News
Tucows sold $3.2 million of domains to GoDaddy (and more from earnings call)
Tucows reveals portfolio sale price and data center plans.
Domain name, mobile and internet services company Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) released earnings for Q4 and full-year 2018 yesterday.
In its pre-recorded commentary about the earnings, the company disclosed that it generated about $3.2 million from a bulk sale of domains from its portfolio in Q4. Elliot Silver reported on this transaction with GoDaddy in December. The two companies completed a similar transaction in Q4 2017 but for only $2 million. The 2017 transaction was for approximately 10% of Tucows’ domain portfolio excluding surname domain names.
It will be interesting to see if Tucows does another Q4 transaction this year.
Tucows CEO Elliot Noss made a couple of other interesting comments during the call.
First, the company bought land in Centennial, Colorado to build a data center.
Second, Noss said he’s more concerned about a recession in 2019 than in over a decade. He made the comment in relation to how the company handles share buybacks:
Today, we again announced an open market buyback program that will commence immediately. The program will allow us to repurchase up to $40 million worth of our shares over the course of the next 12 months. This year, more than any year since 2007, I find myself concerned about a possible recession. That potential will inform our thinking in terms of the program.
The earnings release is here.
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A baker’s dozen end user domain name sales
A healthcare investment company, a Swedish auto parts manufacturer and a seller of “flight cases” bought domain names.
This week we have a baker’s dozen end user sales that transacted on the Sedo marketplace and Sedo MLS, including a good list of country code domains (and even a new TLD).
You can view previous lists like this here.
WealthCare.com $30,000 – Alegeus.com, headquartered in Boston, offers a health admin system called WealthCare.
Functionally.com €7,000 – Functionally is a platform for CEOs to keep tabs on their business and for teams to work together.
D1K.de €6,499 – Forwards to Dchdecker1kauf.de which is a roofing materials supplier in Germany. Its new domain is much stronger and more concise.
Forward.eu €5,500 – Among the top sales in the ccTLD category & SedoMLS sales, this domain was purchased by a Belgium company formerly known as Planet of Commerce. It helps customers with the Salesforce Customer Success Platform.
Rex.one $5,000 – Engineering firms Innovative Engineering Group and Ntrive merged to for REX and chose this new TLD.
UnicornWealth.com $3,995 – A financial and wealth tips forum.
B-Ring.com $3,800 – B-Ring, a Swedish producer of automobile spare parts, uses the B-Ring.eu domain name. The .com now forwards to the .eu.
RollingBones.com €3,000 – Rolling Bones Outfitters, which uses RollingBonesOutfitters.com for its hunting expedition travel site.
FlightCase.eu €2,999- Forwards to ProCase.de, a B2B online store that sells flight cases. Flight cases are like super-duper luggage for transporting delicate equipment.
AccessHealth.net $2,788 – Rural Health Care, Inc., an advocate for health care providers in rural areas.
Sybel.com $2,500 – Forwards to Sybel.co, a French multi-genre audio series platform.
Apart-Audio.de €2,499- This currently forwards to a page describing this Belgian brand of loudspeakers and electrical appliances for the audio installation market.
Samyang.de €2,000 – Forwards to Foto-Walser.de, a German brand of photography equipment.
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The cobbler and the internet
How do we get more small businesses to have their own website?
Yesterday I dropped off some of my wife’s shoes at a shoe repair store in Austin. I also brought a pair of my shoes to get new laces and shined.
While the cobbler worked on my shoes, I noticed that the shelves were overrun with both completed and work-in-progress shoes. I pointed out that business appears to be good.
He responded that yes, business is good.
This is surprising for a dying trade.
Shoe repair is dying because shoes are different now than they used to be. They are made cheaply. This means they can’t be repaired or it’s not worth repairing them; just buy another pair. Also, people wear dress shoes less often than before.
The shoe stores that remain benefit from less competition. But this shoe store, in particular, has another thing going for it:
“The internet has been very good to us,” the clerk (and store owner’s son) told me.
That’s not surprising. My wife first found this store by searching Yelp. The company has glowing reviews.
