News
GoDaddy fires employee for bidding in domain name auctions
Employee set up an account under a different name in order to participate in domain auctions.
GoDaddy has terminated an employee after the company discovered that he was bidding in GoDaddy domain name auctions.
The company investigated the employee and two others after receiving an allegation of wrongdoing. In a blog post, Aftermarket GM Paul Nicks wrote:
This employee created an account not associated with his legal name, and participated in auctions and expiry auctions as a bidder, which is a conflict of interest and a direct violation of our policy. To be clear, our investigation uncovered NO evidence that this employee used any confidential customer information for personal gain, or that he conducted shill-bidding on auctions.
While we believe the employee did not have malicious motivations, GoDaddy does not tolerate such violations of our Code of Conduct. Indeed, many provisions of our Code of Conduct are there specifically to protect our platform. We are very clear that no employee may participate in any auction that involves bidding against our customers. Employees are able to purchase buy now and closeout domains.
GoDaddy is re-educating its employees about its rules and said it is reviewing its platform to find ways to add transparency.
It appears that the activities were limited to one employee. GoDaddy came under fire in 2008 after its then-VP Adam Dicker participated in domain auctions. At the time, GoDaddy didn’t have a policy against employees bidding in 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 Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission.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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
Sedo improves expired domain auction search
Buyers can now search by SEO and Google metrics.
Domain name marketplace Sedo has improved the searchability of expiring domain inventory and given it its own home: expiringdomains.sedo.com.
Users can now search and sort by four Majestic SEO data points, Google search volume and Google CPC. Other filters include domain length, showing only .com domains, and excluding domains with hyphens, numbers or IDN.
It’s a big improvement and it’s good to see Sedo improve discoverability of these names. It’s still a far cry from what you can get through a service like ExpiredDomains.net, but Sedo’s expired domain feed is not integrated with that service right now.
Sedo’s expired domain inventory comes from 1&1, a registrar under the same corporate umbrella as Sedo. Bids start at $79.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
15 end user domain name sales up to $44k
A tourism service, pharmaceutical company and restaurant ordering system bought domain names.
The buyers for Sedo’s top three public .com sales this past week aren’t yet known. You can thank a combination of Whois privacy and GDPR for that. But I expect we’ll see the domains developed soon.
It was a good week for ccTLD sales with .de, .im, .nl and .be all making the end user list.
Also, check out the cool Spanish-language brandable that the seller of a men’s goodie box bought.
Here’s the list of end user sales from the past week. You can view previous lists like this here.
KBET.com $43,530 – This is an end user price, but who is the end user? KBET is an AM radio station in Nevada, but my bet is this domain will be used for online gambling.
Mobility.de €35,000 – I’m comfortable charting this domain because it was bought by a CSC client. .DE overseer Denic doesn’t even publish organization names in Whois, so we’re stuck with that for now.
Noxion.com $20,000 – The Whois record is protected due to GDPR but my guess is Noxion Lighting.
AttractionPass.com £15,000 – Attraction Pass sells discounted passes to NYC tourist spots.
OrderMade.com $8,000 – Order Made is an online ordering system for restaurants.
Pop.im €6,000 – Pop Chat appears to be a new chat app coming soon to iOS and Android.
BattleBridge.com $5,888 – Online advertising company Battle Bridge Labs forwards this domain to its existing website at BattleBridgeLabs.com.
Defi.org $5,000 – The buyer posted a message saying, “Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is the movement that leverages open source software and decentralized networks to transform traditional financial products into trustless and transparent protocols that operate without unnecessary intermediaries. We are committed to defining and improving DeFi’s architecture, make finance benefit more from its decentralized ecosystem.”
H1Z1Revolution.com $5,000 – This was a quick flip for the registrant, but I don’t know if the company behind this Playstation 4 game is the buyer.
Betamo.com $4,500 – Betamo is an online casino.
LWR.nl €3,734 – Locomotive Workshop Rotterdam B.V. bought its acronym to use for its website.
Tiranosaurio.com €3,520 – A Mexican gift box company bought the domain as its brand. Tiranosaurio is Spanish for tyrannosaurus.
Aimovig.be €2,600 – Novartis AG bought this domain for its migraine prevention medicine. It forwards to the .com version of the site.
NewCentury.org $2,100 – New Century is an event venue in upstate New York.
LiveWebinar.com €2,000 – RTCLab sp. z o.o. specializes in streaming live events.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
CBDOil.com domain sells for $500k
Las Vegas company scoops up domain for booming industry.
