News
ICA to hold public update for domain owners
Domain investor advocacy group will make its next member call public.
The Internet Commerce Association (ICA), a group that advocates for domain name owners, is holding a public webcast on Friday to update domain investors on policy issues. This is ICA’s first public call; previous updates have been for members only.
The webcast is scheduled for April 12 at 1 PM EDT. Registration is now open.
Among the topics ICA will cover:
- NTIA permitting Verisign to seek price increases from ICANN for .com
- ICANN’s failure to recognize the difference between the legacy domain extensions which were originally created by the US Government for the public benefit and the new gTLD extensions
- Potential unrestricted price increases for .org, .biz and .info
- ICANN staff independently pushing significant policies that were not approved by the ICANN community
- The move by the Australian .au Domain Administration to abolish domain investing in .au domains and to delete long-standing domain portfolios held by .au investors
- Whois information in the wake of GDPR
- Bad UDRP decisions
- The effort by trademark interests at ICANN to create a special “UDRP” for Intergovernmental Organizations
The webinar is structured as an update to the ICA’s membership from the Executive Director, Kamila Sekiewicz, and General Counsel, Zak Muscovitch, as well as the ICA’s Leadership Team.
“Because the issues at stake are of importance to the domain community at large, we are opening up the call so that everyone with an interest can watch and listen as well,” said Sekiewicz.
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Why this company paid $600k for Carrot.com – DNW Podcast #231
The inside story on the five-year journey to buy Carrot.com.
This week’s episode includes one of my favorite interviews so far on the DNW podcast. I talk with Trevor Mauch of Carrot, who started his business at OnCarrot.com but just spent $600,000 to buy the domain Carrot.com. Trevor explains the long journey to buy the domain, the challenges he faced using a domain that didn’t exactly match his brand, and lessons he learned.
Also: .Biz, trusted notifiers, MMX earnings, Donuts, top stories and more.
This week’s sponsor: Namecom.
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.)
© 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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Big news: Enom switches from NameJet to GoDaddy for expired domains
GoDaddy adds coveted Enom inventory to its expired domain name auctions.
Enom has moved its expired domain inventory to GoDaddy Auctions.
GoDaddy Auctions has another domain name registrar on its expired domain platform and this one is a doozy: Enom.
This morning I noticed many Enom domain names flowing through GoDaddy Auctions’ expiry stream.
The move is not surprising. Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX), which acquired Enom in 2017, already sends its non-Enom inventory to GoDaddy. For its Tucows domains, it essentially did a bake-off between GoDaddy Auctions and NameJet to figure out which one produced the most revenue. GoDaddy won.
The Enom acquisition came with a 50% ownership interest in NameJet and Tucows kept Enom’s expired domains on NameJet while sending its other domains to GoDaddy. But Tucows sold its stake in NameJet to Web.com late last year.
At the time of the acquisition I wrote:
The big question is if Enom domains will remain on NameJet and for how long. This was obviously part of the negotiation and ultimate purchase price. If Enom leaves the platform for GoDaddy at some point in the future, it will further degrade NameJet’s role in the marketplace.
We now have the answer.
So is this a win for domain investors? Yes and no.
On the plus side, they no longer have to manage domains at Enom. All domains they win will be added to their GoDaddy accounts.
Also, GoDaddy Auctions start at $12 (plus renewal, so about $20 total) whereas NameJet auctions start at $69.
But auctions at GoDaddy can be quite rich. Domain investors might end up paying more for domains there than if they same names ran through NameJet.
Also, I worry when there aren’t two strong competitors in a market. NameJet is getting weaker. Its valuable inventory is now mostly Web.com’s registrars Network Solutions and Register.com.
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Iceland’s .Is domain is now easier to register
Namecheap becomes biggest registrar to offer .Is domains.
This picture of Iceland makes me want to visit. Or at least register a .Is domain name.
Country code domain names are an interesting animal. Some registries make it very difficult to register them; others market them heavily through the registrar channel.
One domain that has traditionally been difficult or expensive to register is Iceland’s .IS domain.
There are a few registrars, typically brand protection registrars, that carry them. Prices are usually $80 or more. Or you can create an account directly with the registry to register one.
But now Namecheap, a top five registrar, is offering .Is domains for about $40 per year. That’s about the same price as going direct.
DomainTools estimates that there are 64,000 registered .Is domains. But with no premiums, there are quite a few good keywords available.