Yet when I searched for the company online today, I noticed that it doesn’t have a website. It has great reviews on aggregator sites but it doesn’t own its web presence. Having a website would give the company another opportunity to show up for common shoe repair search terms.
So how do we get the oldest-of-old businesses to get their own domain name and create a website? It’s a big question that companies have been trying to solve.
One way is to make the process easier. Website developers like Wix, Weebly and Squarespace aim for this market. GoDaddy’s GoCentral is perhaps the simplest of all.
But a big part of it is education. Many business owners in competitive businesses will tell you they have been screwed by the platforms. Yelp pushing competitors on their own listings and Facebook charging to show up in front of your fans.
Directories and social media platforms play a role in business and cannot be overlooked. At the same time, we need to evangelize the importance of having your own domain name and own website; something that won’t be taken away at the whims of a platform’s business model.
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Categories: Domains
Top NameJet and SnapNames sales in January
Web.com now includes data from SnapNames in monthly report.
The domain name industry thrives on data, so I have good news: Web.com is now releasing sales data from SnapNames for sales of $2,000+.
The move comes after Web.com acquired the rest of NameJet from Tucows. This means Web.com owns both of the expired domain platforms.
I suspect we’ll see some sort of merger between the platforms in the future. They already merge bidding for pending delete domains (those that go through the full deletion cycle and must be snapped). I haven’t used SnapNames in a while but NameJet has some technical issues, so focusing on one platform could mean a better platform.
Overall, Web.com reported 83 sales of $2,000 or more in January for a total of $428,000. Short numerical and alpha domains led the list. Here’s the full list of sales including venue:
Domain NameAmountPlatform 7525.com59999NameJet q4.com53001NameJet iqd.com20044NameJet bxf.com15200NameJet amtech.com12250NameJet shango.com11222? shawnee.com10445NameJet chinajobs.com9608NameJet icrm.com8988NameJet mexo.com7616NameJet indiawedding.com7099NameJet cmecourse.com6488SnapNames smartcube.com6160NameJet immunity.org5980NameJet hese.com5600NameJet epjournal.net4800SnapNames 98255.com4499NameJet 168000.com4100NameJet bel-india.com4001NameJet hesu.com4000NameJet conjured.com4000SnapNames tohe.com3700NameJet cazo.com3501NameJet callastudio.com3495SnapNames greatvoyage.com3488SnapNames comeaucomputing.com3433NameJet onepro.com3433NameJet armycivilianservice.com3350NameJet networkdynamics.com3297NameJet pigpin.com3295SnapNames wisu.com3285NameJet hotelwhiskey.com3195SnapNames youbid.com3173SnapNames montaigne.com3100NameJet iken.com3100SnapNames montaigne.com3100SnapNames circle.net3050NameJet hentaisex.com2966NameJet zerotrans.com2895SnapNames sketchupartists.com2795SnapNames barnespartners.com2695SnapNames zone.org2655NameJet ocbd.com2600NameJet ssic.com2600NameJet ma-inc.com2595SnapNames gcube.com2588NameJet acmefarms.com2577SnapNames activelife.com2577SnapNames choctawcollegeconnect.com2577SnapNames milkfitness.com2577SnapNames modernderm.com2577SnapNames redbird.com2577SnapNames tacosalpastorsj.com2577SnapNames vehiclesales.com2509NameJet xogos.com2503SnapNames ahal.com2500NameJet gramvault.com2495SnapNames logodepo.com2495SnapNames mikka.com2451SnapNames pousada.com2445NameJet birikim.com2413NameJet 597777.com2409NameJet microfusion.com2378NameJet artspace2000.com2322NameJet europeonline.com2322NameJet haochen.com2310NameJet newatlantis.com2290SnapNames megagen.com2255SnapNames feminine.org2202NameJet snowreport.com2202SnapNames onlinecasinosdeutschland.net2200NameJet stanislav.com2200NameJet legalallies.com2188SnapNames skywin.com2118NameJet 789bet.com2100SnapNames bagcheck.com2080NameJet ivr.net2067SnapNames purecasino.com2022SnapNames zhjz.com2003NameJet ccla.com2003NameJet 20195.com2000NameJet d54.com2000NameJet simk.com2000SnapNames© 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.
