News
Qatar tourism council wins VisitQatar.com in cybersquatting dispute
It was a very complicated case.
Qatar National Tourism Council has won a UDRP it filed against the domain name VisitQatar.com.
It’s a mind-numbing case. The discussion of the first prong of UDRP, whether or not the domain is identical or confusingly similar to a mark in which the Complainant has rights, clocks in at a whopping 4,842 words!
The owner of the domain is in Azerbaijan. He created a simple travel booking website on VisitQatar.com. He also obtained a U.S. trademark for “Visit Qatar”.
Despite this, the three-person panel determined that the Respondent registered the domain to target the Complainant and all of his activities were just a ruse. It questioned his credibility and wrote:
Taking all of this as a whole, the Panel reaches the conclusion the Respondent registered the Disputed Domain Name with a view to selling it at a substantial profit to the body responsible for promoting tourism in Qatar and which was already active under the “visitqatar” term on social media. He then proceeded cautiously and set about putting in place measures to legitimize the Disputed Domain Name and defend any UDRP proceeding. These included linking the Disputed Domain Name to a working (but rudimentary) travel related website and seeking a US trademark registration…
The three-person panel found in favor of the tourism agency.
If the UDRP was designed to handle clear cases of cybersquatting, this case was anything but.
It’s a rare loss for domain attorney John Berryhill, who represented the Respondent.
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CentralNic in talks to acquire Team Internet
CentralNic is in advanced discussions to acquire advertising company Team Internet.
Domain name company CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC) is in talks to acquire Team Internet AG, the company confirmed today.
Team Internet operates two online advertising businesses. The first is a traditional domain parking company called ParkingCrew. The other is Tonic, which offers many types of traffic including zero click domain traffic, email, popup and exit traffic.
CentralNic is a rollup of domain name companies with a primary focus on the registry and registrar business. Among its brands are Instra, Moniker, Hexonet, Internet.bs and the .SK registry.
The company describes the discussions as “advanced” but cautions that it might not result in a transaction.
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The economics of .org domain names
Ethos Capital just bought a license to print money.
Yesterday, Internet Society announced it was selling the .Org registry to a private equity company. The price has not yet been disclosed, but it was surely a very high figure, as I will explain.
.Org is the second most valuable namespace behind .com. As of the end of July, there were 10.5 million .org domains registered.
Although many associate the name with non-profits, anyone can register a .org domain for just about any purpose. Some groups even register .org domains instead of .com.
Let’s look at the economics of the .org namespace.
To start, round down to 10 million domains. At $9.93 per domain, it brings in about $100 million in revenue at today’s wholesale price.
Costs are minimal. About $18 million to backend registry Afilias (which will be negotiated down again in the future), a few million to ICANN, some marketing budget to registrars and staff to help push the name. Call the staffing element about $3-4 million, but it could be lowered. Especially if you fold it into Donuts or another registry.
But Ethos Capital wasn’t paying just for this $100 million a year. ICANN has removed pricing caps on .org, so the company can charge whatever it wants for .org domains.
To maximize profits, it should wait a year until things quiet down and then implement an increase. Raise it 50% to $15? Double it to $20?
Let’s go with the $20 price tag. This would have only a slight impact on total .org registrations. A company using a .org isn’t going to switch domains over five or ten bucks a year. It’s too much work. Some people will drop excess domains and domainers will think twice. But I believe .org would lose no more than 10% of registrations.
So 9 million domains x 20 each = $180 million revenue. And the costs barely budge.
There’d be some uproar. But Ethos could offer free .org domains to non-profits that apply. “Hey, fill out this application that takes an hour telling us about the good work you do and you get your name for free.” Very few non-profits will take them up on this. They can do more with their hour than fill out an application to save twenty bucks.
Also, registrants can renew for up to 10 years in advance at today’s prices. Not bad for Ethos if people want to pay ten years’ worth of registrations in advance. Most won’t.
To keep the top of the funnel moving, the registry should offer discounted first-year registrations, as is typical these days. Maybe keep the retail price around $10-$15 for first-year registrations through rebates to registrars.
The registry can also hold back expiring .org domains and apply premium pricing tiers to them. This isn’t as effective as it once was because expired domain services transfer domains before they delete, but there’s still value here.