It will be interesting to watch .Is and see if easier registration and a big registrar help build the zone. Taken as the word ‘is’, it’s kind of cool. Of course, there’s also that terrorist group…
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Web.com aftermarket sales up to $45k
Four-number domain leads the charts in March.
Web.com’s aftermarket platforms NameJet and SnapNames tallied up 97 sales of $2,000 or more last month, led by 4349.com at $35,400. Sales of $2,000+ domains totaled nearly $500,000.
Some of the other notable sales include:
- DoubleDutch.com $20,000 – The buyer is the co-founder of MarketMuse. I assumed it was someone at the event software company that uses DoubleDutch.me, and maybe there is a connection.
- iSoft.com $8,910 – i-domains can still sell!
- Ferocity.com $6,566 – Would make a nice brand; good connotation for aggressive/forward thinking company.
- Worship.org $4,300 – A nice .org.
- Stagers.com $3,547 – Great name for a home staging company.
- LaughTrack.com $2,188 – What a fun name for a comedy site.
Here’s the full list of sales.
Domain NameSale PricePlatform 4349.com35400NameJet zic.com28001NameJet burl.com24555NameJet doubledutch.com20000NameJet ribi.com15100NameJet amrita.com11100NameJet wooo.com10595NameJet lvbo.com10249NameJet mb.org9999NameJet vf.net9700NameJet sustainableenergy.com9270SnapNames isoft.com8910NameJet chicagotraveler.com8000NameJet deephealth.com7750SnapNames lohls.com7177NameJet musicspace.com7102NameJet ferocity.com6566NameJet 12678.com6300NameJet fpay.com6101NameJet scheduled.com6000NameJet/RightOfTheDot goodwall.com5961NameJet battlebridge.com5888SnapNames edmc.com5655NameJet wwxx.com5100NameJet webvision.com5016NameJet pysoft.com5000NameJet apk.org4999NameJet phia.com4895NameJet rma.org4668NameJet christianliving.com4600NameJet nicetry.com4567NameJet indigital.com4488NameJet worship.org4300NameJet compucare.com4200NameJet theagitator.com4100NameJet sportscentre.com4000SnapNames globalworldwide.com3999SnapNames bet565.com3910SnapNames 99654.com3900NameJet xyex.com3600NameJet greenmuseum.org3588NameJet stagers.com3547NameJet erbo.com3516NameJet deductibles.com3500NameJet calculatebmi.com3488NameJet gocom.com3477NameJet nilo.net3376SnapNames 365877.com3300NameJet quagga.com3289SnapNames anom.com3219NameJet kohkls.com3100NameJet 79898.com3010NameJet catastro.com3001NameJet trustwellness.com2995SnapNames katzlaw.com2888NameJet ridehealth.com2875SnapNames nawab.com2845NameJet toddlerbed.com2800NameJet lall.com2755NameJet copas.com2700NameJet alsharq.com2700NameJet likuoo.com2650SnapNames 58007.com2625NameJet campogrande.com2605NameJet byliner.com2600NameJet alphacamp.com2588NameJet cathie.com2555NameJet problems.org2511NameJet lmnt.com2478NameJet boatwarehouse.com2455NameJet spreecast.com2401NameJet mccallum.com2345NameJet helpfoundation.com2345NameJet 66432.com2309NameJet tooneys.com2295SnapNames itvr.com2289NameJet 1mp.com2231SnapNames 44838.com2200NameJet phoenixlimo.com2200NameJet deesa.com2200SnapNames laughtrack.com2188NameJet cckc.com2188NameJet arcola.com2177NameJet clarification.com2155NameJet webpark.com2124SnapNames gunnersden.com2110NameJet jikan.com2105NameJet 244666.com2102NameJet scientificjournals.org2090NameJet charte.com2035SnapNames hot.us2023SnapNames energiasrenovables.com2010NameJet 33589.com2000NameJet qinian.com2000NameJet thething.com2000NameJet luxrender.net2000NameJet beddr.com2000NameJet© 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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Efty launches new templates based on conversion data
Company releases new landers based on years of conversion data.
Domain name sales platform Efty has launched three new themes that it hopes will lead to more domain inquiries and purchases for its clients.
“We reviewed inquiry data from the past four years on the Efty platform,” Efty co-founder Doron Vermaat explained. “We took the best performing colors, as well as placement of buttons and forms from our existing landing page themes, to create the new ones.”
Efty has 200,000 domains on its platform with over 3 million visitors per month.