A Las Vegas CBD oil company has acquired the domain name CBDOil.com for $500,240.
BuyLegalMeds.com, which owns virtual and physical storefronts for selling CBD products, acquired the domain last week and launched a marketplace and informational site today.
The company’s CEO, Joe Vargas, provided proof of the purchase to Domain Name Wire. [Ed note: it might be on a payment plan.]
CBD (Cannabidiol), a chemical found in hemp plants, was made legal at the federal level last year when President Trump signed the Farm Bill. Now the industry is booming.
CVS will start selling CBD products in some of its stores. CNN says “The CBD gold rush has begun.”
If it lives up to its hype, $500,000 will end up being a good deal.
“We look at the domain as an authority to the entire industry and the CBD oil industry is worth billions,” Vargas told Domain Name Wire. “We think we got a great deal.”
The owner of the domain reached out to the company through social media and that kicked off negotiations. Vargas initially offered $100,000 and then raised his offer to $300,000. The owner didn’t budge from $500,000.
“This domain is worth a hell of a lot more to us and I didn’t want to lose the opportunity to someone else,” Vargas said.
Vargas entered the CBD oil business in 2015. He currently owns three CBD dispensaries in Las Vegas and hopes to have 7-10 within the year.
Here is a video about the buyer’s business:
© 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.
No related posts.
Categories: Domains
Tang trips up stolen domain lawsuit
Judge questions trademark rights in stolen domain lawsuit.
Tang.com is at the center of stolen domain dispute.
Victims of domain name theft frequently turn to Virginia courts to get their domain names back. It works like this:
- File a lawsuit under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act claiming that the thief is cybersquatting.
- Say that the victim has common law trademark rights in the domains on the basis of showing pay-per-click ads related to the domain topics.
- File as an in rem case against the domains (the thief’s identity probably isn’t know).
- Thief doesn’t show up so judge issues a default judgment and asks Verisign (located in Virginia) to transfer the domains to the plaintiff
This approach has helped return dozens of domains to their rightful owners. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Carroll Buchanan is questioning a recent case involving domains such as NNN.com and Tang.com.
She has asked the plaintiff’s attorneys several times to show that the plaintiff has common law rights in the terms. It appears Tang.com was a trigger because it’s a well-known trademark for a sugary drink that is owned by someone else. Could Tang.com actually be a case of cybersquatting by the plaintiff?
Here’s what she wrote in a recent order (pdf):
…the Court is especially concerned about the prospect of granting relief when Plaintiff’s only use for domain names such as tang.com, wtv.com, and nnn.com is domain monetization. Names such as “tang” arouse the Court’s suspicion that Plaintiff may be engaged in the type of activity that ACPA was intended to remedy.
While the plaintiff certainly appears to be a victim, he might have to take a different approach to recover the domain names.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
Cumberland.com domain name sells for $250,000
Owner waited nearly two decades to cash in; buyer gets a much-needed upgrade.
The domain name Cumberland.com has sold for $250,000. It’s just one of several six-figure domain name sales DNW will be covering over the next week.
Shane Kinsch sold the domain name. According to Whois, technology company Cumberland Group acquired the domain name.
Cumberland Group really needed to upgrade its domain name. Its website is CumberlandGroupIT.com. CumberlandlandGroup.com is used by an insurance company.
There are a lot of companies that go by the name Cumberland. In fact, over the past year, Kinsch negotiated with two different companies to sell the domain. He rejected several offers before accepting the $250,000 (net of fees) offer, which was brokered through Uniregistry.
Kinsch registered the domain name in 2000. It was a “hand registration,” although Kinsch told Domain Name Wire he created a program to register domains back then while he attended to other work.
While the buyer made a big improvement to its web presence, other companies lost out.
“Any company negotiating for a brandable domain should realize that once it’s sold to another company, it’s likely there will never ever be another opportunity again to own that valuable domain name,” said Kinsch.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
.UK grandfathering ends in 3 months
Time is running out to register matching domain names.
People and companies that want to secure the second-level .UK equivalent of their third-level .uk domain have three months left to do so.
That’s when the clock runs out on a grandfathering plan. People with .co.uk domains registered as of October 28, 2013, were given five years to register the matching .uk domain once they became available. That ends June 25, 2019.
At that point these domains will be opened up to all registrants on a first-come, first-served basis.
Will there be a run on second level .uk domains? Despite the availability of example.UK names, only about 10% of new .uk registrations are at the second level. Most people still opt for third level domains.