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Blockchain.io domain owner fights back against Blockchain.com
There is indeed a big elephant in the room.
Paymium, SAS, which owns the domain name Blockchain.io, has asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Blockchain Luxembourg S.A. & Blockchain (US), Inc., which own the domain name Blockchain.com.
Blockchain Luxembourg S.A. (BL) filed a lawsuit (pdf) in September claiming that Paymium’s use of Blockchain.io infringed BL’s “Blockchain” trademark.
BL even suggested “Except for two letters, Paymium’s URL www.blockchain.io is identical to Blockchain’s URL www.blockchain.info.” Indeed, many top level domains are just a couple of letters off from each other, but that doesn’t give the owner of a second level domain in one extension the right to the same domain in another extension.
In its Motion to Dismiss, Paymium writes:
The deference standards of Twombly and Iqbal do not obscure the elephant in the room – this lawsuit is an improper grab at trademark exclusivity in the word BLOCKCHAIN, perhaps
the hottest technology buzzword on the planet. While Plaintiffs were prescient and resourceful enough to obtain the domain names blockchain.com and blockchain.info, they may not properly leverage that foresight into an anti-competitive and unearned monopoly in the term.
BL filed an amended complaint earlier this month.
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Here, let me re-write that for you
A couple of other ways to respond to a perceived “low-ball” offer.
Yesterday, Konstantinos Zournas published his response to an offer from Marksmen for one of his domain names. Konstantinos asked for $12,500 and Marksmen responded with:
Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, your price is well above our budget for the ********* domain.
We have done some research and cannot find justification to pay that much money for *********. Godaddy appraises the domain at $1035.
[Link to GoDaddy appraisal]
We would like to offer you $1500 for the domain. This is our max budget and final offer. Can you please let me know if this is acceptable and we can have a deal?”
You can read Konstantinos’ response here.
Let me suggest a couple of other responses he could have made.
Response 1: The I-don’t-think-we’ll-do–deal-so-I-won’t-waste-my-time response:
$12,500 is my final offer. Please let me know if you accept or not.
Response 2: The maybe-they-are-just-posturing-so-let’s-talk response:
You probably overlooked it when you sent your first email, but this is Konstantinos Zournas from the blog OnlineDomain. Marksmen is familiar with my blog and has retweeted some of my posts. I understand the value of domain names.
I know you’re aware of the limitations of automated appraisals. If $1,500 is your final offer then we won’t be able to make a deal. My asking price is still $12,500.
Of course, Konstantinos can respond to emails however he’d like. These are just some other suggestions that might work for you.
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Categories: Domains
Why Domain Reputation matters for email
Services such as Gmail consider a domain name’s reputation when delivering email.
On the DNW podcast yesterday I spoke with Anthony Chiulli of email deliverability company 250ok. One of the topics we discussed was domin reputation.
Mailbox providers (MBPs) and ISPs use a number of cues to figure out which email is good and which isn’t, and domain name reputation is a key component of this.
Previously, most MBPs focused on IP address reputation for scoring email and deciding what to deliver to users. This has shifted in recent years to domain-based scoring, often in addition to considering the IP address. After all, a spammer can easily rotate IP addresses. Also, an IP address can be used by more than one sender and domain name. Companies such as Gmail and Oath (Yahoo! Mail) use domain reputation.
Here are some things that can negatively impact a domain name’s reputation in the eyes of a mailbox provider:
- A lot of the email from the domain is sent to invalid email addresses (i.e. it bounces)
- The domain is used to send spam to spam traps that MBPs and other companies set up to track spam
- Lots of people mark email from the domain as spam
- People don’t engage with emails sent from the domain
If you buy an expired domain or a domain from another person and plan to use it for email marketing or account emails, it’s worth verifying the domain’s reputation before putting it to use. More on how to do this in a later post.
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Categories: Domains
Extended NamesCon domain name auction ends Wednesday
Most domains haven’t hit reserve yet.