And the initial price increase is just the first one. They can easily raise prices from there, even if only a modest 10% per year.
Start adding this up and I’d be shocked if this wasn’t a solid ten-figure deal. Verisign, which runs .com, is valued in the stock market at $22 billion and it doesn’t have carte blanche to raise prices.
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The interesting connection between the .Org deal and ICANN
Former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé appears to have a connection to the latest big deal in the domain name industry.
Former CEO of ICANN appears to have a connection to the firm that just bought the .Org registry.
This morning, Internet Society announced it is selling Public Interest Registry, the non-profit that runs the .org domain name, to Ethos Capital.
Ethos Capital isn’t exactly a household name. In fact, it appears to have been set up in recent months. It just acquired its domain name EthosCapital.com at the end of last month.
The founder of Ethos Capital is Erik Brooks. He left ABRY Partners this year after spending two decades at the investment firm.
Does the name Abry ring a bell? That’s because it’s the company that bought new top level domain name company Donuts last year.
That deal involved Abry Senior Advisor Fadi Chehadé. Chehadé is the former CEO of ICANN, the group that oversees the domain name industry.
Now we have a twenty year veteran of Abry, who worked on the Donuts deal and was (or still is) a member of Donuts’ board, leaving this year to form a new entity that buys a registry, much like how Abry bought Donuts.
And the CEO of Public Interest Registry is Jon Nevett, one of the founders of Donuts.
Things get even connected.
On May 7 this year, Fadi Chehadé appears to have registered EthosCapital.org. He is listed as the owner in Whois. That was just before a Delaware company by the name Ethos Capital, LLC was formed.
I wonder why Abry didn’t invest in PIR? Was Ethos set up as a special entity to invest in PIR, and why? What is Chehadé’s connection?
The other person listed on Ethos Capital’s website is Nora Abusitta- Ouri. She worked for Chehadi at ICANN as SVP, Development and Public Responsibility Programs.
I’ve reached out to Ethos Capital, Chehadé, and Abry Partners about this and will update this story if I hear back.
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Breaking: Private Equity company acquires .Org registry
Ethos Capital, led by former ABRY Partners Managing Partner, buys .Org registry.
I thought this might happen. And now it has.
Fresh off ICANN’s blunder letting Public Interest Registry set whatever price it wants for .org domain names, Internet Society (ISOC) has sold the .org registry Public Interest Registry (PIR) to private equity company Ethos Capital.
Game. Set. Match.
This gives Internet Society a huge (as yet unkown) endowment rather than worrying about what the future of the .org domain name holds. PIR generated $101 million in revenue in 2018 and contributed nearly $50 million to Internet Society. It contributed $74 million to ISOC in 2017.
ICANN made this deal much more valuable by removing all price controls on .org.
While Internet Society might not have wanted to raise prices, a private equity company surely will try to maximize the value of the registry.
In a release about the deal, Internet Society noted:
Today’s news has tremendous benefits for both the Internet Society and PIR. The transaction will help the Internet Society to secure its future through more stable, diversified and sustainable financial resources than it has at present, allowing the organization to plan for the long term and advance its vision of an Internet for everyone on an even broader scale. It will also enable PIR to continue expanding its mission and important work under new ownership — including its goal of keeping .ORG accessible and reasonably priced — while further strengthening and deepening its commitment to the .ORG Community.
We’ll have to see what “reasonably priced” means. Certainly, the goals of Ethos Capital are very different from Internet Society.
Ethos Capital is a new private equity firm lead by Erik Brooks. Brooks was at Abry Partners until earlier this year. Abry Partners acquired Donuts and installed former ICANN President of Global Domains Akram Atallah in the top spot there.
Donuts co-founder Jon Nevett left to be CEO of Public Interest Registry.
The other person at Ethos is former ICANN Senior Vice President Abusitta-Ouri.
Ethos appears to have just been founded. It acquired the domain name EthosCapital.com at the end of October through Afternic.
[Update: The firm might be tied to former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé as well.]
PIR CEO Jon Nevett commented to Domain Name Wire:
Our goal has always been to make .ORG accessible and reasonably priced – and that will continue under our new ownership. PIR has made reasonable decisions on price in the past, and we will uphold this spirit going forward. We would never make dramatic price increases as we know it would harm our registrants, as well as our registrars.