About 10 million domains had grandfathering rights but many of those domains expired. There are currently 2.3 million second-level .uk domains registered.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
Godaddy Investor app gets new filters
Filters let you sort auctions and select which ones you see.
GoDaddy has added a new filter tool to its domain investor app. It is now live on the iOS app and coming soon to Android.
With the filter, users can sort listings by price, alphabetically, or by time. They can also choose to show just the expiry auctions or also member listings.
GoDaddy added the filter because it recently added support for public listings (make offer) in the app. This coincides with changes GoDaddy made to the offer/counter offer pages earlier this month as covered by DomainInvesting.
The sort and filter tool doesn’t quite show up right on my iPhone 6 screen but it is usable.
Meanwhile, over at NameJet, I believe the company has added fixing the bug in its app where you don’t get alerts on its roadmap to fix by 2025.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
Efty adds live chat to marketplace
Domain owners can chat with potential domain buyers in real time.
When someone wants to buy a domain name they want a quick response from the domain owner. The faster you respond, the better your chances of closing the sale.
Domain sales platform Efty is taking fast response to the next level by integrating Tawk.to live chat on users’ marketplace sites.
Live chat won’t appear on each individual domain name, but many Efty users forward their domain names to a landing page in the marketplace. If they do this, the landing page has SSL and can use the live chat feature.
Efty users can forward their domains to their marketplace URLs, which have live chat.
Tawk.to also lets domain owners monitor visitor behavior on their sites.
Efty also announced an integration with Mailchimp.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
Pardon my French, but WTF DJ Snake?
DJ Snake and Pardon My French tried to get PardonMyFrench.com through a domain dispute.
A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has found against William Samy Etienne Grigahcine, aka DJ Snake, in a dispute over the domain name PardonMyFrench.com.
DJ Snake is part of a collective of French DJs called Pardon My French.
PardonMyFrench.com was registered in 2002. The owner of the domain didn’t respond to the cybersquatting dispute so we don’t know for sure when he obtained the domain name.
Nevertheless, the collective would have needed to show that the registrant of the domain was specifically targeted it with its registration and use of the domain name because it’s a common phrase.
The record doesn’t show any infringement, such as pay-per-click links related to the Complainant. The domain has been used as a personal blog and currently resolves to a blank WordPress installation.
Even without a response, the panelist should have considered reverse domain name hijacking in this 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 copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.
No related posts.
Categories: Domains
.Scot dumps GBP over Brexit
Currency fluctuations force DotScot to reprice its services in the Euro.
It’s fascinating to watch the upheaval Brexit is having across the economy and then with domain names. You’ve probably already heard that UK residents might have to surrender their .EU domain names after Brexit, although that’s still up in the air.
Here’s another example: DotScot Registry Ltd, the small non-profit that runs the .Scot top level domain name, is switching its fees from Sterling (GBP) to the Euro (EUR). The currency switchover happens on March 29.
DotScot director Gavin McCutcheon explained to Domain Name Wire that currency fluctuations with the pound sterling are impacting its business. In an email he wrote:
…by far and away our largest overheads are denominated in USD (ICANN fees and escrow fees) and EUR (back-end services, etc), whereas our income has up until now been denominated in Sterling. Because of this we are hugely exposed to volatility in the exchange rate between Sterling vs. the Euro/ US Dollar and the best guidance we have is that there is expected to be a high degree of volatility in Sterling following Brexit…
Indeed, Sterling is still down about 17% since the Brexit vote even though it has rebounded from its lows.
McCutcheon notes that registries have to give six months’ notice of any price change, so should the GBP fall substantially, it would be stuck in limbo for a long time.
He wrote:
Ultimately our registrants need price stability and what we are doing has the aim of ensuring that we can maintain a stable base-price moving forwards, which will also make life easier for our registrars who benefit from – and require us to provide – stable pricing too.
© 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.
No related posts.
Categories: Domains
7 ways to sell your domains – DNW Podcast #229
Hobi Michalec shares tips to sell your domain names.
This week I chat with domain broker Hobi Michalec with domain brokerage Lumis. Hobi shares 7 methods to sell your domain names. While you’ve surely thought of some of them, I learned a lot from listening to these tips of the trade. Hobi also has some advice for people who struggle to get on the phone to close sales.
Also: Unlimited .org prices? Tucows buys Ascio, AppDetex raises funding, dot-brands, Honeywell and more.
This week’s sponsor: Name.com.
Subscribe via iTunes to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, view on Google Play Music, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
A dozen tax deductions for domain investors
Domain investors may be able to deduct these expenses associated with their business.
