain block lists. We use automated systems to check domains against the various lists, and we may automatically suspend an account or flag it for review when we find a match. If an account is flagged by our automated systems, and it’s from a legitimate research organization, news outlet, or another type of account with a valid reason to use or reference that domain name, our Compliance team will work with them to address the issue.
While I’ve never personally run into this issue writing about domains on Domain Name Wire, I take some precautions if I’m worried about how a domain might have been used in the past — or how it will be used in the future. I often add a space between the second level domain and .TLD.
Brian Krebs of Krebs on Security writes about lots of malicious websites. He uses the format secondleveldomain[.]topleveldomain.
The problem with domain blocklists is that a domain’s use and ownership changes. These blocklists can quickly become stale and outdated. If service providers use blocklists to flag “bad” domains, they owe it to their customers to research how it’s being used before suspending an account.
Post link: Domain blocklists can ensnare the wrong targets
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Afternic may give more insight into leads
Uniregistry platform is showing when a lead comes in from Afternic.
One of the nice things about Afternic is that its brokers take care of all inquiries for you. You don’t have to bother with confused inquirers and people who won’t pay anywhere close to your price. You only hear from its brokers when a domain sells or an offer is close.
The downside is that Afternic doesn’t give you any visibility into inquiries that don’t result in a sale. There’s no indication in your account that a domain received offers/inquiries, although you can manually ask your account manager for this data.
This might change for the better.
In a Uniregistry market update this week, the GoDaddy-owned company said that it is now labeling Afternic leads on domains that are in the Uniregistry market:
Apart from increased sales, the integration also gives you a greater amount of insight into your domain portfolio. You will now be able to see new leads received through the Afternic Network directly in your Uni Market account! You can identify these leads in your account by the “Network Lead” label. This feature is currently unique to UniMarket clients as a beta test and will hopefully be available within Afternic in the coming months as well.
A lead is a valuable indicator even when it doesn’t result in a sale. Even if the top offer on a domain was $250, knowing that an offer came in, or that a domain received a lot of inquiries, is enough to make it worth renewing the domain name.
It would be very helpful if GoDaddy could pull this information into the GoDaddy domain manager, too.
While I’m on my wishlist, I’d like Afternic to make it easier to see how much parking revenue domains have made. A simple .csv download like Uniregistry offers would suffice.
Post link: Afternic may give more insight into leads
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Tool generates trending domain registration ideas
UIDomains takes a different approach to domain discovery.
The trending keywords report on UIDomains.
There are lots of domain name spinning tools out there that help you find domains to register. I recently became aware of one that takes a very different approach to the others.
UIDomains.com looks at trending keywords in registered .com domain names and combines these with the user’s keyword.
In the background, UIDomains looks at all of the domains registered today and the word frequencies in the domains. It then keeps track of words that are trending over time.
The Daily Trending Domain Keywords report shows which words are trending and how this has changed over time. The number in the blue box shows how many domains with the term were registered over the past day.
Compare this to a traditional name spinner like LeanDomainSearch, which uses the most popular keywords in domains overall as a static list for name spinning.
Of course, trending words might not be a good fit for your search term. Trump and Biden are trending today, but the terms don’t make sense for many domain registrations.
The service also offers more traditional spinning by running your keyword against lists of common keywords, 4-5 letter words, and other lists. This can be tweaked in the advanced settings.
UIDomains does domain lookups in two modes. The fast mode is extremely fast, but only 95% accurate. This is frustrating: the names that pop out at you as registration candidates are the most likely to be false positives. Whenever I spotted a compelling name that it showed was available, it turned out the domain was already taken. There’s a slower mode that’s more accurate.
It’s worth noting that your searches and the resulting lists are public on the site. This shouldn’t be a big issue because you are likely to register good domains immediately. There’s a premium option with added features, including keeping your searches private.
Post link: Tool generates trending domain registration ideas
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Afilias sells its stake in MMX
Afilias USA exits its position in new top level domain company.