ICANN watcher George Kirikos brought up the potential of a PE sale when ICANN proposed the contractual changes removing price caps:
Some have suggested that the Internet Society and/or PIR would never raise fees by a large amount. However, “hope is not a strategy.” Past performance is no guarantee of the future. Leadership can change, as can priorities/missions. It’s clear from section 7.5 of the the draft contract itself:
https://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/tlds/org/org-proposed-renewal-18mar19-en.pdf
that ISOC/PIR could simply sell or assign the registry contract to another entity (e.g. Private Equity, just as registry operator Donuts was sold by its founders), and that new owner/entity could take the heat for future egregious fee increases. ICANN would not be able to stop such a deal. Such a sale would allow ISOC to create a huge endowment for itself worth billions of dollars, given that .org is arguably the second most desirable gTLD, after only .com.
This type of deal doesn’t happen overnight, and has likely been in the works for a while.
When ICANN decided to remove price restrictions on .org, my thought was this would be a pivitol moment in the history of ICANN. But it probably wouldn’t come back to bite it for another 5-10 years, at which point current leadership would have moved on.
But it came back to bite it now, and many more groups will call upon ICANN to justify its decision.
Public Interest Registry had operating income of $45.9 million in 2018. Any amount it increases prices falls directly to the bottom line.
I have reached out to Ethos for comment.
Update: Richard Kirkendall, CEO of Namecheap, which filed a reconsideration request with ICANN over the .org price cap removal, released this statement to DNW:
Obviously, we are disturbed by the timing of this transaction and how it reflects on the decision by ICANN to lift the price caps. While we all as registrars will be affected by this sale, the biggest losers will be our customers and all other .org holders who are sure to see their renewal prices increase over time.
Additional coverage:
The economics of .org domain names
The interesting connection between the .Org deal and ICANN
Note: this post has been updated throughout the day with more information and comments from the industry.
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Why this weird domain sold for so much money
It might not make sense to Westerners, but it does to people in China.
Have you wondered why some mixed letter and number domains can sell for 4 or even 5 figures? Sometimes a little bit of research can reveal the possible reason. 520HB(.)com is a good example.
On November 11, Namebio reported that the domain sold for $5,600 on GoDaddy. While no buyer information has been revealed, I know from experience that some Chinese buyers like this kind of domain, so I turned to Baidu search for hints — and I found one.
520HB has a meaning in Chinese. 520 represents May 20 and it also rhymes with Wo Ai Ni (我爱你 = I Love You). HB is an acronym for the Pinyin words Hong Bao (红包 = Red Packet). All together, 520HB refers to May 20 (unofficial Valentine’s Day in China). On this day, you can send “I Love You” electronic red packets to the digital wallets of your loved ones — up to the amount of 520 yuan using WeChat as I understand.
Giving red packets of money is an age-old Chinese tradition to celebrate Chinese New Year, weddings, graduations, birthdays, and many other occasions. In 2014 WeChat launched digital red packets for the Chinese New Year, followed by rival Alipay. Since then, this practice has been extended to other events, including this invented festival on May 20.
If you look at Archive.org’s Wayback Machine, you’ll see that the domain was previously used. Most recently, it was for an adult entertainment site. The auction price was probably impacted by this prior use and any remaining search engine value the domain has.
But as I’ve explained, it’s also easy for Chinese consumers to remember this domain, which makes it valuable.
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21 end user domain name sales at Uniregistry
These companies invested in a new domain name for their business.
PlantCraft, a meat-substitute company, bought PlantCraft.com. It was using PlantCraftFood.com.
I just reviewed the top 20 weekly sales at Uniregistry for this week and last, and discovered at least 21 sales that appear to be to end users. There are others that are likely end user sales, such as placemaker.com for $40,000 and Lando.com for $25,000, but I can’t yet tie them to the buyer yet.