U.S. tax returns are due April 15 this year, which means it’s crunch time.
If you’re like me and are still waiting for K-1s from investments, you can extend your tax filing deadline to October 15, 2019. Just be sure to make an estimated payment with your extension request.
Hopefully you had a great year with your domain investments. While working on your taxes, here are some business expenses to consider. Please note that I’m not an accountant and you should always check with a qualified tax professional before filing your taxes.
- Domain conferences – Did you go to Namescon last year? Perhaps an ICANN meeting or Merge? Add up the cost of admission, hotel, airfare, and ground transportation to report on your expenses.
- Annual domain registrations – These add up! Get all of your domain registration receipts together.
- Internet access – Whether at home or an office, consider if your internet access bills should be deducted as an expense.
- Home office – Have a room (or area) in your house that you use exclusively for your business? Talk to your accountant about taking a home office deduction (which may include a portion of your utilities and house maintenance, too). This deduction applies to both homeowners and renters.
- Mobile phone – A lot of domain transactions take place on the phone. If you use your mobile phone for business, you may be able to expense a portion or all of it.
- Domain services and software – Subscribe to DomainTools, Efty, keyword finders, or other recurring services? Don’t forget to tally these expenses.
- Web hosting – Especially for domainer-developers, your AWS or hosting bill is an expense.
- Meals and Entertainment – Did you go to a business lunch with someone? 50% of these expenses can be deducted.
- Legal expenses – It sucks if you faced a UDRP in 2018. The good news is you can deduct these expenses.
- Office supplies – Even if you don’t have an “office” per se, you may use various supplies in running your domain business. Think paper, printer ink, etc.
- The cost of tax preparation – You might have read that people can no longer deduct tax prep fees on their taxes. My understanding is that this does not apply to businesses that pay an accountant to prepare their taxes.
- Business taxes – While state and local tax deductions are now limited to $10,000, this doesn’t apply to taxes certain businesses pay. Double check with your accountant to see how this applies to you.
© 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.
No related posts.
Categories: Domains
Did Zoom pay $2 million for Zoom.com?
A clue in Zoom’s IPO filing hints at Zoom.com purchase price.
Late last year video conferencing company Zoom acquired the domain name Zoom.com. A new clue suggests that the company might have paid $2 million to acquire the domain name.
Media Options acquired the domain name last year and filed a trademark application to launch a domain name consulting service. Then it sold it to Zoom Communications, which uses the domain Zoom.us.
Zoom just filed to go public and its S-1 filing shows intangible asset purchases of $2.018 million in the fiscal year that ended January 31, 2019.
George Kirikos pointed out on twitter that $2.018 million is exactly what the company would have paid if it used Escrow.com to complete a $2.0 million transaction:
For a $2,000,000 domain name transaction paid via wire at https://t.co/i8MQK0GIO6 , the fees just happen to be $17,800.00. $2,000,000 + $17,800 = $2,017,800 which is the same as $2,018,000 when rounded to the nearest $1,000. Coincidence? @andrewrosener @MediaOptions @zoom_us
— George Kirikos (@GeorgeKirikos) March 23, 2019
It’s possible that Zoom acquired other IP last year, but $2 million seems about right for this domain name given the circumstances.
The last known sales price for Zoom.com was $350,000 in equity back in 2010. That included the domain name and some intellectual property.
© 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.
No related posts.
Categories: Domains
Challenges of “.brand” domain names
The structure of domain names and ICANN rules hamper .brand domains.
Earlier this week ICANN posted a notice from Honeywell that it wants to terminate its .honeywell domain name. These domains–with a trademark after the dot–are commonly referred to as .brand top level domain names.
They were shoehorned into the existing framework for top level domains, making them hard to use in innovative ways. A couple of the comments on my post about Honeywell’s withdrawal point these out.
One commenter, who goes by the name Snoopy, questioned what should go left of the dot in a .brand domain for the company’s main website. He said www.brand is a possibility.
