News
Verisign shrugs off Covid-19 so far
Revenue and earnings remain robust despite the pandemic.
Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) reported first quarter earnings yesterday after the market closed.
The registry operator processed 10.0 million new .com and .net transactions during the quarter and the base of registered domains increased by 1.83 million. There were 160.7 million .com and .net domains registered at the end of Q1, including 147.3 million .com domains.
First quarter revenue was $313 million, up 2% from the same quarter in 2019.
Operating margin improved to 66.0%, up from 65.4% in Q1 2019.
Verisign still forecasts $1.25 billion to $1.265 billion revenue for the year but has narrowed its expected domain base growth to 2% to 3.75%, from 2.0% to 4.0%. It is being conservative due to the Covid-19 crisis and economic upheaval.
The company turned in $1.232 billion revenue in 2019.
Post link: Verisign shrugs off Covid-19 so far
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.De registrations hit 16.3 million, 15 million in Germany
Data on one of the internet’s most successful country code domains.
Germany’s .de domain name extension had 16.3 million domains registered at the end of 2019, .de registry DENIC disclosed today.
15 million of the domains are registered to people and companies in Germany, a country of about 85 million people. The other 1.3 million .de domains are registered to people outside of Germany.
Berlin has the most registrations at nearly 1 million, down slightly from 2018. Munich trails at 630,000, followed by Hamburg at approximately 575,000. Domains are registered to inhabitants of 401 cities and districts in the country. A list of the top 20 cities and districts is available online.
Outside of Germany, the United States, Netherlands and Russia are the leaders for .de registrations.
According to Verisign’s Q4 Domain Brief (using data from ZookNIC), .de is the third-largest country code domain by number of registrations. It trails .tk (25.1 million), which are given away for free, and China’s .cn (23.0 million). China’s population is over 16 times that of Germany.
Post link: .De registrations hit 16.3 million, 15 million in Germany
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What’s so special about LLNNN domains with HG prefix?
Kassey Lee explores why these domains are selling for so much money.
I was checking auction results the other day and saw four LLNNN .com domains sold on the same day for quite good prices. That puzzled me.
The domains are HG262.com ($4,000), HG232.com ($4,000), HG363.com ($2,482), and HG060.com ($1,515). I could not understand why they are worth that much when I regularly see shorter LLNN .com domains sell for less than $100.
So, I decided to study similar domains sold in 2019. The assumption is that by now they should have been developed into websites if they were bought by end users.
In Namebio, you can find domains of such pattern by specifying Keyword=HG, Pattern=LLNNN, Price Range=1000, and Date Range=Past Two Years. Then extract only domains sold in 2019, which comes to 17 sales. Below is what I found.
Domain Status HG531.com For sale 18,880 yuan HG325.com Chinese page related to sports betting HG308.com Chinese for sale page HG551.com For sale 28,880 yuan HG259.com For sale 28,880 yuan HG339.com Not resolve, location=China HG029.com Not resolve, location=China HG790.com For sale 20,000 yuan HG750.com Chinese landing page, geo restriction HG760.com Not resolve, location=China HG499.com Chinese page related to sports betting HG802.com For sale 20,000 yuan HG697.com For sale 28,880 yuan HG670.com Not resolve, location=China HG191.com Not resolve, location=USA HG680.com Chinese for sale page HG297.com Not resolve, location=ChinaFirst of all, no serious website has been developed. Such domains seem to be acquired by investors in China who prefer only the .com extension, as evidenced by Namebio showing only .com domains even though I set Extension=Any.
Two of the domains, HG325.com and HG499.com, are related to sports betting. Both sites show the name Huang Guan Ti Yu (皇冠体育=imperial crown sports) so HG is the acronym for the first two Chinese Pinyin words. In a sense, HG is meaningful but the numeric parts may be random.
Sometimes domains are valuable because they already have traffic from visitors, which you can monetize. I tried Estibot (Estibot.com/typein) on a couple of the domains but nothing of interest showed up. So, I don’t have any insight into this issue.