Domain name registry Afilias has sold its stake in top level domain name company MMX (London AIM: MMX), also known as Minds + Machines.
The company exited its 3.16% position in the company yesterday, according to a regulatory filing. This coincides with a large share buyback by MMX.
I believe that Afilias obtained this ownership when MMX acquired ICM Registry, of which Afilias owned a stake.
The selling entity is listed as Afilias USA, Inc. It’s possible that Afilias owns shares through other entities.
A representative from Afilias declined to comment.
With a market cap of about £41 million, Afilias’ stake would have been worth £1.3 million.
Post link: Afilias sells its stake in MMX
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241 four letter domain names will sell tomorrow
No-reserve domain name auction ends Thursday.
Sedo’s four-letter .com domain name auction ends tomorrow. There are no reserves and all of the domains have bids — which means that all 241 domains will sell.
As of the time of posting, the top bid is €2,350 for Zehe.com. I’d categorize this as a pronounceable domain, which adds to its value.
The second-highest bid is €1,050 for Qwax.com.
Many of the domains have letters that are unfavorable to both English speakers and Chinese, but the price is right. All but 21 of the names have bids under €200, so this might be a good opportunity to pick up short domains at low prices.
Post link: 241 four letter domain names will sell tomorrow
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Cooper’s Hawk restaurant chain tries reverse domain name hijacking
Restaurant chain files UDRP after years of trying to acquire the domain name.
A National Arbitration Forum panelist has determined that Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants tried to reverse domain name hijack the domain name CoopersHawk.com.
The restaurant chain was founded in 2005 with a single location near Chicago. It has grown to about 40 locations in the United States, primarily in the upper midwest, Florida, and the mid-Atlantic.
Virtual Point, a company owned by the same entity that runs UDRPSearch.com, acquired the domain name in 2005 upon its expiration. Cooper’s Hawk is a type of bird native to North America.
Based on the UDRP decision and documents obtained by Domain Name Wire, it appears that Cooper’s Hawk first expressed an interest in the domain shortly after it was founded.
According to Virtual Point, it agreed with the restaurant’s founder and CEO, Tim McEnery, to sell the domain name for $5,000. However, it stated that McEnery did not complete the transaction.
Another representative of the restaurant inquired about the domain name in 2010 but called $5,000 “ridiculous and unacceptable,” according to documents reviewed by Domain Name Wire.
Then, in June of this year, Cooper’s Hawk’s SVP of Technology sent an email stating that the company was interested in purchasing the domain. In a follow-up email, she stated, “As the valid legal registered owners of the mark, we feel we are entitled to the mark,” and requested that Virtual Point turn over the domain name.
Virtual Point’s attorneys at Lewis & Lin then sent a notice to the restaurant chain, asking it to withdraw any claims of rights to the domain name under the threat that Virtual Point would sue for reverse domain name hijacking and declaratory judgment otherwise.
An attorney for Cooper’s Hawk sent a response stating that the SVP of Technology was misguided in her statement and that:
…I can say with the utmost confidence that any belief that my client intended to wrongfully interfere with your client’s property interest in bad faith and/or to reverse hijack the same is misguided, as is any implication that my client was threatening legal action to wrestle control of the domain name away from your client.
The attorney marked the correspondence as covered under Rule 408. This is a legal rule in the United States that says that settlement negotiations aren’t admissible in court.
But the UDRP is not a U.S. court. Panelist Jeffrey Neuman noted that settlement negotiations are often used against domain name owners in UDRP, and there’s no good reason they shouldn’t be admissible to determine if a Complainant acted in bad faith for purposes of reverse domain name hijacking.
Neuman found that the domain wasn’t registered and used in bad faith and that Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants filed the case in abuse of the policy.
He wrote that he was troubled by five facts:
(a) This action was taken 15 years after domain name was initially acquired.