Here are the 21 domains that link to an end user:
jutro.com $15,000 – Guidewire Software, Inc. is an insurance software company. It recently launched Guidewire Jutro, which it calls “a new digital experience framework for designing and developing Guidewire Digital apps rapidly.”
imperialfamily.com $15,000 – Imperial Family Companies appears to develop software for internet privacy.
hirepay.co $13,800 – Hirepay Pty Ltd serves as a sort of float between recruiters and companies. The recruiter gets paid immediately and the hiring company pays the fee off over 3-6 months. It uses the domain hirepayglobal.com. HirePay.com is still available for purchase at Uniregistry.
enalia.com $10,000 – There’s a language barrier (French), but I think the buyer GROUPE ENR CERT is an energy efficiency company.
osau.com $9,000 – Our School And Us, a school search platform.
imgp.com $9,000 – OTO Technology in France. It’s an IT services company, so this might be for a client.
starmag.com $9,000 – E-Borealis LDA is an online media company in Portugal.
brandforless.com $8,000 – This is a typo for the buyer, brandsforless.com.
traumakit.com $7,200 – The domain forwards to the website for H&H medical, which sells medical trauma supplies.
halohealth.com $6,300 – The domain forwards to halocommunications.com, the website for Halo, a communications platform for medical facilities.
booleans.com $6,000 – Booleans is an Identity & Access Management (IAM) company. It forwards the domain to its ccTLD Booleans.nl.
investingingold.com $6,000 – The buyer is setting up a website about investing in gold.
wasteiq.com $6,000 – According to WasteIQ’s LinkedIn page, it “is a platform for the tracking and distribution in public waste management, based on openness, standards and collaborative innovation.” It forwards the domain to its LinkedIn page.
goldbattery.com $5,700 – Gold Locksmith in Ohio. Locksmiths sometimes jump batteries, too.
plantcraft.com $5,500 – PlantCraft is a food tech company that produces plant-based proteins. It’s an upgrade from PlantCraftFood.com.
lukla.com $5,000 – I believe the buyer is Lukla, a digital asset management company that uses the domain Lukla.co.
metaldome.com $5,000 – GuangHongDa Technology sells metals and metal services.
serviceware.net $5,000 – I think the buyer is the Enterprise Service Management company that uses serviceware-se.com.
learnd.com $4,800 – Konnekt is a job recruiting company.
oakslab.com $4,000 OAK’S LAB s.r.o. in Czech Republic is a venture capital and product development company.
hiphopkidz.com $4,000 – Hip Hop Kidz, a dance program, bought the .com to match its .co.
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I’d bid more if…
Both GoDaddy Auctions and NameJet could make small changes that drive more bidding.
I’ve acquired roughly 200 expired domain names this year. Most of these have been on the lower end, pricewise. I’d bid more on auctions, especially the higher-end ones, if the expired domain marketplaces made a couple of simple changes.
I’d bid more at GoDaddy if… the site let you bulk upload to a watchlist. Currently, you have to search for each domain individually and then click the watch icon to add it to your list.
I add domains to my watchlist at GoDaddy so that they show up in the app. Then I get an alert when the auction is ending so that I can place my bid.
But because the process of adding domains is so laborious, I only add a fraction of what I would otherwise.
GoDaddy should add a “bulk add to watchlist” feature that’s as easy as bulk backordering at NameJet.
I’d bid more at NameJet if… its app alerts worked. They don’t, and that means I miss the end of most domain auctions. It’s frustrating, and I end up usually not bothering with NameJet because of this.
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.Com Winners & Losers: Dynadot surges
Dynadot returned to the top 10; Chinese registrar Chengdu West plummets.
ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers July 2019.
There was a shakeup in the top ten registrars for monthly .com volume. Chengdu West fell out of the top 10. Dynadot surged back in to spot #6. NameSilo dropped a lot but still remained in top 10.
Here’s how registrars did in terms of new .com registrations:
1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 854,643 (844,698 in June)
2. Xin Net Technology Corporation 321,742 (254,177)
3. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 194,581 (188,913)
4. NameCheap Inc. 161,790 (148,553)
5. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 134,583 (118,274)
6. Dynadot 131,601 (n/a)
7. Endurance+ (NASDAQ: EIGI) 129,559 (117,245)
8. Alibaba (HiChina) 126,586 (158,341)
9. NameSilo (CSE:URL) 89,027 (149,951)
10. GMO 66,323 (n/a)
Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations as of the end of July 2019.
