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.Art removes premium prices on about 1/3 of its premium inventory.

The .art domain name registry moved about one million domains from premium tiers to regular prices today. Most of the domains were previously priced at $70 wholesale.

Registrars typically charge $12-$20 retail for standard .art domain names, although there are first-year discounts. Namecheap, currently the largest registrar of .art domains, charges $2.88 for the first year.

This still leaves about 2.375 million .art domains at premium prices, which is a lot more than most registries.

The registry started with about 3.5 million domains marked as premium. It was so many that GoDaddy initially only bothered with selling standard level .art domains. (It now offers premiums.)

.Art has about 250,000 names in the zone, which are spread relatively evenly across top registrars, including Namecheap, GoDaddy, Tucows, and Squarespace (most from Google Domains).

Post link: .Art moves 1 million domains out of premium tiers

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A drone shop, an event production company, and a business broker bought domain names.

Sedo’s top sale this past week was all .in for $50,000. This domain might have sold for more if .in’s registry manager was less erratic. It’s not yet clear who bought it.

Here’s a list of end user domain name sales that just completed at Sedo. You can view previous lists like this here.

DroneShop.com €33,000 – This domain forwards to DroneShop.nl, which sells drones.

KKBA.com $9,500 – KKBA is a business broker.

TekSupport.com $7,823 – TCE Presents, an event design and production company, uses the brand TekSupport for house and techno productions.

Kecks.co.uk £5,500 – Kecks is a clothing brand.

Supercloud.net $3,500 – Supercloud is a cloud services company.

911Systems.com $3,000 – This domain forwards to the website for Helptapp, a company that provides services to emergency response entities.

Hydraulics.in $2,999 – Rattan Hose & Engineering Works, a seller of hydraulic products, bought this domain.

VerkaufsTraining.com €2,500 – This domain is German for “sales training.” It forwards to a sales trainer’s site at uwebothe.de.

Radsport24.de €2,500 – Cycling trade ROG, which uses the brand Radsporthandle, is developing a store on this name.

HPS.tech $2,500 – HPS Tech is an advanced manufacturing business in Australia. It uses the domain HSPtech.com.au.

Fueld.com $2,499 – Fueld is a supplement company. I hope people don’t hear about it by word of mouth at the gym because this name is hard to spell.

Post link: 11 end user sales up to €33,000

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So far, voters are not in favor of continued litigation.

ENS DAO voting as of approximately 12:15 pm ET on February 20.

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) DAO has begun voting on a proposal to settle a dispute over eth.link.

In very early voting, it appears the DAO is in favor of settling the dispute for $300,000 or less but not in favor of reimbursing ENS Labs for its litigation expenses or continuing the lawsuit.

I’m unsure if DAOs need to make votes like this public, but if so, it shows another disadvantage of these decentralized organizations. The public nature of the vote puts ENS at a disadvantage in the litigation.

ENS Labs has said that should the DAO not approve of paying for the litigation expenses, it will move to dismiss the litigation immediately. It will also post an interstitial on the domain name, suggesting people use eth .limo instead.

Eth .link acts as a forwarder so people can visit .eth domains in their normal web browsers. There is some value to this if you believe blockchain-based names are suitable for websites. Since the lawsuit was filed, I’d argue that the idea of using blockchain domains for websites instead of just wallet addresses and identifiers has lost some steam.

It’s worth noting that dismissing the matter might not be as simple as dropping the case. Dynadot has also lost revenue because of ENS’s lawsuit, and both Dynadot and GoDaddy have incurred legal expenses.

DAO Voting will continue until February 25.

Post link: Ethereum Name Service DAO begins voting on possible eth.link settlement

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Related posts:

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2. Judge issues orders in eth .link dispute: ENS can transfer domain
3. Ethereum Name Service might pay $300k to resolve eth.link dispute

Here’s what each field does and how to harness its power.

I received positive feedback on my previous video about using ExpiredDomains.net to find domains to buy (“I had no idea I could add multiple words!”), so I’m back with another tutorial.

In today’s video, I’ll show you how to set the “Common SEO” filters.

“Common SEO” is somewhat of a misnomer. Sure, there are some SEO-related fields in this section, such as inclusion in DMOZ and Yandex, but there’s a lot more.

I explain the difference between the Whois Birth Year and Archive Birth Year, and how setting these correctly will help you avoid missing valuable domain names. I show examples of domains that won’t be captured if you only use the Whois year, including why the registration date for the domain was reset.