The extended online auction for this year’s NamesCon auction ends on Wednesday. There’s a lot of bidding activity already but most of it is below reserve prices.
CPU.com is the highest at $606,000. There are four bidders at $600k or more, which is somewhat surprising given that the reserve range is between $600,001 and $700,000. Either some people know the reserve and are underbidding or there are several people interested in taking this domain home.
The highest bid on a domain that has met its reserve is LondonFashion.com at $1,333. Other domains that will sell (all under $500 so far) include Tazed.com (be careful how you use that), Plunged.com, JarCandle.com, Akxs.com, BioMedEngineer.com, BioMedEngineering.com, Boater.club, Decriminalized.com, SmartSki.com, YourDate.com, Race.info, and Sciv.com.
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The Email Episode – DNW Podcast #223
How email works and why domain reputation matters.
Despite the prevalence of instant messaging, social media and tools like Slack, email remains the primary way people communicate online. And email requires domain names. On today’s show we talk with Anthony Chiulli, Director of Product Marketing for email deliverability and analytics company 250ok. Anthony explains what actually happens from the time you hit ‘send’ to when someone gets your message. We also talk about the role of domain names in email and why domain reputation matters.
Also: Verisign asks ICANN to hike .com prices, Endurance earnings, LongIsland.com, FURY and Google Domains.
This week’s sponsor: Name.com.
Subscribe via iTunes 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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Owner of Zon.Tools sues to get ZonTools.com domain name
Plaintiff claims owner of matching .com is cybersquatting.
The owner of the domain name Zon.Tools filed a lawsuit (pdf) in an effort to get the domain name ZonTools.com.
Zon Tools, Inc offers tools at Zon.Tools to help Amazon sellers with sponsored products bidding. It registered Zon.Tools in July 2017.
The owner of ZonTools.com uses its domain name to offer similar tools as well as other Amazon seller tools such as review management. It registered the domain name in July 2018.
You might ask yourself why Zon Tools didn’t register ZonTools.com when it registered Zon.Tools. The answer is simple: ZonTools.com was registered in back in 2013 but expired in 2018. It went through the entire deletion cycle and then the defendant domain name was registered.
This shows one of the risks of registering a new TLD when you don’t own the “matching” .com. Of course, this can work both ways. If ZonTools.com was the first registered domain, someone could use Zon.Tools in a way that confuses users.
Karl S. Kronenberger is representing Zon Tools, Inc. in the in rem lawsuit. I’m a bit surprised that the lawsuit was filed in California rather than Virginia where .com registry Verisign is headquartered, but the lawsuit notes that Verisign has an office in the jurisdiction where the case was filed.
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Speaker hit for reverse domain name hijacking
A keynote speaker and business coach filed a UDRP after failing to buy a domain name. It appears he got bad advice.
Darryl Davis Seminars, Inc has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name PowerAgent.con. A domain investor owns the domain name.
A World Intellectual Property panel determined that Darryl Davis Seminars, Inc did not show that the domain was registered in bad faith. The three-member panel decided that it was a “Plan B” reverse domain name hijacking case in which Davis filed a cybersquatting complaint under UDRP after failing to buy the domain name for a price he wanted to pay.
A couple of years ago he inquired about buying the domain name and received a quote of around $70,000. He responded to it by saying he had been “advised by his attorneys that he had a viable claim to recover the domain name via the UDRP” and offered $375.
The domain owner responded to that letter explaining why the case would fail under UDRP and would be considered reverse domain name hijacking. The Respondent heard nothing more until the UDRP filing, according to the decision.
After the Complainant filed the UDRP, the Respondent tried to contact the Complainant again to remind him “on the off chance that the Complainant had not disclosed to its counsel the existence of the Respondent’s previous warning letter and that as a result, the Complaint was brought in error as a misadventure. The Respondent called and sent an email to the Complainant’s counsel and offered the Complainant a final opportunity to withdraw the Complaint with prejudice but received no reply.”