In summary, my study indicates LLNNN domains with the HG prefix are, mostly if not all, acquired by investors in China. Personally, I would not invest in such domains until I know where their values come from.
Post link: What’s so special about LLNNN domains with HG prefix?
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SC Johnson cans .RightAtHome top level domain name
Company drops one of its dot-brand domains but still owns six.
SC Johnson has informed ICANN that it no longer wants to operate the .rightathome top level domain name.
The consumer products company never developed websites on the top level domain and only registered the obligatory nic.rightathome domain name.
It will be interesting to see if the company terminates other dot-brand domains. It originally applied for eight domain names but later withdrew its application for .mrmuscle.
Its delegated strings include .glade, .scjohnson, .afamilycompany, .off, .raid and .duck.
Right at Home appears to have been used for a discount program. The company owns RightatHome.com, which now forwards to a general product page on SCJohnson.com.
Post link: SC Johnson cans .RightAtHome top level domain name
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Credit offer opt-out service sues typosquatters
Company files in rem suit against seven domain names.
Opt Out Services, LLC has filed a cybersquatting lawsuit (pdf) against seven domain names that it says are typos of its domain name, OptOutPrescreen.com.
The company is a centralized service to allow consumers to opt-out of receiving firm offers of credit or insurance in accordance with the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act. It is authorized by the major consumer credit reporting agencies including Experian and Transunion.
Opt Out filed the case as an in rem case against the domain names:
oproutprescreen(.)com
optiutprescreen(.)com
optoutpredcreen(.)com
optoutpreescreen(.)com
optoutprrescreen(.)com
optpoutprescreen(.)com
opyoutprescreen(.)com
When I visited the sites this morning, most led to either an ad-filled parked page or redirected to scammy download sites.
David Weslow of Wiley Rein is representing the plaintiff. He has also represented the company behind AnnualCreditReport.com in similar typosquatting lawsuits.
Post link: Credit offer opt-out service sues typosquatters
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Donuts moves its registry to AWS
Top level domain company migrates backend to the cloud.
Top level domain name company Donuts announced today that it has migrated its backend registry from on-premises backend infrastructure to the cloud.
The company migrated to Amazon’s AWS and said it’s the first major registry backend operator to migrate an existing on-premises backend to the cloud.
According to Donuts, this will make it easier to add additional top level domains to its stable.
“We’ve fully automated the platform environment build-up, allowing us to set up a new registry platform in any geography with the push of a button,” said Benoit Levac, VP of Product and Engineering at Donuts. “This strengthens our position within the market as acquisition opportunities present themselves during this market consolidation.”
Donuts operates 242 top level domains including .guru, .live and .games.
Post link: Donuts moves its registry to AWS
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NewZone.com at $20K leads end user sales
A clothing brand, office space designer, and hand sanitizer company bought domains.
Sedo’s top sale this past week was NewZone.com for $20,000. It also had some nice non-.com sales, such as LPM.org, Surge.ai and Collective.space.
As a quick heads up, Sedo’s bi-monthly GreatDomains Auction ends tomorrow.
Here’s a look at some of the domains end users bought at Sedo this past week. You can review previous end user sales lists here.
NewZone.com $20,000 – This was the top overall sale for the week. It doesn’t resolve to an active website, but Whois shows the new registrant is Bel Gold Immo S.R.L.
Tasawoq.com $18,000 – Ali Abdulwahab and Sons and Partners Co. is a conglomerate in Kuwait. I’m not sure what it will use this domain for.
LPM.org $12,500 – Louisville Public Media got this nice, short domain to forward to LouisvillePublicMedia.org.
Diurnal.com €12,000 – Diurnal Limited, a global pharmaceutical company based in the UK that is focused on chronic endocrine conditions. It uses Diurnal.co.uk for its main website.
Surge.ai $10,500 – Emergence Labs Co. is a consumer research platform to track, analyze, and act on intelligence from trillions of consumer signals.