Hope this is helpful:



Post link: Understanding and using “Common SEO” on ExpiredDomains.net

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Escrow company says domain transactions were soft in Q4 but .ai was a bright spot.

.AI domain names remain a bright spot in the domain business. Graphic from Escrow.com.

Escrow company Escrow.com reported (pdf) that domain name sales on its platform eased in Q4 2023, totaling $79 million. That’s down from $85 million in the same quarter of 2022, and the same amount in Q3 2024.

Q4 was the third consecutive quarter of declines for domain transactions handled at Escrow.com, following a strong Q1 2023.

The company said the median price of domains without content transacted in Q4 was $5,000, up from $4,614 in the prior quarter.

Sales of .ai domain names continue to flourish, although they remain a small part of the overall market. Escrow.com handled $2.1 million of .ai domain names in Q4 2023, compared to $1.3 million in the quarter before. It was a record high for .ai domain names at Escrow.com.

Post link: Escrow.com reports domain sales decline in Q4, but .AI strong

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These are some of the big stories in the domain business so far this month.

I send out a monthly recap newsletter highlighting the most popular stories on Domain Name Wire. (You can subscribe here.)

This month I sent a mid-month report about what is happening in our business. I’ve received good feedback on it, so I’m including it here as a blog post as well.

Here’s what has happened in the domain business so far this February:

• No surprise here, but .com prices are going up again in September. You can renew your domains early to avoid the price hike. The price increases are important for Verisign because its domain base is shrinking. Thankfully, the company doesn’t get an automatic price hike for the next two years.
• Speaking of registry price hikes, Namecheap has sued ICANN because it hasn’t acted on an Independent Review Panel decision over .org and .info price hikes.
• A long-running dispute over the fate of eth .link — an important domain for the Ethereum Name Service Community — might be settled for $300k. But do .eth names make much sense anymore? ENS just launched a gasless mechanism for connecting real domains to ENS, and GoDaddy is on board. (Which is a bit interesting given that the eth .link lawsuit pits ENS vs. GoDaddy.)
• A prolific UDRP panelist known for his reasoned decisions has passed away at the age of 77.
• GoDaddy said its aftermarket had an excellent Q4. Some of that is likely thanks to a one-off portfolio sale and its NameFind auction.
• The USPTO has denied OpenAI’s trademark registration for GPT, which should be music to the ears of many domain investors.
• We now know who acquired Epik, I think.
• I started creating how-to videos last month and would appreciate your feedback. Here’s one about how to search by keyword at ExpiredDomains.net. Speaking of which, here are some keywords that you should search for.
• I have published two interesting podcasts so far this month. In episode #472, listen to how a domain investor sold $300k of domains through outbound marketing. In episode #473, two domain investors share their actual results from last year.

Post link: Top domain news: .com prices, Ethereum Name Service, Epik

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“New” jumps and there are a lot of surprising keywords on Afternic’s latest list.

GoDaddy’s Afternic has released its latest keyword report that shows what keywords were hot in the aftermarket in December.

The word “new” shot from #14 on the chart in November to #2 in January.

My landed at #1 again, and AI remains hot as well.

One thing that stands out this month is how many words landed in the top 20 that weren’t there in the prior month. Whereas December saw just six words that weren’t on the list in the prior month, 13 such words made the latest list. And they seem like they’re out of left field: Florida? Blue? Sky? That’s odd.

Here’s the full list with last month’s ranking in (parentheses):

1. my (1)
2. new (14)
3. ai (3)
4. best (nr)
5. pro (16)
6. one (nr)
7. home (5)
8. get (nr)
9. bet (4)
10. all (18)
11. digital (nr)
12. blue (nr)
13. auto (nr)
14. smart (nr)
15. free (nr)
16. house (nr)
17. Florida (nr)
18. top (nr)
19. sky (nr)
20. real (nr)

Here’s how domain buyers can search for domains starting with, ending with, or containing these keywords using ExpiredDomains.net.

Post link: Afternic releases a “new” keyword report

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Domain is likely being transferred as part of lawsuit settlement.

Now, Edible Arrangements can sell edibles, too.

It appears that a long-running lawsuit over edibles.com has been settled.

In August 2020, Edible Arrangements, a franchisor of stores that sell fruit arrangements, sued the owner of edibles.com for cybersquatting.

The company had changed its primary branding, Edible Arrangements, to merely Edible before the lawsuit and forwarded edible.com to ediblearrangements.com.