The panel listed four reasons for finding reverse domai nname hijacking:
i) the Complainant, which is represented by counsel, should have appreciated the weakness of its case and the fact that the term “power agent” encompassed in the disputed domain name cannot be exclusively referable to the Complainant, as claimed in the Complaint without any supporting evidence;
ii) the Complainant’s case is based on the argument that using a common/descriptive domain name in connection with a pay-per-click website and offering it for sale to the highest bidder, independently of any awareness of the Complainant, is of itself evidence of bad faith. The Panel finds that the Complainant should have contemplated that it could not succeed with such an argument;
iii) the Respondent’s response to the letter received by the Complainant before the filing of the Complaint highlighted the weakness of the Complainant’s case, but the Complainant omitted to address the issues raised by the Respondent and even to disclose the existence of such correspondence; and
iv) the circumstances of the case clearly show that this is a speculative “plan B case” launched by the Complainant after its failure to purchase the domain name from the Respondent.
Carter, DeLuca, Farrell & Schmidt, LLP represented the Complainant. Muscovitch Law represented the domain owner. The WIPO panel included Luca Barbero, Martin Schwimmer and Adam Taylor.
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Verisign begins price increase talks with ICANN
Verisign is negotiating with ICANN to bake price increases into current .com registry agreement.
.Com registry Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) has begun negotiations with ICANN to add price increases to its current contract to run .com domain names.
Verisign CEO James Bidzos discussed the updated Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Government and how it applies to its contract to operate .com on the company’s earnings conference call yesterday.
The agreement allows for price increases of 7% per year in the last four years of each six-year contract extension. Also, the Cooperative Agreement does not require Verisign to get approval for future price increases as long as they are limited to the 7% per year/last four years agreed to in the current Cooperative Agreement, he said. The agreement can only be modified by mutual consent of both the U.S. government and Verisign, which suggests that future administrations would not be able to curtail price increases through the Cooperative Agreement.
Of course, the actual contract to run .com is with ICANN. Bidzos said that ICANN historically deferred to the U.S. government on .com pricing. (In the 2012 renewal ICANN originally agreed to 7% increases but pulled that back when the U.S. government essentially vetoed it. The dynamic has definitely changed now, though, so it will be interesting to see how ICANN responds to the new Cooperative Agreement.)
Regarding working with ICANN to incorporate price increases into the current agreement that runs through 2024, Bidzos says Verisign has started negotiations with ICANN:
There’s a process for moving changes from the DOC to the Cooperative Agreement into the .com Registry Agreement. ICANN has historically as I mentioned deferred to the U.S. government on matters relating to com pricing.
But ICANN and VeriSign have an agreement to cooperate and negotiate — there’s a written agreement to operate — cooperate and negotiate in good faith to amend the com registry as may be necessary for consistency with changes to the Cooperative Agreement.
So we have begun that process with ICANN to amend the agreement to make these changes including pricing. And I don’t think I can comment further to process. We’ve been through it a few times. It may take a number of months to work through it, but we’ll update you as appropriate.
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Verisign reports 2018 results
9.5 million .com/.net registrations in Q4, operating margin continues to grow.
.Com registry Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) reported Q4 and full-year 2018 results this afternoon.
For the year, GAAP net income increased from $457 million in 2017 to $582 million in 2018. Non-GAAP income increased from $492 million to $620 million. These numbers include a one-time boost of $52.0 million (GAAP) and $42.8 million (Non-GAAP) from selling its security business to Neustar.
Verisign processed 9.5 million new .com and .net domain name registrations during Q4 2018. That increased the base of .com and .net domains by 1.29 million to 153.0 million.
The company’s already healthy operating margins got even better. GAAP operating margin for the year increased from 60.7% to 63.2%. Non-GAAP operating margin increased from 65.3% to 67.5%.
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End user domain name sales topped by a .DE
A martial arts site, an IT service provider and medical device company bought domains this week.
At €12,500, a .de domain tops this week’s end user sales list – FullService.de was purchased by a German IT service provider. There were several domain purchases this week by German and other European-based companies.
Here are the end user domain sales. You can view previous lists like this here.
FullService.de €12,500 – Forwards to ITService.de, a German IT service provider for medium to large-sized companies.