Efty offers several landing page options including Make offer or Buy Now (or a combo of those two). It also has what it calls UDRP-safe and INDPR-safe landers with different sales messages.
The three new designs are called Fresku, Nubia and Nobo.
Here’s the Fresku lander with a Make Offer and Buy Now price:
This Nobo lander is interesting in that it has the buyer enter an offer price before proceeding to the form:
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Oregon company pays $600,000 for Carrot.com domain name
An Oregon-based lead generation website builder has paid $600,000 to acquire the domain name Carrot.com, upgrading from its previous domain OnCarrot.com.
Carrot founder Trevor Mauch tells the full story on next week’s Domain Name Wire Podcast.
The company started by offering lead generation websites for real estate investors, but Mauch had a bigger vision for more verticals. He knew he couldn’t pigeon-hole his company with a specific domain so he went with Carrot.
“I pulled back and said, okay, what should a website be for a small business?” he told Domain Name Wire. “It shouldn’t be a brochure. It shouldn’t be just something they land on to get information…it should be a carrot, right? It should be a customer carrot. It should be something that you dangle in front of them and it attracts them. They bite it.”
This was 2014 and Carrot.com was long-since registered. So Mauch settled on OnCarrot.com.
Mauch knew this domain wasn’t ideal.
Over time, he grew tired of explaining his email address to customers. Then a big gut check happened at a conference the company sponsored.
“50% of the people that were [at the conference] came up to us and said, ‘We love Oncarrot. We absolutely love OnCarrot.'”
Even though the only branding the company had that said OnCarrot was its domain name, customers were referring to the company as OnCarrot instead of Carrot. There was a big brand conflict.
Mauch’s adventure buying the domain name started early on. He researched the owner of the domain and found it was artist Michael Kupka. He tried to buy the domain but couldn’t get a response from Kupka.
A bit later, to his shock, Mauch discovered that a venture-backed company in California managed to buy the domain. He figured his chance to acquire the domain was over.
In the ups and downs of his multi-year attempt to get the domain, this down was very short. The California business failed quickly and Mauch tried to buy the domain from them.
He offered $100,000 (“Which I thought was crazy”) and the seller said it still owed $250,000 on the domain. It turns out they had a payment plan with Kupka.
Mauch passed.
Last year the domain name expired and went up for auction on GoDaddy Auctions. Mauch was back in the game…only to have the auction canceled before it ended.
It turns out that the artist Michael Kupka had passed away from cancer. After he died the domain expired and went to auction.
That’s when a couple of domain industry veterans came into the picture. Jamie Zoch and Bill Sweetman tracked down the owner’s relatives to help them renew the domain.
At that point, Mauch reached out to Zoch and Sweetman to explain his company’s situation and get guidance. Sweetman runs the domain broker-buyer service Name Ninja and helped Mauch acquire the domain.
After acquiring the domain last fall (on a payment plan similar to the last buyer), Mauch forwarded Carrot.com to OnCarrot.com. Today, International Carrot Day, the company flipped the switch to make its website Carrot.com.
One of Mauch’s key takeaways from the past five years is to turn to the experts. He wishes he would have hired a domain broker early on.
“A good learning lesson is that you engage the experts,” he said. “The same way that we tell our clients, they engage us as the experts. You should be engaging people that do this every single day as the experts. It would have saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Listen to Mauch’s full story on Monday’s Domain Name Wire Podcast.
© 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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.Biz may lose price caps, too
Higher prices are on the way.
ICANN has published its proposed contract extension with Neustar for .biz.
It mirrors recently-published proposed contracts for .org and .info by removing price controls and adding Uniform Rapid Suspension, a quick form of UDRP.
ICANN clearly wants to create uniformity between top level domain name contracts. It is basing this on the contract used for new top level domains in the 2012 expansion.
However, consumers that registered these pre-2012 top level domains did so with some sort of anticipation that prices wouldn’t skyrocket after they started using them. Also, ICANN is pushing through rights protection mechanisms introduced in 2012 even though they are just now being reviewed by the internet community.
A comment period is open until May 14.
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U.S. Gov pushes Verisign and PIR to help cut Opioid sales
Government wants to cut online opioid sales at the registry level.
Remember when the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) amended its contract with Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) for running .com and its statement mentioned content?