But its interest in the plural version of the domain might go further than its main rebranding: the company started selling CBD edibles as part of a new business.

World Media Group, LLC, which owns a number of valuable domain names, used edibles.com to promote a dietary app. The company filed its own suit against Edible Arrangements.

Both parties have been in on-and-off settlement talks, and it appears the most recent settlement will come to fruition.

On January 12, lawyers for both parties notified the judge that they had reached a settlement in principle and were working on the details. They anticipated filing dismissals by the end of the month.

While dismissals have not been filed yet, edibles.com has entered Pending Transfer status at the registrar. This signals that World Media Group is transferring the domain name to Edible Arrangements as part of the deal.

Post link: Edibles.com enters Pending Transfer, suggesting settlement is reached

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A panelist who represents a lot of Complainants doesn’t find reverse domain name hijacking.

A UDRP panelist has correctly denied a cybersquatting claim against the domain name GPI.com but failed to find reverse domain name hijacking.

The facts of the case are pretty damning, but once you see the panelist’s name, you won’t be surprised that she gave the Complainant a pass.

Nathalie Dreyfus.

Yes, the same person who went against two other panelists and argued that bespoke.com should be transferred. The same person who represents Complainants in cases.

Great Plains Ventures, Inc. filed the dispute against CarQuest.

The Whois record was not private, and it clearly shows CarQuest as the registrant and an email address pointing to Advance-Auto.com.

You don’t have to be a super sleuth to do a quick Google search for “Advance Auto GPI” or “CarQuest GPI” to quickly see a connection. That connection is an acquisition of General Parts, Inc.

Done. Case closed. The Complainant should have seen that connection and decided not to file the case.

Add to that that there was no apparent targeting of the Complainant with this three letter domain, such as a parked page with ads related to the Complainant or exclusive rights to the term in question, and the case is really closed.

Yet, after the Respondent helpfully pointed this out to the Complainant in its response, and showed that it uses a subdomain of the domain, and argued this was a case of reverse domain name hijacking, and the Complainant had a chance to withdraw the complaint…the Complainant doubled down.

The Complainant argued that the domain registration date should be 2010 because of the transfer of the domain to a new party (it was actually part of a corporate acquisition). Then it said the company ‘re-registered’ the domain in 2016 after it had stopped using the GPI mark in commerce.

And Great Plains Ventures argued it couldn’t have known the connection between the domain owner and GPI because, apparently, it doesn’t know how to use Google:

Respondent argues that Complainant is using the UDRP process in bad faith to try to hijack a domain that has been legitimately used in good faith for decades. However, an Internet search of the GPI acronym does not yield any search results related to Respondent or its affiliates. Nor does the contact information for Respondent in the WHOIS record for the Domain Name make any reference to GPI.

Assuming the Complainant truly didn’t understand the connection, it could have withdrawn the case. Instead, it offered to purchase the domain as part of a settlement. Then, after the Respondent filed its response,  it pushed forward despite no possibility of winning.

Dreyfus correctly found that Great Plains Ventures didn’t show the domain registrant lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain, and correctly ruled that the domain wasn’t registered in bad faith.

But on reverse domain name hijacking, she gave the Complainant a break:

The letters “GPI” have an obvious derivation from the General Parts, Inc., name. However, Panel finds that it was not possible for the Complainant to ascertain if and how the Respondent was in fact using the disputed domain name in the absence of a public facing use such as publicly accessible website. The fact that the use was not open to public inspection is a factor which must be taken into account in weighing the appropriateness under the Policy of the Complainant’s decision to bring the Complaint.

Complainant owned incontestable Trademark registrations, Respondents had no registration at the time of filing the Complaint, and Respondent did not seem to be making any use of the GPI mark. Moreover, although the Panel understands that Respondents’ (sic) offer to try to settle this dispute was a good faith effort to avoid the expense and inconvenience of litigation, the Panel concludes that it did not bring the Complaint in bad faith.

In other words, because the Complainant has a reason to be interested in the domain, and gpi.com didn’t appear to be in use, the case wasn’t brought in bad faith?

Kronenberger Resenfeld, LLP represented Great Plains Ventures. Brient IP Law, LLC represented the domain name owner.

Post link: Panelist denies GPI.com UDRP, but…

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ENS Labs asks DAO about settlement offer and reimbursement for legal expenses.

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) has asked the ENS DAO to vote on a potential settlement over eth.link.