Piggy.eu €8,500 – This catchy moniker is being used for a savings and discount program out of the Netherlands.
SmartPortal.com $6,250 – A Swedish technology company called Smart bought this domain with the claim of providing innovative digital solutions to “increase your company’s revenue, reduce spending and simply create a better customer experience”.
BetterBusiness.com $5,500 – This domain is not resolving yet…did the Better Business Bureau buy it?
CleverHealth.com $4,500 – Durable Medical Equipment (DME) ordering and management company Clever Health.
Parametrik.com $3,000- Forwards to Parametrik.net, an outsourced reprocessing service provider for cleaning and sterilization of flexible endoscopes and lumened instruments.
MartialArtsLife.com $2,888 – Forwards to KarateLife.com, a martial arts apparel online shop in development.
NKitchen.com €2,500 – Forwards to Nobilia.de, a German brand of high-quality kitchen construction materials for new construction, remodels and renovations.
Home-E.com $2,100 – This currently forwards to HomeEOnDemand.com for HOMEE, an online network provider of pre-screened, background-checked home improvement service providers.
Firmenauktion.ch €2,000 – This German company now owns the Swiss ccTLD for their consultancy business that supports entrepreneurs in starting their own businesses or assisting in buying or selling companies.
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Web host uptime in 2018
32 shared hosting platforms ranked by uptime.
A new study compares uptime at shared web hosts.
Web hosting uptime is an interesting thing. You don’t think about your host when things are working properly. You curse their name when your site is down.
HostingStats.com created test sites on 32 shared hosting platforms last year to see which ones had the best uptime. It measured outage minutes, longest outages and average site speed.
I’m a bit surprised by the results. Many of Endurance International’s platforms (including BlueHost and HostGator) performed very well. MidPhase was the winner with the least downtime. Four hosts had total downtime of more than 1,000 minutes during the year (ouch).
I use a few different web hosts for my sites, and downtime seems like less of an issue now than it did years ago.
Check out the uptime results for all 32 hosts tested.
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Categories: Domains
Endurance International Group reports declining numbers as it simplifies
Roll-up’s numbers slip as it simplifies its business.
Endurance’s subscriber base continues to drop.
Endurance International Group (NASDAQ: EIGI) reported fourth quarter and full year 2018 earnings this morning.
Revenue, adjusted EBITDA and subscriber numbers were all down quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year.
2018 revenue was $1,145.3 million, compared to $1,176.9 million in 2017. Q4 revenue dropped from $294.2 million a year ago to $282.4 million in Q4 2018. Adjusted EBITDA dropped from $350.8 million in 2017 to $338.1 million in 2018. Q4 adjusted EBITDA dropped from $94.4 million in 2017 to $79.3 million in 2018. The subscriber base dropped from 5.051 million to 4.802 million at the end of 2018.
The drop was expected. Revenue was in line with the company’s expectations for the year and adjusted EBITDA topped forecasts. It’s all part of the company’s reckoning of a roll-up that became unwieldy.
Endurance rolled up much of the shared hosting market, acquired domain name companies and bought email marketing platform Constant Contact. It was a lot to chew on. Now the company is focusing on core brands and simplifying the business.
On the domain name side, the company is focusing on the Domain.com brand as well as BuyDomains and ResellerClub (which came with the Directi acquisition). Endurance is the third largest domain name registrar in terms of .com domains under management.
Domain revenue and customers fell slightly in 2018 although adjusted EBITDA flipped from negative to positive.
Its web presence business includes BlueHost and HostGator. Numbers were down across the board in 2018 in its hosting business although average revenue per subscriber ticked up slightly.
E-mail marketing–primarily ConstantContact–increased its revenue despite losing subscribers.
The company is hoping for a turnaround in revenue in 2019. It is guiding to $1.14 billion to $1.160 billion. However, it expects adjusted EBITDA to fall to $310 million to $330 million.
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Andrew Hazen acquires LongIsland.com website
Hazen acquires a website he’s wanted for a long time.
Andrew Hazen acquired LongIsland.com.
Domain investor, website developer, and bobblehead seller Andrew Hazen has purchased the website LongIsland.com.