John Berryhill responded and pointed out some of the challenges of .brand domains:
Right, but they’d all have to adopt the same protocol in order to have a hope of “guessability”. But you are spot on with the words being in the wrong order, as I have also heard from the brand manager for a major automobile manufacturer. Many more .brand TLDs are going to be dropped since they were obtained on the basis of there being a limited time window to apply for them, so quite a few of the applications were simply exercises in avoiding a lost opportunity to obtain something they could figure out later if they wanted to use. (and, yes, urged on by the ICANN consultant corps)
In order to advertise the “home” destination in a .brand TLD, the brand owner, with potentially billions of value in the goodwill associated with their brand, has to pick some other word and give it ‘top billing’ on their marquee, ahead of their brand. I’s particularly tough if you are, say, Yamaha, and make everything from concert pianos to motorcycles. It would be one thing if DNS wild-carding were allowed, but it’s not since ICANN’s revenue model is based on registration volume of 2LDs. That also rules out any “TLD as database” applications, such as being able to use (product-serial-number).brand in service, support or warranty applications.
Having control of one’s own DNS data to the top-level may be of some marginal utility, but there is precious little practical value .brand TLDs. Now, of course, someone with something to sell may pop up here and argue otherwise, but one can’t deny the fact that you have better odds of seeing a snow leopard than a .brand TLD with any substantial use. It is going to become more difficult to foist these on brand owners against the growing wasteland of discarded .brand TLDs, so I can certainly understand the urgency.
One of the better pitches for these things was by Joe Alagna, then of Centralnic, who would explain that early email addresses, such as through Compuserve, would look like “(numeric)@compuserve.net”, which made no brand impression. Later, one could get “(brand)@earthlink.net” which included the brand, but still advertised Earthlink. Then, it became easier to get addresses like help@brand.com, which eliminated the ad for the provider, but still implicitly ‘advertises’ Verisign as the .com registry. Joe could get you to buy sand in the desert if you listen long enough.
The thing is, generic TLDs like .com are just that – generic. Nobody associates any particular brand with .com or other gTLDs (unless they are in the domain business), so they are blank canvases which do not detract from the commercial impression of a URL or email address.
This will be a challenge unless or until ICANN changes how these domains can be used. Even then, it will be an uphill battle.
For the pro-.brand view, listen to this 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
When the search bar goes away
The anticipatory web will change how people access and use the World Wide Web.
I’ve been warning for a while that the greatest threat to domain names is new technology that requires less searching and browsing.
Owners of premium domains have been hurt as browsers switched from an address bar to a search bar. But what if people don’t need to search or visit a web browser at all? What if computers anticipate our needs and do the searching for us? I call this the “anticipatory web”.
The Wall Street Journal published a story today about Jetblack, a personal shopping service from WalMart. It lets people in New York City ask for product recommendations and order stuff via text message. A team of agents responds to the messages, picks up stuff, and delivers it the customer.
It’s a money-losing venture with a long-term goal: using artificial intelligence to handle the future of web interactivity:
Walmart is using Jetblack’s army of human agents to train an artificial intelligence system that could someday power an automated personal-shopping service, preparing Walmart for a time when the search bar disappears and more shopping is done through voice-activated devices, said Jetblack CEO Jenny Fleiss.
Some people confuse the idea of voice browsing with what we’re really talking about here: systems that can anticipate or respond to your needs without a visual browser.
Maybe that’s via text message:
“When I’m laying in bed at night and I’m thinking about something, rather than going to Amazon and searching, I just text,” said member Julia LeClair, co-founder of a high-end fashion e-commerce site and mother of a 1-year-old. She has asked for recommendations on which sippy cup to buy and for help planning her daughter’s recent birthday party. Jetblack recommended a theme, decorations and party favors, and then ordered the items for delivery.
and
Through the dialogue, the system is learning which follow up questions to ask, said Ms. Fleiss. For example, if a shopper asks for a new stroller, the system might learn to next ask “For how many children?” and “Do you need your child to nap in the stroller?”
I envision a time when your phone or voice assistant reminds you that it’s your mother’s birthday and asks, “Would you like to deliver a dozen roses for $29.95”?
Yes.
And that means one less trip to a visual browser, scanning search results and clicking on a domain name.
© 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.
No related posts.
Categories: Domains
Brazil company guilty of reverse domain name hijacking
Company went after the .com version of its country code domain name.
A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has found a company in Brazil guilty of reverse domain name hijacking despite the owner of the domain name not responding to the UDRP.
Panelist Wilson Pinheiro Jabur made the finding against 2XT Tecnologia e Comercio de Informática Ltda, which owns the domain name passagenspromo.com.br. The company filed the case against the matching .com domain, passagenspromo.com.
The domain was registered in 2013 before the Complainant started using the mark. The domain means “promo tickets” in Portuguese.
The Complainant characterized the domain as typosquatting and argued that the registrant intended to sell it to the highest bidder given that it did not take any steps to acquire trademark rights over the term.