1. GoDaddy* 51,022,025 (51,012,237 in June)
2. Tucows** 13,192,663 (13,265,609)
3. Endurance+ 6,896,718 (6,928,107)
4. Web.com++ 6,599,516 (6,638,229)
5. Alibaba 6,232,572 (6,250,554)
6. United Internet^ 5,550,220 (5,558,557)
7. Namecheap 4,915,798 (4,855,101)
8. Xin Net Technology Corporation 4,469,021 (4,201,902)
9. Google 2,662,532 (2,580,499)
10. GMO 2,104,444 (2,081,293)
Many domain companies have multiple accreditations and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.
* Includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains and 123 Reg
** Includes Tucows, Enom, Ascio and EPAG
+ Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain and Bigrock. There are other Endurance registrars, but these are the biggest.
++ Includes Network Solutions and Register.com
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you
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What to expect at NamesCon 2020 – DNW Podcast #261
Soeren von Varchmin talks about the domain investing community’s big conference in January.
I spent last week in Montreal at the ICANN meeting. While there, I sat down with NamesCon CEO Soeren von Varchmin to talk about January’s conference. After many years in Las Vegas, NamesCon is moving to Austin. Soeren explains why it’s moving and why you should attend. He also explains how running a conference for the domain business is different than for the hosting business.
Also: Tucows sells its domain portfolio, ICANN’s expected decision, True Detective, Sixth Street, Jimmy Wales, MarkMonitor and more.
See also: How to go to NamesCon for cheap
Sponsor: Name.market
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, view on Google Play Music, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)
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NHL.com isn’t the only three letter domain the hockey league owns
It owns a three-letter .com for its French audience, too.
Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you. That’s LNH.com, not NHL.com.
Last week in Montreal, I went to the Canadiens vs. Bruins game with other people attending the ICANN meeting. Something caught my eye during the second period (see picture).
While most people visit the National Hockey League’s website at NHL.com, the league also owns LNH.com. LNH brings you to a French version of the NHL’s website at NHL.com/fr.
LNH stands for Ligue Nationale de Hockey.
The league appears to have acquired LNH.com in 2006. I can’t find a public price for the purchase.
Interestingly, the NHL still keeps its primary domains at Moniker rather than a brand protection registrar. The other three major North American sports leagues (MLB, NBA and NFL) use corporate brand registrars.
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How to go to NamesCon for cheap
Here are ways to save money on your trip to Austin.
NamesCon is not an expensive conference to attend. However, two things give people pause before booking their travel.
First, NamesCon set the bar so low on prices in the past by going to The Tropicana that people are having sticker shock at traveling to Austin. The Trop is a crappy hotel with a commensurate price; it was about $120 or so a night with the “resort fee” before taxes. The Omni is a good hotel that costs about $100 more per night.
Second, as NamesCon CEO Soeren von Varchmin points out on the DNW Podcast airing Monday, many people who go to NamesCon go on their own dime. A company isn’t paying for them to attend, so they need to carefully consider the cost of going and what they get out of it.
Here are some ways you can save money on your accommodations.
As far as event tickets are concerned, there are lots of 30% off coupons out there. The ticket price will be much less than the hotel cost.
So if you’re looking to save money, here are five options for cheaper accommodations.
1. Share a room. That cuts your bill in half. You can even share a two-bedroom apartment.
2. Try The Guild. This Austin, Texas-based company rents apartments by the night. Not only can you “live like a local,” but there are lots of rooms available during the conference for less than $200.
3. Go to another downtown Austin hotel. The savings won’t be significant, but The Wyndham and Hamilton Inn & Suites are less than $200. (The Hamilton is nicer than expected for the brand.)
4. Stay further away from the venue. I don’t love this idea, but if the price is a deciding factor, there are options within a 20-minute drive that cost about $100. Also, take a look at the Extended Stay America just south of Lady Bird Lake. It’s very cheap and walkable to the hotel, although a bit on the far side.
5. Airbnb/HomeAway. You’ll find many options just to the east and south of downtown at low prices.
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HBO wins TrueDetective.com domain name in cybersquatting fight
HBO gets domain name for popular series.