According to a story on LongIsland.com, Hazen tried the buy the website (a directory at the time) in an auction a decade ago. His $250,000 bid wasn’t enough; the site sold for $370,000.
The buyer continued to build out the site and grow its traffic. Hazen met with the owner recently and mentioned he was still interested in owning the site. That turned into a deal that closed last month.
Hazen’s other businesses include running co-working locations LaunchPad Long Island and bobblehead business BobbleBoss.com.
I have reached out to Hazen for more details.
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Categories: Domains
Canada’s .CA domain registry now operating on Fury Platform
.CA country code domain name transitioned to Fury platform.
Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is now eating its own dog food: The registry for .CA domain names has transitioned backend services to its in-house Fury Registry Platform.
CIRA started offering the platform to other registries starting in 2016, picking up both .kiwi and .sx as clients.
Transitioning .CA to the platform took some time because there are 2.8 million .CA domains registered and 140 registrars sell them.
Fury uses a patent-pending tag system to assigning rules to domains.
During a session on .com pricing during NamesCon last week, CIRA President and CEO Byron Holland said that the company can offer registry services for between $1-$4 per domain.
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Domain Name Rewind: domains in January
CNBC’s The Profit, Prince settlement and great domain investor data were top stories last month.
The top story on DNW last month was a domain name lesson on The Profit.
Here are the top five stories on Domain Name Wire in January, as well as the DNW Podcasts for the month. The stories are ranked by views.
1. A domain name lesson on CNBC’s The Profit – Marcus Lemonis helped a toy shop upgrade from .net to .com as part of his investment.
2. Great domain investing data from Paul Nicks (GoDaddy) at NamesCon – Paul Nicks digs into domain investment approaches and returns.
3. Prince’s estate settles Prince.com fight with Domain Capital – It looks like Prince’s estate will get Prince.com in return for cash.
4. “Domain Name” is a pay-to-play search term on Google – There are no organic results (other than Wikipedia) above the fold.
5. How a Whois check could have halted a scam – a Wendi Deng Murdoch imposter tricked some photographers and a clue was in Whois.
Podcasts:
#221 – Google’s Ben McIlwain
#220 – Domain auction preview with Monte Cahn
#219 – WordPress Plugins + 2 more predictions
#218 – 2019 Predictions
You can listen to the podcasts by visiting the pages or downloading them on your phone’s podcast app.
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No reverse domain name hijacking in VDG.com case
Complainant loses cybersquatting dispute but panel doesn’t find RDNH.
Van der Graaf Inc. lost a UDRP cybersquatting dispute over the domain name VDG.com, but the panel stopped short of finding the company guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
A three-person World Intellectual Property Organization panel determined that Van der Graaf did not show that the domain was registered and used in bad faith. When it filed the case it believed the domain name transferred owners after the company started using its trade name in 2018. The respondent proved that he registered it in 2017.
Even if he had registered it afterward, the panel would have considered the value of the domain name as a three letter domain. Van der Graaf tried to argue that VDG was unique to its company:
Moreover, the Respondent would have been aware that VDG is neither a descriptive term, nor a common three-letter acronym used by many third parties for a variety of services, but the specific trademark in which the Complainant had established rights. A simple search of the Canadian trademarks database reveals that the Complainant is the only applicant for the VDG trademark. Similarly, a search of the European Union trademark database reveals that the Complainant is one of only two registrants of the VDG trademark for unrelated goods and services, while a search of the United States trademark database reveals that besides the Complainant there are only two registered owners of the VDG trademark for unrelated goods and services. According to the Complainant, these circumstances show that the Registrant had targeted the VDG trademark of the Complainant.
This argument undermines the idea that it is the sole owner of VDG. The are other companies using VDG. When I search on Google in the U.S., the first page of results relate to two other firms that use the acronym VDG.
Ultimately, the panel cited the change in Whois record and the Complainant’s belief that the domain had changed hands after it starting using its name as a reason for not finding reverse domain name hijacking.
Piasetzki Nenniger Kvas LLP represented the Complainant. Wiley Rein LLP represented the domain name owner.
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