Eth.link is used as a resolving service for .eth names. People can type a second level .eth name followed by eth.link to get the name to resolve in their browser.

The person who registered the domain went to prison for helping North Korea evade sanctions and the domain expired while he was in prison.

The domain was registered at Uniregistry, which had an expired domain auction partnership with Dynadot. Dynadot auctioned the domain for $852,000, with Manifold Finance as the winning bidder.

Ethereum Name Service subsequently sued GoDaddy (which owns Uniregistry), Dynadot, and Manifold Finance. The domain was transferred to ENS due to a temporary injunction, but the case continues.

Manifold was dismissed from the case due to a lack of jurisdiction, but might still have a claim on the domain. The company has now offered to settle the dispute for a $300,000 payment.

ENS Labs is putting the settlement offer out to the ENS DAO. It is also asking the DAO to reimburse its legal expenses to date, which total about $750,000.

Given the legal expenses incurred to date and likely future expenditures, the settlement seems to be a bargain for ENS, assuming that the other parties also agree to the settlement and don’t demand their legal expenses to be reimbursed.

It appears that ENS Labs wants to avoid further legal expenses. It says that if the DAO refuses to reimburse it for its legal expenses, “ENS labs will act to minimise its further expenses by having the case dismissed.”

A settlement would also be helpful because ENS would no longer be entangled in a lawsuit with GoDaddy. Despite the lawsuit, GoDaddy worked with ENS to integrate its new gassless wallet connection into the GoDaddy registrar.

Post link: Ethereum Name Service might pay $300k to resolve eth.link dispute

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Related posts:

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Lyon contributed significantly to UDRP jurisprudence and wasn’t afraid to call out bad complaints.

Richard Grant Lyon – photo source

A prolific UDRP panelist has passed away.

Richard Grant Lyon was one of the original UDRP panelists and contributed significantly to its jurisprudence.

He started deciding cases back in 2000 and heard hundreds of UDRP cases through the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

UDRP research site UDRP.tools tallies his total caseload at 325.

I wrote about Lyon’s decisions frequently, partly because he wasn’t afraid to deny cybersquatting claims and find reverse domain name hijacking.

In a dispute over ClearWaterSystems .net, Lyon found in favor of the respondent and pointed out flaws in another panelist’s rulings in a similar case.

He found reverse domain name hijacking on some valuable domain names, including GrandStrand.com, Circus.com, and Reza.com.

In a case over reveel.com, Lyon found reverse domain name hijacking when the other two panelists declined to consider it because it wasn’t explicitly requested.

Similarly, in a case over QLP.com, Lyon was the only panelist to find reverse domain name hijacking. He wrote:

We owe it to this Respondent to chastise the Complainant and its representative for their irresponsible conduct. We owe it to the integrity of the UDRP process to call out patent abuses such as I believe this case to be.

UDRP.tools shows that, when hearing cases individually, Lyon ordered 144 domains transferred but denied a whopping 76 cases. When part of a three-member panel, the panel only transferred about a quarter of the 99 cases.

It appears that Lyon’s last case was decided in May of 2023. He was assigned to a case on December 27 last year but had passed away just days before on December 22.

Lyon graduated from Haverford College and got his law degree from Harvard. He started practicing law at Sullivan & Cromwell, and later became General Counsel and Secretary of Ericsson before working for a couple of other law firms.

Lyon was 77.

Post link: WIPO UDRP panelist Richard Lyon passes away

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An AI site for teachers, a VR video game publisher, and a padel tour bought domain names.

Sedo’s top sale this past week was GameGenie.com for $65,000. There’s a legacy site on the domain, and I’m unsure if the buyer intends to expand upon the existing site or start a new one. If you grew up in the 80s or 90s, you’ll appreciate the nostalgia of this site. Visit it before it disappears.

Here’s a list of end user domain name sales that just completed at Sedo. You can view previous lists like this here.

Reiseversicherung.at €12,600 – This domain, which is German for Travel Insurance, forwards to the website of travel insurance company Nexible.

TeachMate.com $5,750 – This is an interesting one to consider. The company uses the domain TeachMateAI.com and bought the shorter version. Think about this when you see companies using CompanyNameAI .com domains. As for TeachMate’s business, it helps teachers with their tasks like lesson planning. Cool idea.

MPGA.com €5,000 – MPGA Battery, a battery manufacturer, bought this domain and forwards it to its longer domain MPGAbattery.com.