(b) The Complainant provides no evidence to demonstrate that it was plausible that the Respondent knew or should have known about the Complainant’s rights at the time it registered the domain name. It offers nothing other than the fact that it opened a restaurant in Illinois prior to the Respondent’s registration of the domain name and that it had a first use date on its US Trademark Registration which is one month prior to Respondent acquiring the domain name. See X6D Limited v. Telepathy, Inc., D2010-1519 (WIPO November 16, 2010).
(c) The Respondent never initiated contact with the Complainant to sell the domain name to the Complainant. It is not sufficient to argue that a mere listing of a site for sale should have the same impact as the Respondent actually reaching out to the Respondent.
(d) The Complainant initiated contact several times with the Respondent to negotiate the sale of the domain name and according to the evidence (which is not disputed), actually entered into an agreement to purchase the domain name a number of years ago. However, according to the Respondent, the Complainant purportedly reneged on its payment of $5,000 to acquire the domain name. If true, and Complainant had followed through, we would not be here today.
(e) According to the letter sent by Complainant’s counsel to Respondent’s counsel on July 2, 2020 (“Letter”), Complainant does seem to admit that one of its employee’s (sic) may have blurred “the lines between trademark rights and domain name ownership,” and that Complainant agreed “that this was an improper interpretation of the extent of its trademark rights by my client”. Yet several months later, after apparently unsuccessfully negotiating a price for the domain name, Complainant filed this very action.
The restaurant chain uses the domain name CHWinery.com. Sponsler Koren Hammer & Lahey, P.A. represented it in the UDRP.
Post link: Cooper’s Hawk restaurant chain tries reverse domain name hijacking
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19 end user domain sales at Sedo
A resume service, an Irish health tech company, and a manufacturer of outdoor shelters bought domain names last week.
Lots of end users bought domain names at Sedo this past week. The top sale was an exact match Dutch domain name, and the top .com sale was for a plural brandable name.
One of the sales this week was mine: 300dpi.com. I don’t know if it was an end user that bought the domain. It was an interesting negotiation that I’ll write about later.
Here’s a list of end user domain name sales that were just completed at Sedo. You can view previous lists like this here.
Gereedschap.nl €35,750 – Gereedschap is Dutch for “tools”. This is a Dutch ecommerce site for DIY tools for home repairs, etc. This domain was the top public ccTLD sale at Sedo for the week.
Flinks.com $25,000 – Flinks is a data company that helps businesses connect their users with financial services. Flinks enables businesses to connect users’ bank accounts, enrich their data, and utilize it to deliver better products. This was the top public .com sale at Sedo for the week.
SkillHub.com $20,000 – SkillHub is a resume writing/improvement system.
AIStudios.com $11,700 – This is neat. AI Studios lets you upload text, and then it converts it into a video with a model who speaks it. It doesn’t seem to be operational yet.
TraxGroup.com $10,000 – Trax Consulting is a logistics and supply chain management company. It conducts freight and parcel audits to help customers better manage and control their global transportation costs. The company forwards TraxGroup.com to its website at TraxConsulting.com
CleverStore.com €8,500 – Forwards to CleverTouch.com, a software company that develops programs and apps for screen sharing, visual presentations and more.
AVToday.com $5,499 – UC Today is back with another domain purchase.
Gartendusche.de €5,200 – Forwards to Gartendusche.shop, a German e-commerce site for different brands of high-quality garden and outdoor showers. Gartendusch is German for Garden Shower.
Uniphi.com $4,888 – A company called Uniphar bought Innerstrength Ltd, an Irish health tech company. Innerstrength is listed as the owner.
WireMedia.com $4,560 – WireMedia is a web developer that uses this domain’s .net version for its website. This was a no-brainer purchase at this price.
KapitalInvest.com $4,325 – Bergen Information Technologies Ltd., an IT Services Provider in the Virgin Islands, bought this domain. It might be for a client.
TeachersChoice.com $3,900 – Teacher’s Choice sells a line of educational products and teaching aids.
AbriPlus.com €3,050 – Abriplus, a French manufacturer of outdoor shelters and bike parking facilities, bought this domain. It uses Abri-Plus.com for its website.