Amendment 35 confirms that Verisign will operate the .com registry in a content neutral manner with a commitment to participate in ICANN processes. To that end, NTIA looks forward to working with Verisign and other ICANN stakeholders in the coming year on trusted notifier programs to provide transparency and accountability in the .com top level domain.
It’s a contradictory paragraph. The first sentence says Verisign will operate .com content-neutral manner. The second one talks about Trusted Notifier programs in which domains are suspended on the basis of their content.
Well here’s the first look at that. The NTIA announced some activity around working with registries to take down sites offering opioids.
Neustar, which runs .US, is already on board with a method for taking down such sites. Neustar operates .US on behalf of the U.S. government.
It’s this paragraph in the NTIA’s statement that is interesting:
FDA and NTIA are working with other key entities that have a role in the registration of domain names, including Verisign, which oversees .com, and Public Interest Registry, which manages .org, on a framework focused on reducing the availability of opioids illegally offered for sale online. It also will help increase transparency and accountability in the domain name system and inform future conversations about “trusted notifier” programs expected to take place at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
That’s not exactly content-neutral. It’s hard to tell if this means they are just talking to the registries about how to work these programs through ICANN or if it is applying pressure on them.
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16 end user domain name sales up to €50K
Several digital marketing agencies, two gas companies and a new app bought domain names last week.
Two companies in the retail gas business bought domain names over the past week at Sedo. Other end users bought country code domains in .at (Austria), .se (Sweden), and .de (Germany).
Here’s the list of end user sales from the past week. You can view previous lists like this here.
AppleGreen.com €50,000 – The Whois isn’t public yet, but it appears that Applegreen gas stations in Ireland bought the domain. The company unsuccessfully tried to get the domain through UDRP in 2013.
CarFin.com $25,000 – This website is still in development but says it will be car financing for dealers.
HS.at €10,000 – Forwards to the website for Holzindustrie Schweighofer, an Austrian family-owned sustainable wood manufacturer that produces timber and related products for the European market. Its website is schweighofer.at. This domain was the top ccTLD sale of the week.
CEC.se $6,200 – Motorcycle company CEC.
AmazingAds.com $6,000 – The Whois record shows Suluta Corp and the domain forwards to ThePerformanceCompany.com, a marketing and paid search advertising agency in Orlando, Florida.
MedMentor.com $5,700 – MedMentor is a continuing education and online training courses for medical professionals.
ExpressUpdateUSA.com $5,660 – Forwards to WebDesignandCompany.com, a website design and digital marketing agency which suggests this was a purchase for one of their clients. ExpressUpdate.com is already an active website but I can’t connect the two companies.
EvolvingWeb.com $5,510 – Evolvingweb is a Drupal design firm. The domain forwards to its main website at EvolvingWeb.ca.
ExtensionHealthcare.com €5,000 – Forwards to Vocera.com, a technology company offering wearable and handheld devices and solutions across a wide range of industries including the healthcare sector.
Body-Fit.com £5,000 – A personal training service based in Germany.
Diode.io $3,750 – Diode is an IoT service with device authentication using blockchain technology.
Smarter360.com $2,500 – This domain was purchased by the Irish wireless company Next Wireless, potentially for a new campaign or brand.
TIQS.com €2,500 – Forwards to TIQS.nl, a new App in development called TIQS by Flow. It’s hard to tell what the app’s purpose will be but buying the .com version of the domain was smart.
Altanza.com $2,000 – Altanza Bodegas is a winery. The domain forwards to its website Bodegasaltanza.com.
GMediaGroup.com $2,000 – This domain appears to be registered by Gill Energy, a New Jersey gasoline seller that claims it is the largest net sales petroleum distributor in the state.
CMC-Versand.de €2,000 – Forwards to Ferngesteuerteautos.net – which features an assortment of remote controlled cars with links to purchasing them on Amazon. Versand means shipping in German.
© 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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Sometimes domains with hyphens make dollars and “sense”
Domain Name Wire contributor Alvin Brown argues that hyphenated domain names make sense in some circumstances.
Before I share my thoughts and unpack this article, know that I fully promote buying, selling, and developing domains, preferably .com domains, without hyphens. Now let the arguing commence…
Roughly one percent of my domain portfolio contains domains with hyphens. Most of the domains with hyphens I own are geo service .com domains — “City” + “service” (e.g., Austin-Foreclosures.com).
In fact, I was inspired to write this article after encountering an Austin-based blade (as in knife blade) company’s print ad in the most recent print edition of Austin Chronicle.