MoneyFund.com $5,000 – The buyer is creating a website that’s still a work in progress. It’s clear it’s about money, but other than that, we’ll have to wait and see.

GridRunner.com €4,000 – GridRunner is a VR video game.

HDC.net $3,750 – HDC is a web development firm.

Grillpfannen.de €2,990 – This domain, which is German for Grill Pans, forwards to the website for Bratpfanne.

SmartProcure.de €2,950 – E-procurement company Cosinex bought this domain name.

Kehrwieder.de €2,900 – This domain forwards to Kehrwieder-verlag.de. The company publishes a newspaper in the Hildesheim/Vorharz region of Germany.

MyPadel.de €2,750 – Padel is a lot like pickleball, but with walls you can hit the ball off of, and it’s trendy outside the US. This domain forwards to padel-tour.de, which promotes a padel tour in Germany.

Outermind.com $2,500 – Tavish Calico bought this domain. If I’ve found the right guy, he runs a branding agency, so this could be for a client. This seems like a good value for the domain.

ADMK.com $2,500 – ADMK is a digital publishing company.

BrownMedia.com $2,000 – Brown Media is a video production firm.

Post link: End user domain sales: padel, video games, AI and more

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NameFind Auction and one-off sale help aftermarket revenue jump 14%.

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) reported Q4 2023 and full-year 2023 earnings after the market closed today.

For Q4 2023, revenue came in at $1.100 billion, up 6% from the same quarter a year ago. Free cash flow totaled $0.305 billion, up 51% year over year.

For the full year, revenue increased 4% to $4.254 billion. Free cash flow grew 12% to $1.084 billion.

GoDaddy’s Application & Commerce segment posted 13% year-over-year revenue growth in Q4. The Core Platform segment, which includes legacy hosting and the domain name business, returned to growth with a 2% lift year over year.

Core Platform was helped by the domain aftermarket in Q4. Aftermarket revenue jumped 14% from $104 million in Q4 2022 to $118 million in Q4 2023.

Some increase was expected after GoDaddy auctioned domains from its NameFind portfolio and sold some great domains in another transaction. It’s unclear what percentage of the growth was from these two one-off activities, and GoDaddy also noted that Q4 2022 was a soft comparison quarter. That said, this puts GoDaddy on a bit of a hamster wheel next year — it may need to do more sales promotions like these to get the same results.

For the year, the Aftermarket dropped from $438 million in 2022 to $437 million in 2023.

The company also disclosed average aftermarket transaction prices. This number grew from $112 in 2020 to $191 in 2021, then $218 in 2022 and $217 last year. This combines a lot of aftermarket activity, presumably including expired domain auctions.

GoDaddy also discussed how it plans to grow margins, including by “expanding access to global talent,” a euphemism for outsourcing certain activities overseas.

Post link: GoDaddy reports strong Aftermarket growth in Q4

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The judge doesn’t buy the plaintiff’s argument, but gives it one last chance.

A judge overseeing a cybersquatting lawsuit over trx.com has given the domain owner a partial victory.

The story is a bit complicated, so let’s rewind a bit.

Background

Loo Tze Ming bought the domain name trx.com for $138,000 in April 2022 at domain marketplace 4.cn.

In October 2022, Fitness Anywhere LLC, a company going through bankruptcy that claimed rights in TRX, filed a cybersquatting claim under UDRP. The following month, the panelist awarded the Complainant the domain name in a controversial decision.

Ming overlooked the dispute notice and didn’t respond, so he sued Fitness Anywhere in Arizona to stay the transfer.

Then, in February 2023, a company called JFXD TRX ACQ LLC, which described Fitness Anywhere as its predecessor in interest, filed an in rem lawsuit against trx.com in Virginia, where the .com registry is based.

Given the ongoing suit in Arizona, it was odd that JFXD TRX filed an in rem suit against the domain name because it knew who the domain owner was and how to contact him.

Ming successfully petitioned the court to move the in rem case to Arizona, where he filed his original lawsuit.

Moving the case was key because Arizona is in the Ninth Circuit. There’s precedent in the Ninth Circuit that the original registration date of a domain is the relevant date for a case under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA).

Trx.com was registered in 1999. The plaintiff got trademark rights in the second-level domain term TRX sometime after that, and then Ming bought the domain years after the trademark was established. However, according to the Ninth Circuit, because the original registration in 1999 predated the plaintiff’s trademark rights, the plaintiff can’t win.