It didn’t take gritty police work to solve a case over the domain name TrueDetective.com.
HBO has won a cybersquatting dispute over the domain name for its popular True Detective show.
The company filed a complaint with National Arbitration Forum under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, arguing that the owner of the domain was cybersquatting.
A National Arbitration Forum panelist came to an easy decision in favor of HBO. A parked page at TrueDetective.com includes ad links for “HBO True Detective” and “HBOGO”. The owner of the domain didn’t bother to respond to the allegations, either.
True Detective has aired for three seasons and featured stars including Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Colin Farrell, and Vince Vaughn.
Fabricio Vayra of Perkins Coie LLP represented HBO.
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Company tries to hijack SixthStreet.com domain name
Finance company filed reverse domain name hijacking case to get SixthStreet.com.
The owner of SixthStreet.com named his business after the entertainment district in Austin. Note in this picture of 6th street the Omni Hotel, which is the location of January’s NamesCon conference. Photo from BigStock.
When I first saw that the domain name SixthStreet.com was in a cybersquatting dispute, I wondered if it was a couple of bar owners on the famed Sixth Street in Austin that were duking it out.
That wasn’t the case, but the domain owner did pick the name because of the famous entertainment district in Austin.
TPG Sixth Street Partners, LLC, an investment firm headquartered in Dallas, filed a cybersquatting complaint against David Frieze, who runs a real estate company called Sixth Street Properties, LLC.
Frieze acquired the domain in 2016 for his company, which is named after the street in Austin. He hasn’t set up a website but uses it for email.
According to the UDRP decision from World Intellectual Property Organization, Frieze registered and began using the disputed domain name with an email address for his real estate business more than a year before the Complainant first applied to register its TPG SIXTH STREET PARTNERS marks, two and a half years prior to the Complainant first use of the marks in commerce, and three years prior to the USPTO’s registration of the Complainant’s marks.
Panelist William R. Towns noted that this would have been obvious to anyone who looked at the Whois record. He said that the case was groundless and filed in abuse of the policy, which is called reverse domain name hijacking.
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A Chinese perspective on the $550,000 upgrade from 5i5j.com to ij.com
Here’s why this upgrade makes sense, but still isn’t perfect.
A real estate website has paid $550,000 to shorten its domain name.
A few days ago, domain broker James Booth announced on Twitter the sale of ij.com for $550,000.
Another great name sold! https://t.co/kKyF8bhi7v gone to https://t.co/Fm3c9s3k6X for $550,000 USD. Congratulations to buyer and seller on another amazing upgrade!
— James Booth (@DomainBooth) November 2, 2019
5i5j.com was mentioned in the buyer party’s name. I was curious about the buyer, so I did some research on 5i5j.com.
Beijing-based Wo Ai Wo Jia (我爱我家 = I Love My Home) was founded in 2000 to help consumers buy, sell, or rent properties. It features 3300 outlets with 55,000 property specialists, covering major cities in China and overseas. In 2017, it successfully listed as A-share on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges (ticker symbol: 000560).
Wo Ai Wo Jia uses 5i5j.com as its corporate domain (官方 or literally meaning “official”). This domain is not easy to remember because it is not brand matching. A brand matching domain matches the brand name of a company. For example, Tencent.com for Tencent, PinDuoDuo.com for Pin Duo Duo, or JD.com for Jing Dong. By the same token, the ideal corporate domain for Wo Ai Wo Jia would be WoAiWoJia.com or WAWJ.com.
The use of 5i5j.com is quite unusual. In the domain, “5” is used because it rhymes with “wo”. In other words, “5” sounds like “wo”. Similarly, “i” rhymes with “Ai”. “j” is the only letter which is an acronym for “jia”. Therefore, the domain 5i5j does not follow the usual rule in brand matching. As a result, it is not very easy to remember because some sort of translation has to be processed in the brain, even though some creative folks may think this is “cool”.
If ij.com turns out to be an upgrade from 5i5j.com, the brand name will become shorter: from 我爱我家 ( I Love My Home) to simply 爱家 ( Love Home). The upgrade in the brand is very good. However, the same issue still remains. The ideal domain for the upgrade would be AJ.com.