DelPais.com $10,000 – Intercontinental Marketing Services in Puerto Rico bought this domain through SedoMLS.
Collective.space $8,000 – Vangard Concept Offices or VCO, a dealership for commercial furniture, design and project management.
CISO.online $5,000 – CISO Network has over 4,000 cybersecurity executive members. CISO stands for Chief Information Security Officer.
Femme.ch $4,500 – This website is still being developed but it will be a website with tips for beauty, lifestyle, health, nutrition and family topics. Femme is French for women.
Linor.com $3,900 – The buyer is still creating the website. It looks like it might be for musical instruments.
GClean.com $3,000 – GClean is a brand of hand sanitizer.
StateofArt.de €2,500 – State of Art is a men’s clothing line. It forwards this domain to the German language page on StateofArt.com.
PowerExcel.com $2,499 – Paris Technologies provides a data modeling platform provider for planning and forecasting, business intelligence, reporting and analytics solutions.
BEZRealitky.com $2,000 – Forwards to BEZ-Realitky.com, a rental and for-sale residential property listing site for various cities in the Czech Republic.
Post link: NewZone.com at $20K leads end user sales
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ICANN’s Attorney General problem
ICANN has a big problem if it can’t placate the California Attorney General.
He has his eyes on ICANN.
ICANN’s Board of Directors was ready to decide on whether or not to approve the sale of Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit registry overseeing the .org registry, to private equity company Ethos Capital. The decision was one of two the group planned to make at a special meeting last Friday.
But that changed last Thursday. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sent a letter to ICANN saying, “ICANN must exercise its authority to withhold approval.”
ICANN abruptly canceled the agenda item scheduled for discussion the next day and agreed with Ethos and Public Interest Registry to extend the decision deadline to May 4.
Unlike other people opposed to the deal, the attorney general has teeth. His office oversees non-profits in California and started poking around ICANN in January. He sent a letter to ICANN that month raising questions and effectively delaying the deal several months.
Since then, ICANN, PIR and Ethos have been working to assuage Becerra’s concerns.
Becerra isn’t convinced yet.
The concern for ICANN is that, if it allows the transfer to happen without pleasing Becerra, then he will take action against ICANN that might extend beyond just this deal.
In his April 15 letter (pdf), Becerra pointed to ICANN’s articles of incorporation filed in California. Those articles state:
[ICANN] is not organized for the private gain of any person…recogni[zing] the fact that the Internet is an international network of networks, owned by no single nation, individual or organization” and as such, ICANN will “pursue the charitable and public purposes of lessening the burdens of government and promoting the global public interest in the operational stability of the Internet.
[ICANN] shall operate in a manner consistent with these Articles and its Bylaws for the benefit of the Internet community as a whole.
Becerra argues that ICANN followed these principles when it chose Public Interest Registry to operate the .org registry in 2002 but is not following them if it approves the sale to a private equity investor.
This could open a can of worms. ICANN has made many decisions over the past two decades that are not to the benefit of the internet community as a whole. If ICANN goes forward without pleasing Becerra, will he begin looking at other actions it has taken? Will he put future decisions under a microscope?
For example, he stated a concern with the presumptive renewal clause in the .org contract:
This automatic renewal provision leaves the nonprofit community that uses the .ORG registry with no protection. While the automatic renewal provision made some sense when the .ORG registry was operated by PIR and ISOC that had solid track records, it makes no sense to extend this provision to operators that have no experience operating a Registry.
For its part, ICANN states:
The Attorney General’s letter does not take into account the recent work that PIR has done to make the entity more responsible to the community. ICANN requested that PIR strengthen the Public Interest Commitments to ensure meaningful enforceability; a draft of the revised PICs has been provided to the ICANN Board.
ICANN is following its oft-used playbook of getting a few concessions and then using these as justification for making a decision.
That playbook might not work this time.