Historical Whois records can’t confirm the original registrant of the domain due to Whois privacy but the domain has always been registered at PublicDomainRegistry.
The Complainant basically agreed that it was registered in 2013, which is fatal to its case. In finding reverse domain name hijacking, the panelist wrote:
In the present case, the Panel considers that the Complainant has been guilty of RDNH due to the fact that it has failed by a large margin, since the Complainant knew or at least should have known that it did not possess enough evidence to prove at least one of the essential elements contained in paragraph 4(a) of the Policy.
The Complainant’s representative quoted UDRP case law and the Panel thinks it is unlikely that he was unaware of (i) the consensus set forth in section 3.8 of the WIPO Overview 3.0; and (ii) the current overwhelming view of UDRP panelists as to the need to prove registration and use in bad faith.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
Lawsuit claims Verisign shouldn’t have transferred domain name
Suit alleges that domain name wasn’t owned by defendants named in class action.
Bitseller, a company in Cyprus, says that Verisign shouldn’t have transferred the domain name Radaris.com as requested by a court and is asking (pdf) for at least $500,000 in damages.
The backstory is interesting. In 2014, attorneys filed a class action lawsuit against organizations that is said were running Radaris.com. The lawsuit claimed that Radaris, which aggregates public information about individuals and businesses, was not complying with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
In 2017 the court issued a default judgment against the defendants in that case and ordered Radaris.com to be transferred to the plaintiffs. The domain’s registrar, EuroDNS, refused to transfer the domain. So, according to the new lawsuit, the plaintiffs took their court order to Verisign and got the domain transferred.
Bitseller says that it operates the Radaris website and that the domain is registered by a company called Accuracy Consulting. Historical Whois information supports that Accuracy Consulting was the registrant of the domain.
Yet, despite neither Bitseller nor Accuracy being named in the original lawsuit, the domain was transferred. Bitseller and Accuracy got the court in the class action case to determine that the domain should be returned.
Bitseller eventually got the name back but argues that it suffered great losses from not having the domain name. It says that Verisign could have easily verified that Accuracy was not named in the lawsuit.
Verisign’s defense in this case will likely be that it was just complying with a court order as it always does. That court ordered stated:
To the extent that the registrars do not assist in changing the registrars of record for the domains under their control within 1 business day of receipt of this Order, the top-level domain (TLD) registrars [sic] (or their administrators) for the Subject Domain Names within 5 business days of receipt of this Order shall change or assist in changing the registrars of record for the Subject Domain Names to a registrar of Plaintiffs’ choosing.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
Scratch.org owner defends domain name in court
Ravi Lahoti says he has owned the domain since 1998.
An updated website at Scratch.org notes that it was registered in 1998 and includes the dictionary definition of the word.
Earlier this year Scratch Foundation, a non-profit that started at MIT, filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) against the domain name Scratch.org claiming that the domain is cybersquatting.
In the complaint, Scratch Foundation said it reached out to the owner of the domain name in 2015 and offered under $5,000 for the name. According to the lawsuit, the owner asked for $450,000 and shortly thereafter started showing ads related to credit repair.
The owner of the domain name is now defending the domain name in court. Ravi Lahoti says (pdf) he registered the domain in 1998, which is well before Scratch Foundation was created in 2007.
If the name Lahoti looks familiar, that might be because Ravi Lahoti is the brother of UDRPSearch.com owner David Lahoti. A third brother, Raj Lahoti, runs DMV.org.
Last year, UDRPSearch.com forwarded to information about a lawsuit filed against Ravi, making it clear that his brother David took sides with the plaintiff.
In a filing yesterday, Ravi Lahoti asked that the Scratch.org lawsuit be transferred to California.
Ravi updated the site at Scratch.org recently to includes news articles and videos with the word scratch in them. It also has a notice that the domain was registered in 1998 and includes the dictionary definition of scratch.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
Honeywell calls it quits on new top level domain name
Company tells domain name overseer that it doesn’t want .Honeywell anymore.
American conglomerate Honeywell (NYSE: HON) has decided it doesn’t want to run its own top level domain name after all.
The company informed (pdf) ICANN last month that it wishes to terminate its agreement to run .honeywell as a top level domain name. The company never used the domain; the only second level domain name it registered under .Honeywell was the obligatory nic.honeywell.
.Honeywell was the only domain name the conglomerate applied for.
The company joins others that have belatedly decided they didn’t want to operate new top level domains, including McDonald’s and Emerson.
© 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.
Related posts:Categories: Domains