Currently, both Woaiwojia.com and WAWJ.com do not resolve. If the company has not secured these two domains, they should, even if only for brand protection.
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Categories: Domains
ICANN loves how they do it down in Puerto Rico
Group schedules a 2020 meeting for San Juan.
ICANN has selected San Juan, Puerto Rico, for its first meeting of 2022. The meeting will take place March 5-10, 2022.
The non-profit domain industry overseer held a meeting in San Juan last year. It originally scheduled a meeting for 2016, but that was pushed back due to the Zika virus outbreak. Hurricane Maria almost forced ICANN to push back its re-scheduled date, but it was, fortunately, able to hold an event there in 2018.
With this latest announcement, ICANN’s meeting slate is now scheduled out for the next seven meetings:
- #67 – Cancun March 7-12, 2020
- #68 – Kuala Lumpur June 22-25, 2020
- #69 – Hamburg October 17-22, 2020
- #70 – Cancun March 20-25, 2021
- #71 – The Hague June 14-17, 2021
- #72 – Seattle October 23-28
- #73 – San Juan, PR March 5-10, 2022
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When is RDNH not RDNH?
Answer: when the UDRP panelist fails to address it.
Some cybersquatting cases under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) are bad. Some are so egregious that you wonder how much research the Complainant did before fiing the case.
Such is the case with a recent dispute over Duggan.com.
The Complainant, who was represented by counsel, argued that Thomas Duggan was cybersquatting with the domain name he registered in 1995 because:
- Complainant has also been forced to register the duggan.cc domain name because the .com was taken.
- Respondent’s only use of the Domain Name was to maintain an email address.
- Respondent failed to enter into negotiations to sell the domain to Complainant.
I’m not kidding. These are all stated in the panelist’s UDRP decision.
Obviously, the panelist did not find that the domain was registered and used in bad faith.
What’s unfortunate is that panelist Nicolas Smith did not consider reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH). Thomas Duggan had to take the time to defend his domain name against a case that had no chance of succeeding under UDRP.
I doubt that the Respondent asked for RDNH, but a panelist should always consider it when the Respondent prevails in a case.
© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.
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Tucows exits its domain name portfolio
Company no longer holds a portfolio of domains for the secondary market.
Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) released its Q3 earnings yesterday. You can see the numbers here (pdf), but they aren’t the headline for the domain segment. Instead, it’s this: after many years of owning its a domain portfolio, Tucows has exited that business.
It still owns a portfolio of surname domain names that it uses for its Realnames email service. But it no longer holds a portfolio of domain names to monetize via pay-per-click and to sell on the aftermarket.
It sold the remainder of its portfolio over the past few months. It made a bulk sale of $1.9 million during the third quarter and $1.4 million after the quarter ended. (I believe that GoDaddy was the buyer.)
Tucows CEO Elliot Noss explained the change in the aftermarket business in the latest pre-recorded investor conference call (pdf):
We have owned our own portfolio for a little over a decade now, and it’s been a great tactical business, consistently generating sales in the range of $2 and $3 million annually, with relatively little ebb and flow, and with some years punctuated by a larger bulk sale or two.
Throughout this period, two things were true. We were always adding to the portfolio through the expiry stream and we were always needing to increase the transaction volume in order to maintain the same levels. At the same time, the underlying demand in this segment was declining as the increasing sophistication of SEO and related online advertising technologies reduced the returns on direct navigation domain names. We have all witnessed the maturation of online advertising technologies over this time as they evolved from a relatively blunt instrument to an amazing precision tool that now tracks every element of our life with great accuracy and provides incredibly efficient, if sometimes annoying, results. Through this maturation, the value of domain name traffic has declined to the point where we made the decision, starting a couple of years ago, to first reduce our exposure to this segment, and finally, to exit it completely. We do want to note that the value of a premium domain name, as a name for a company itself, has never waned — it’s at least what it was when we started this exercise –and might even be up over time. Despite the fact that premium names was the segment of the market that we focused on, the value of leads was the primary driver for the health of this segment.
Tl;dr: Direct navigation and domain parking went to shit, which has dramatically changed the domain name investing business.
There’s some good news for domain investors in this announcement. Investors were annoyed that Tucows would cherry-pick expiring inventory for its own portfolio. Now it’s sending all of it to GoDaddy Auctions.
© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.
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Jimmy Wales goes with .social for new social network
Wikipedia founder uses a two-letter .social domain.
Jimmy Wales’ new site uses a .social domain name.
Whether you think it’s a good idea or not, the truth is that some people and companies are opting for new top level domains rather than .com.
The latest high profile example is Jimmy Wales, creator of Wikipedia. He chose WT.social for his new social network called WikiTribune.
The internet is littered with failed social networks, and, to be honest, Wales’ latest creation is a bit half-baked. I got a 500 error when I tried to sign up.
But the idea behind it is cool. It seeks to address a common problem with social networks: they are designed to be addictive and generate all of their revenue from data and ads. That’s why you no longer receive all of your friends’ posts in your Facebook feed; you see the ones that cause the most attention or outrage.
I long for the days that people got their information over RSS rather than what an algorithm decided to show them.
Wales will go with a donation model similar to Wikipedia.
It’s the latest example of someone choosing a non-.com domain. I see it all of the time on my PodcastGuests.com service as well. And while choosing a new domain comes with certain challenges, it’s a fact that some are choosing them over legacy domains.
As for WTSocial.com…someone else just registered it.
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.Org domains with rich history top expired domain sales
A three-word .org domain name with lots of backlinks was the top expired domain sale at Web.com last month.
KnowYourStuff.org, circa 2016. Screenshot from Screenshots.com.
Web.com’s domain auction platforms grossed nearly $300,000 from sales of domains at $2,000 or more last month. The combined total includes both NameJet and SnapNames.
Surprisingly, a three-word .org led the charts. KnowYourStuff.org sold for $30,600 on NameJet. The Insurance Information Institute used the domain for a service for inventorying your home but discontinued it in 2007.
The domain’s backlinks certainly drove the bulk of the value. It has links from NYTimes.com, Lifehacker, Zillow, NerdWallet, and many insurance websites.
The second-highest sale was also a .org. CFAH.org sold for $24,300. Again, this was because of its prior use by the Center for Advancing Health. It appears that whomever bought the domain has replicated the former site that used the domain.
Here’s a full list of sales on NameJet and SnapNames last month that were $2,000 or more. Please keep in mind that this includes both expired and other aftermarket sales.
Domain NameSale PricePlatform knowyourstuff.org30600NameJet cfah.org24300NameJet phonecases.com24000NameJet livegames.com14601NameJet width.com10001NameJet connectable.com7400NameJet techbank.com7100NameJet biodesign.com7099NameJet devant.com6458NameJet irda.org6088NameJet 360degrees.com5877NameJet thinkster.com5756NameJet vetri.com5650NameJet danwei.com4700SnapNames surfa.com4500NameJet cybersmart.com4311NameJet benk.com4101NameJet apartents.com3956NameJet edigital.com3900NameJet aranea.com3879SnapNames iccidd.org3800NameJet thelen.com3767SnapNames rcade.com3701NameJet myauctions.com3500NameJet fandu.com3304SnapNames espaco.com3225NameJet zoofy.com3107SnapNames worldbest.com3105SnapNames luggageshop.com3099NameJet vilas.com3000NameJet mathpro.com3000SnapNames cloudmesh.com2900NameJet voiceanalysis.com2800NameJet thedrake.com2655NameJet tcsdaily.com2600NameJet experiencefestival.com2600SnapNames voddler.com2600SnapNames lancom.com2577SnapNames labradoodle.com2577SnapNames foreveryou.com2555NameJet michaelparenti.org2441NameJet netvantage.com2431NameJet hwax.com2333NameJet goactive.com2305SnapNames dominex.com2256SnapNames advertizing.com2205NameJet pabet.com2200NameJet fvkasa.org2200NameJet xqdj.com2100NameJet 3kings.com2100NameJet selfknowledge.com2088NameJet politiet.com2050SnapNames wonderfuel.com2019NameJet altezza.com2013SnapNames cpsp.com2002NameJet 23116.com2000NameJet 19956.com2000NameJet ishib.org2000NameJet 12997.com2000NameJet smartsurveillance.com2000NameJet 19936.com2000NameJet 85336.com2000NameJet nyss.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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