Post link: ICANN’s Attorney General problem
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GoDaddy patent: Images to Domain Names
Clever idea uses image information to suggest domain names and create a website.
An image from GoDaddy’s patent for using an image to suggest domain names and create a website.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 10,630,639 (pdf) to GoDaddy for “Suggesting a domain name from digital image metadata.”
The patent describes a way to use an image to determine appropriate domain names for a website, and then to build a website based on some of the data.
For example, the system could take an image of a house for sale. It could extract metadata such as the filename, the source of the image, a date on which the image was captured, or geolocation data associated with the image. It could also do a reverse image search to find the image online, such as on an MLS system, to find out more details about the house. It could use this to suggest domain names such as 123mainstreet(.)com or 123mainstreet-victorian(.)com.
Once a user selects a domain name, GoDaddy could automatically build a basic website for the domain name using some of the data it has collected.
Other examples would be to use a scanned business card for an organization, a picture of a business storefront, or an image of a restaurant menu.
GoDaddy’s website builder already takes information about a business to automatically create a basic website; using images to capture information and intent is a unique way to augment this process.
Jesse Bilsten, a Principal Designer at GoDaddy, is listed as the inventor.
Post link: GoDaddy patent: Images to Domain Names
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Gameloft recovers Asphalt 9 domain names
Company wins cybersquatting cases.
Gameloft, a popular mobile gaming company, has recovered two domain names related to the latest game in its Asphalt racing video game series.
The company won cybersquatting cases against the owners of asphalt9legend(.)com and asphalt9legends(.)net.
Neither of the domains resolved for me this morning, but Gameloft stated that they were previously used maliciously.
It said that the first domain “was used to deceive Internet users presumably looking for Complainant’s game, inducing them to download malicious software and redirecting them to the website of a competitor of Complainant.” That domain points to AWS nameservers.
The second domain resolved to a website offering coloring pages about various random subjects and referring to “Asphalt 9 Legends”.
Barring an unlikely lawsuit brought by one of the two domain registrants, the two domains should be transferred to Gameloft in about ten days.
Gameloft filed the cases with the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Post link: Gameloft recovers Asphalt 9 domain names
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State Farm loses another domain dispute – state-shaped farm bowls!
Is that The State Farm Bowl or the State “farm bowl”?
State Farm has lost another cybersquatting dispute because of how its name can be interpreted when combined with other words.
The latest decision is for TheStateFarmBowl(.)com.
Just looking at the domain, you might think this is a domain related to a football game that State Farm would sponsor.
But it could be read as “The state ‘farm bowl'”. The owner said he registered the domain for a website that will display wooden bowls in the outlines of states as part of an arts and crafts project. I’m not sure what a farm bowl is, but OK.
The company previously lost a dispute for BigStateFarmAgent(.)com. That could be read as “’big state’ ‘farm agent’”.
Of course, if these domains were used to show insurance links, the owners probably would have lost the cases. Absent obvious intent, however, the panelists in both cases determined that State Farm didn’t show the domains were confusingly similar.
Post link: State Farm loses another domain dispute – state-shaped farm bowls!
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Laws forcing Google to pay for news “content” hurt small publishers
Google is the lifeblood of small publishers.
Australia is the latest country to consider mandating that Google pay news publishers for “content,” even if this content is just a headline and short snippet.
Google and Google News have become a bogeyman for news publishers who are frustrated by plunging revenue due to the move to digital.
People often go to Google News or Google’s cards on their phone instead of a publisher’s home page because Google News provides a broader range of information from multiple sources and viewpoints than a single publication.
But this means publications get more “drive-by” traffic that only views a single article, and might not be a paying subscriber.
This is a real struggle. Yet forcing Google to pay for showing a headline and snippet is a lousy way to fix the issue. Publishers should try to adapt to offer some of the value that Google News provides instead.
Let’s be clear. The headline and snippet are akin to a search engine results listing for any topic. People want as much free traffic from Google as they can get, but large publishers don’t think this way.