Coches.org €2,999 – IPGlobal SL is a Spanish development firm. Coches is Spanish for cars.
PrimaveraOnline.com $2,520 – Talk about an improvement! Primavera Oni School bought this domain and forwards it to its existing website at…wait for it… Primavera-Online-High-School.com. I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.
Ihrekontaktlinsen.de €2,500 – Forwards to Ihre-kontaktlinsen.de. This is a German site for contact lenses, eyeglasses, lenses, sunglasses and care-related products. The name is German for Your Contact Lenses”.
Zöllner.de €2,500- Forwards to Pohl-Zoellner.de, a German dental practice.
Harem.de €2,500 – Harem is a Turkish restaurant in Munich.
Coordify.com $2,395 – NaphCare, which provides services to people in jails and prisons, bought this domain. Coordify is the name of its software that manages diversion programs with communication between law enforcement and judicial systems.
Post link: 19 end user domain sales at Sedo
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GoDaddy (all of it) went down this evening
All of GoDaddy — including its main website — went down this evening.
GoDaddy had technical difficulties Tuesday evening that took down its entire network, including websites hosted on GoDaddy.
In a statement made Wednesday, GoDaddy explained the outage:
GoDaddy experienced a service outage between approximately 7:00pm-11:00pm PST last night. The outage was related to an error encountered during planned network maintenance and impacted multiple products and services. It was not a security incident. The issue was resolved by our team and affected customers immediately began seeing improved services. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this disruption.
The main GoDaddy.com website was not resolving for a significant portion of the 7 PM PST hour, but the home page came back around 7:50 PM PST. Login functionality started working again around 8:20 PM PST.
As of 8:20 PM PST, some websites hosted on GoDaddy began resolving again. However, users reported continued difficulty later in the evening, and GoDaddy tweeted at 8:44 PM that there were still issues. It tweeted at 6:08 am Wednesday morning that the issue had been resolved.
Based on twitter chatter about the outage, the issue appears to have begun around 7:20 PM PST Tuesday. I received a site outage alert via WordPress JetPack at 7:27 PM PST.
DownDetector.com reported an increase in reports starting at about 7 pm this evening.
At 7:38 PM PST, GoDaddy tweeted that it was aware of the issue and was working on it:
Our team is aware of an issue affecting customer’s access to accounts as well as access to our site. We apologize for this inconvenience and are working as quickly as we can to address these issues. We appreciate you patience and understanding in this matter.
— GoDaddy Help (@GoDaddyHelp) November 18, 2020
The network status page for GoDaddy is hosted on the GoDaddy.com domain and did not seem to resolve during the outage.
Post link: GoDaddy (all of it) went down this evening
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GoDaddy launches GoDaddy Corporate Domains for large brands
GoDaddy rebrands Brandsight and launches it as GoDaddy Corporate Domains.
GoDaddy announced GoDaddy Corporate Domains today.
The brand-targeted registrar is a rechristening of Brandsight, a corporate domain name registrar that GoDaddy acquired as part of the Frank Schilling business acquisition.
GoDaddy Corporate Domains will compete with corporate domain name registrars such as MarkMonitor, CSC, and SafeNames.
There are two interesting things to note about the announcement.
First is that GoDaddy plans to leverage its large retail registrar as a reason for brands to get on board. It launched the GoDaddy Verified Intellectual Property (VIP) program, which it describes as providing
“pre-vetted, well-known and famous brands an escalation path to address IP abuse. It covers fraudulent domains registrations, infringing websites hosted with GoDaddy, among other forms of abuse.”
The program is currently invitation-only.
Second, GoDaddy Corporate Domains picked a nice domain for the business: GCD.com. It appears that the domain was used by a Chicago-area law firm that rebranded after merging with another firm.
Post link: GoDaddy launches GoDaddy Corporate Domains for large brands
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NASDAQ 100 company Vertex Pharmaceuticals tries reverse domain name hijacking
Company tried to get domain name from a Pakistani medical company.