In my opinion, this is a good use of a hyphenated domain when the non-hyphenated domain is not available for purchase or registration, even if it doesn’t pass the radio test.
Whether with or without “www” preceding the domain, (I prefer without) hyphens can simplify the legibility of a given domain, especially when driving down the highway with only seconds to read a domain advertised on a billboard.
In the case of Austin-Blades.com, I recommend also owning the following domains to protect their brand:
- Austin-Blade.com
- ATXBlade.com
- ATXBlades.com
- ATX-Blade.com
- ATX-Blades.com
While I usually recommend purchasing .com domains without hyphens, I do realize hyphenated .com domains offer an affordable opportunity in comparison.
Most US-based business and domain investors shy away from having hyphens in their domain names. But there are some businesses and domain investors building their digital presence and investing primarily in hyphenated domains, respectively.
Beyond the US, coveted domains without hyphens are often times available for hand registration, especially if the domain in question is a ccTLD — a domain ending in a two-character country code (e.g. Grapes-Goose.de — “de” is country code for Germany).
As is with life, there is always a small percentage of the population able to realize exponential profit or a level of success that most will never come close to scratching the surface.
Nevertheless, for those that do discover success, whether domain investor or business, most are likely to focus their efforts on two-word domains, which I believe are best suited for using hyphens. Of course, three or more word domains, alphanumeric and numeric domains could also be candidates but are much less desirable and profitable.
I ran a search at NameBio to discover what hyphenated domain sales existed. Out of 1.4 million domains, NameBio has 17,746 hyphenated domains selling for $100 or more. Below are the overall stats for domains with hyphens reported to NameBio:
- Total Sales: 17.8k
- Total Dollar Volume: $22m
- Average Price: $1,240
- Standard Deviation: $3,428
- Low Price: $100
- High Price: $210K
NameBio’s top 10 reported sales for domains with hyphens is as follows:
What’s interesting to me is 1) the number of domains transacting on Sedo’s network and 2) the number of domains in the gambling or casino space. And of course, there are a few .de domains sprinkled amongst .com domains. Germans have an affinity for hyphenated domains. Sedo is in Germany, which might explain #1.
Again, this is only a fraction of reported domain sales, but a reasonable sample dataset to study. Domain investors with a NameBio Membership, which I do not have at the moment but am seriously considering, are able to export data for further review.
Here are some recent hyphenated domain sales greater than $1,000 in descending order by price:
- $6,591 – body-fit.com – 3/26/2019 – GoDaddy
- $4,455 – uni-corn.com – 3/20/2019 – Sedo
- $2,814 – blockchain-fonds.de – 3/26/2019 – GoDaddy
- $2,571 – i-u.nl – 3/21/2019 – Sedo
- $2,499 – o-ps.com – 3/19/2019 – Sedo
- $2,001 – thai-aec.com – 3/22/2019 – GoDaddy
- $1,838 – ot-hautefort.com – 3/18/2019 – DropCatch
- $1,400 – free-onlineclock.com – 3/27/2019 – GoDaddy
- $1,225 – plug-in.com – 3/20/2019 – NameJet
- $1,170 – grof-holotropic-breathwork.net – 3/23/2019 – GoDaddy
- $1,054 – heater-home.com – 3/22/2019 – DropCatch
- $1,025 – page-portal.com – 3/23/2019 – Godaddy
Here is a graph for weekly average price:
While selling domains with hyphens for $5K+ is an admiral goal, the likelihood is that it’s not going to happen anytime soon (based on NameBio’s data).
However, with the “sweet spot” for given domains appearing to hover around $1.2K, there may be an opportunity to scour and buy expired auctions for hyphenated domains in the $30 – $120 range, add them to the Sedo and Afternic aftermarket platforms, and get a quick flip.
I’m not recommending anyone attempts this strategy. I’m simply making an observation of an approach should you consider investing in and flipping domains with hyphens.
What has been your experience with buying and selling domains with hyphens?
© 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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Categories: Domains
Domain company MMX reports earnings
Numbers trending up but company has big accounting loss due to .London deal.
MMX CEO Toby Hall speaking at NamesCon in 2017. The company reported 2018 earnings today.
Top level domain name company MMX (Minds + Machines, London AIM: MMX) reported its final results for 2018 today.
Overall, revenue was up 5% to $15.1 million after reversing nearly $0.6 million of revenue recognized in 2016. Cash collections were up 30% to $16.1 million.