When Spain passed a law forcing Google to pay publishers for Google News, Google shut down News in the country. That didn’t help anyone, and it disproportionately hurt small publishers who depend on Google for traffic.
Even if Google has to pay small publishers, it will likely be a nominal amount of money. Only the larger publishers would receive enough to make a line item for it.
I understand why government leaders are responding to lobbying from the publishing industry. It’s a shame smaller publishers’ concerns aren’t also considered.
Post link: Laws forcing Google to pay for news “content” hurt small publishers
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Domains in Hollywood – DNW Podcast #282
Why movies have such crappy domain names.
There was a time, not so long ago, when people went to movie theaters to watch movies. They were subjected to 30 minutes of previews before the movie began. And these previews included domain names for each movie. Bad domain names. Why do people that pick domain names for movies choose such bad ones, like CrazyMovieTitle-TheMovie.com? Today’s guest has investigated this, and even published an entire blog dedicated to breaking down movies’ domain names. Bill Sweetman explains why Hollywood is so bad at domains, and how he helped people like Phil Collins, Stephen Colbert, and Darth Vader get “their” domain names.
Also: .Org delayed again, GoodRX, Amazon’s domain plans, impact of the coronavirus on domains and websites.
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: Domains in Hollywood – DNW Podcast #282
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Google publishes their TLD registry software: Nomulus
Google announced this morning that they are releasing their TLD registry platform, Nomulus, which is written in Java, under an Apache 2.0 license. The company uses the software to run their own registry for their TLDs. Portfolio TLD applicant Donuts has partnered with Google and contributed to the source code – they will also be running a public test instance of the system, which is geared towards being run on the Google Cloud Platform. So far, Rightside (NASDAQ: NAME) has been operating Donuts’ registry backend.
Also covered by:
- DomainNameWire: Google open sources domain registry, Donuts collaborates as pressure on registry providers mounts. The article focusses on the rising pressure on Domain Registry Operators, and a potential switch of platforms by Donuts away from Rightside.
Here’s the full press release:
Introducing Nomulus: an Open Source Top-Level Domain Name RegistryDate: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 8:00am PT
Author: Ben McIlwain, Software Engineer
Today, Google is proud to announce the release of Nomulus, a new open source cloud-based registry platform that powers Google’s top level domains (TLDs). We’re excited to make this piece of Internet infrastructure available to everyone.
TLDs are the top level of the Internet Domain Name System (DNS), and they collectively host every domain name on the Internet. To manage a TLD, you need a domain name registry — a behind-the-scenes system that stores registration details and DNS information for all domain names under that TLD. It handles WHOIS queries and requests to buy, check, transfer, and renew domain names. When you purchase a domain name on a TLD using a domain name registrar, such as Google Domains, the registrar is actually conducting business with that TLD’s registry on your behalf. That’s why you can transfer a domain from one registrar to another and have it remain active and 100% yours the entire time.
The project that became Nomulus began in 2011 when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced the biggest ever expansion of Internet namespace, aimed at improving choice and spurring innovation for Internet users. Google applied to operate a number of new generic TLDs, and built Nomulus to help run them.
We designed Nomulus to be a brand-new registry platform that takes advantage of the scalability and easy operation of Google Cloud Platform. Nomulus runs on Google App Engine and is backed by Google Cloud Datastore, a highly scalable NoSQL database. Nomulus can manage any number of TLDs in a single shared instance and supports the full range of TLD functionality required by ICANN, including the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP), WHOIS, reporting, and trademark protection. It is written in Java and is released under the Apache 2.0 license.
We hope that by providing access to our implementation of core registry functions and up-and-coming services like Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP), we can demonstrate advanced features of Google Cloud Platform and encourage interoperability and open standards in the domain name industry for registry operators like Donuts. With approximately 200 TLDs, Donuts has made early contributions to the Nomulus code base and has spun up an instance which they’ll be sharing soon.
For more information, view Nomulus on GitHub.
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