A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has found that Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRTX), a $58 billion (market cap) company, tried to reverse domain name hijack the domain VertexMedical.com.
The domain name is owned by a Pakistan healthcare company called Vertex Medical (pvt) Ltd. A quick look at its website shows that it’s an operating business. And a simple Google search pulls up a Dun & Bradstreet record showing that the company has about 100 employees and over $6 million in revenue.
Just knowing this information would make it foolish to file a UDRP against the domain name. While there could be a trademark issue between the companies, this is certainly not a case of cybersquatting that the UDRP was created for.
But Vertex Pharmaceuticals filed a cybersquatting complaint anyway.
Panelist Andrew Lothian unsurprisingly determined that Vertex Pharmaceuticals did not show that the domain was registered and used in bad faith, nor that Vertex Medical lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain.
In finding reverse domain name hijacking, Lothian was particularly disturbed that Vertex Pharmaceuticals argued that there’s no reason another medical company would select the term Vertex for its business. Vertex is the medical term for the top of the head. Lothian wrote:
The nature of the incorrect and misleading submission regarding the use of “vertex” in a medical context coupled with an apparent failure to investigate the Respondent and a failure to put forward documentary evidence which was relied upon in submissions is all the more concerning given that the Complainant is represented by counsel.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals has won 7 previous UDRP cases, so it’s no stranger to the policy. This makes it all the more surprising that it filed this case. Perhaps it thought this would be an easier way to try to get the domain than filing a lawsuit against a company in Pakistan.
The Complainant was represented by Sunstein LLP, a Boston intellectual property law firm. The Respondent was represented by Cylaw Solutions in India.
Post link: NASDAQ 100 company Vertex Pharmaceuticals tries reverse domain name hijacking
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Does your domain name registrar make it easy to transfer domains out?
Don’t do business with registrars that make it difficult to leave.
Yesterday, I received a notice from the Wall Street Journal that I needed to update my credit card. I logged into my WSJ.com account and was surprised to see that I’m paying about $40 per month for my digital subscription.
It’s more than I’m willing to pay, so I decided to cancel my account. I found the automatic renewal “button” in my account and tried to click on it:
It turns out that’s not a button. You can’t click on it to change your renewal settings. The only way to cancel your account is to pick up the phone and call them.
My hold time was 20 minutes. And we had phone problems once I connected with the rep, so I have to call again to cancel.
Here’s my position: if a business makes it hard for me to cancel services then they don’t deserve my business in the first place.
The same can be applied to domain name registrars. Some registrars make it easy to get bulk access to transfer authorization codes. Other registrars require you to request them one…by…one.
No matter what those registrars offer, they don’t deserve your business. Don’t use a registrar that’s going to make it painful to leave regardless of what special pricing they offer to win your business in the first place.
Post link: Does your domain name registrar make it easy to transfer domains out?
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UNR acquires .Trust and .LLP top level domains
Company now runs 25 top level domains.
Frank Schilling’s top level domain registry UNR has added two domain names to its stable: .Trust and .LLP.
This is the third home for .Trust, as Kevin Murphy reported last week. UNR says that MarkMonitor, CSC and Safenames are currently accepting pre-orders for .Trust domains.
The .LLP transaction was finalized in April, according to ICANN records. DotRegistry, LLC was the seller.
.LLP is a “corporate identifier” domain similar to .LLC and .Inc.
These domains have seen mixed results. .Ltd leads the pack with over 100,000 registrations. Over half of these are at Alibaba, and price seems to be a significant factor with first-year registrations at about $7. .Llc has 17,000 names in the zone. .Inc, which costs over $2,000 per year to register, has about 3,200 names in the zone.
Some corporate identifiers have restrictions, and my understanding is .LLP is currently set up to be restricted.
After divesting its share of .car, .cars and .auto, the two acquisitions bring UNR’s portfolio up to 25 names. There are 250,000 domains registered across its namespaces.
Post link: UNR acquires .Trust and .LLP top level domains
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