Renewal revenue — a big focus for the company — increased 97% to $9.4 million. Renewal revenue exceeded the cost of sales and fixed overhead for the first time last year.
The acquisition of .XXX operator ICM Registry has helped boost the company’s renewal revenue and reduce its exposure to China. Even without accounting for ICM, the company reduced its revenue from China to 39% last year. With ICM, China represented 29% of revenue in 2018.
Generally speaking, domain revenue from China is seen as more fickle than from the rest of the world.
From an accounting perspective, MMX posted a loss of $12.6 million last year. Most of that was due to an atrocious legacy contract for .London. (.London is not named as the bad contract in the report but it is well known in the industry.)
In its earnings report, MMX stated that it’s working on a defensive domain registration product to launch in Q3. This will likely be modeled on Donuts’ Domains Protected Marks List.
The company netted $480k for losing one new TLD auction last year, which is likely .CPA. Four groups split the proceeds of that auction. Given the withdraw costs compared to the application fee, this suggests .CPA sold for over $2 million.
© 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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Donuts to increase domain prices in October
Most of Donuts’ domains will be more costly soon.
Domain name registry Donuts is raising prices October 1.
On average, prices for standard domain registrations will increase 7%. Premium domain prices will remain unchanged.
Of Donuts’ 241 top level domains, 16 will remain unchanged and 220 will increase by 6% to 9%.
Some domain names will see price reductions. .Group’s wholesale price will be slashed 35% to compete with similar domain names in the market.
Customers can renew their domain names before October 1 for up to 10 years at today’s prices.
In practice, first-year registrants likely won’t notice the increase because Donuts heavily discounts first-year registrations.
© 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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Top hits and clicks from March
Alpnames, a nice domain sale, and Tim-Berners Lee were hot stories in March.
March was a busy month at Domain Name Wire with about 140,000 page views.
Here are the top stories from the past month ranked by pageviews:
1. ICANN shuts down Alpnames domain name registrar – ICANN terminated Alpnames after it stopped functioning. Moniker is taking over its domains.
2. Cumberland.com domain name sells for $250,000 – Patience paid off for Shane Kinsch, who sold the domain after hand-registering it in 2000.
3. Some recent domain name observations – A four-letter, three-hyphen domain name and two .church domains in the wild.
4. The Mastermind created his own domain registrar to run his criminal enterprise – Paul Le Roux created an ICANN-accredited registrar to run his online pharma network so that his domains wouldn’t be suspended.
5. Tim Berners-Lee sighs every time you sell a domain name – On the 30th anniversary of the WWW, Tim Berners-Lee talks about domain investors.
If you missed any podcasts, download these to your podcast app or listen now:
Podcasts:
#229 7 ways to sell your domains – listen
#228 7Up and March Madness – listen
#227 Naming Tools with Anthony Shore – listen
#226 DNSSEC – listen
Interested in what people clicked on when reading DNW last month? These were the most visited-sites from Domain Name Wire not including advertisers’ sites:
- ICANN.org – 684 clicks – Primarily for the Alpnames announcement
- MyOrderBox.com – 336 – This was for controlling Alpnames domains, but the link is no longer necessary so I won’t add it.
- DomainIncite – 319 – Another one about Alpnames
- OneLook.com – 248 – This was a suggestion from 5 little-known tools for finding great domains
- Sketch Engine – 235 – Another one from that same article
© 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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HeadKandy.com: why no reverse domain name hijacking?
Case was dead on arrival but panelist didn’t consider reverse domain name hijacking.
Head Kandy, LLC filed a cybersquatting complaint against HeadKandy.com.
National Arbitration Forum UDRP panelist Eugene I. Low has correctly decided in favor of the owner of HeadKandy.com in a cybersquatting complaint, but I’m perplexed why he didn’t consider reverse domain name hijacking.
Head Kandy, LLC filed the complaint. The company started using the Head Kandy mark in 2015 and uses the domain HeadKandyPro.com. The owner of HeadKandy.com registered the domain in 2006. According to Low’s decision, the Complainant knew that the domain owner formerly used the disputed domain name to sell its own “Head Kandy” hair extensions, but such use ceased in 2013.
In other words, the Complainant admitted that a) the domain owner had rights or legitimate interests in the domain and b) it wasn’t registered in bad faith.
Nevertheless, Low did not consider if it was a case of reverse domain name hijacking. The domain owner hired counsel to defend the domain name. At a minimum, it would have been nice for the panelist to admonish the Complainant for filing a complaint that was dead on arrival.
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Joshua Schoen – DNW Podcast #230
How Joshua Schoen built his domain name portfolio.
Joshua Schoen didn’t get into domain name investing until 2016, but he has created a nice portfolio including Sign.com, Mockingbird.com, and many other high-quality names. On today’s show, he discusses how he inquires about buying domains, his strategy, and the story of when an expired domain frontrunner actually helped him sell a domain.
Also: DJ Snake fail, GoDaddy fires an employee for bidding, 2 big domain sales, .UK, .Scot, and Zoom.com.
This week’s sponsor: DNacademy. Use code DNW at checkout to save $50.
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.)
© 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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Yes, domain names really can end in .Monster now
There aren’t a lot of use cases for .Monster, but it could be kinda fun.
It might seem like a bad April Fools’ Day joke, but starting today you can actually register domain names that end in .Monster instead of .com.
Domain name registry XYZ launched the new domain extension in general availability today. That means anyone can register the domains on a first-come, first-served basis. Registrars charge about $10 a year for the domains.
Jobs website Monster.com originally acquired the .Monster top level domain name but decided to sell the domain to XYZ instead of using it to promote its own brand.
If your first idea for a .Monster domain is Lochness.Monster…sorry, you’re too late.
© 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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The .App “junk drop” is coming
Expired domains are coming as first anniversary nears.
In terms of domain name registration volume, .App has been a big success for Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL). The company’s .app top level domain name has nearly 400,000 domains in the zone after 11 months of general availability.
The one year anniversary of general availability is May 8, and that means the inevitable “junk drop” is coming.
The term refers to all the speculative (and sometimes defensive) domain name registrations that registrants drop one year after a top level domain launches. With so many domains coming up for renewal on the anniversary, domains under management inevitably drops.
It will be over a month after the anniversary before we get a clear picture of renewals and drops because of the grace period.
There doesn’t seem to be much of an aftermarket for .app domain names despite high registration volumes. Namebio shows a total of 15 public sales. I received multiple offers for Voicemail.app but none resulted in a sale.
© 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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123inkt.nl owner tries to reverse hijack 123ink.com
Company admonished by WIPO panel for cybersquatting filing.
A Netherlands company that uses the domain 123inkt.nl to sell ink products has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking over the domain 123ink.com. Inkt is Dutch for ink.
Digital Revolution B.V. filed the dispute with World Intellectual Property Organization.
John Berryhill, defending 123Ink.com, noted that “123” is a common prefix for domain names. It also seemed that, while 123inkt.nl might have been in existence before the Respondent acquired 123ink.com, there weren’t proven trademark rights in the term at that time. 123Inkt.nl also focuses on the Netherlands and Belgium for its business, not the United States where the Respondent is based.
In finding reverse domain name hijacking, the three-person panel wrote:
In this case the Complainant’s registered trade mark rights were granted after the Respondent’s acquisition of the disputed domain name. There is no evidence before the Panel that would support a finding that by that date the Complainant had enjoyed such a substantial reputation as a result of the use of its unregistered 123INKT mark or domain name, that the Complainant enjoyed protectable unregistered rights in its mark. As discussed above, there is also nothing to suggest that either before 2009 or since that time, that the reputation attaching to the Complainant’s mark and to the disputed domain name extended beyond the Netherlands or Belgium to the United States where the Respondent is based. As a result, the Panel finds that it was impossible from the outset for the Complainant to show that the Respondent had registered the disputed domain name in bad faith as required under the third element of the Policy.
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Moniker to take over Alpnames domain names
CentralNic registrars will pick up 680,000 domain names.
Three domain name registrars owned by CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC) will take over the domain names from defunct domain name registrar AlpNames. All names will be managed through the Moniker.com website.
Moniker will take the domains that end in .biz, .com, .info, .net, .org. Two other registrar accreditations will handle .pro domains and new top level domains, but customers won’t realize this; they will still access the domains through the Moniker platform.
680,000 domain names will be moved in total.
Alpnames suddenly disappeared this month, leaving customers worried about how to access and transfer their domains. There was a workaround through Alpnames’ registrar platform LogicBoxes, but some customers reported that they were unable to transfer out domains through this system.
Moniker was a popular domain name registrar for domain name investors until a bungled platform switch in 2014. It was acquired by CentralNic when the company bought Key-Systems last year.
© 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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