The judge demands clarification

In January, the judge overseeing the case asked JFXD TRX to explain a couple of things.

First, she asked how, under Ninth Circuit precedent, a domain registered in 1999 before it got trademark rights violates the ACPA.

Second, she asked for clarification on the relationship between Fitness Anywhere and JFXD TRX.

The relationship between the parties is interesting. The plaintiff’s lawyer, Alain Villeneuve, has represented both Fitness Anywhere and JFXD TRX. But there’s confusion about which entity owned the trademarks and at what time. The judge wrote (emphasis mine):

The filings in this case, as well as the filings in the case pending before Judge Logan [the case Ming filed to stay the UDRP transfer], show some confusion regarding the current owner of the TRX-related property and the proper defendant for Ming’s challenge to the order transferring trx.com. According to statements made by Mr. Villeneuve, Fitness Anywhere owned all TRX-related property, including the TRX trademarks, until it sold that property to JFXD in August 2022. Despite no longer owning any TRX-related property, in October 2022 Mr. Villeneuve initiated a domain name dispute proceeding on behalf of Fitness Anywhere. During those proceedings Mr. Villeneuve stated Fitness Anywhere was “the owner of the famous trademark TRX.”  That administrative proceeding resulted in an order that trx.com be transferred to Fitness Anywhere. If Fitness Anywhere no longer owned the TRX-related property prior to the administrative proceeding, it would appear the transfer order was improper. If, however, Fitness Anywhere did own the property and continued to own the property, Ming’s claims against Fitness Anywhere pending before Judge Logan are the proper avenue for resolving ownership of trx.com. In that situation, however, JFXD’s current complaint is improper because JFXD does not own the TRX-related property. In explaining why its complaint does not state a claim for relief, JFXD must explain the conflicting positions adopted by Mr. Villeneuve. In particular, JFXD must explain whether Fitness Anywhere owned any TRX-related property at the time Mr. Villenueve stated Fitness Anywhere “is the owner of the famous trademark TRX.”

JFXD TRX’s response

JFXD TRX twisted itself into knots trying to explain (pdf) how the 2022 sale of the domain trx.com is a new registration and thus should be considered cybersquatting.

Frankly, its arguments are incoherent in many places. Many of the sentences are missing words. It conflates a registrar selling a domain with a marketplace brokering a domain. It makes a strange argument about the domain “falling to the public domain.” And it says that the value of .com domains is “plummeting” because there are other top-level domains available, which makes one wonder why it’s so important that the company get the .com domain.

It seems that the plaintiff is arguing that the original registration expired and Ming subsequently registered the domain. But the plaintiff doesn’t spell out how this happened (perhaps because it didn’t.)

I’m not the only person confused by the response.

The judge noted, “The Court cannot understand large portions of Plaintiff’s response and it is not clear whether this is, in fact, Plaintiff’s argument [that the domain expired and was subsequently registered]. Liberally construed, however, Plaintiff is arguing the registration of trx.com expired on some date after the TRX trademark purportedly owned by Plaintiff came into existence.”

The Plaintiff’s response shows an incredible lack of understanding of the domain name system. Consider this argument:

FURTHER EVIDENCE A REGISTRAR OWNS THIS URL

Mid 2022, Plaintiff looked if the URL was available for $19.99 on GoDaddy®. It was not. GoDaddy LLC offered a paid broker service for $69.99. Plaintiff gladly paid. What happened next is worthy of a fiction book. Within the hour, an excited private agent called saying he was from the GoDaddy brokerage. There was a smell of money in the air, the same vibe as entering a used car showroom. The GoDaddy [sic] refused to contact the owner to simply see if it was willing to sell. The WHOIS had listed “au tuu” from Iceland and Plaintiff’s previous efforts never worked. The agent was forceful and explained the URL was “worth millions” and tried to bully Plaintiff in giving an initial seven number initial offer. Plaintiff, pushed back saying a broker should not have an incentive to raise prices and online tools priced this, at most, in the mid five figures. The exchanges were so forceful, Plaintiff reported the misconduct to GoDaddy LLC who then magically assigned a new broker. The second agent was in shock and did not know who the first agent was and what had happened.

So, the plaintiff hired a registrar’s domain buying service that charges a fixed fee plus a commission. And it was surprised when the broker got excited?

It sounds like a boring fiction book to me.

In its response, the plaintiff simply ignored the judge’s request that it explain the relationship between Fitness Anywhere and JFXD TRX and who owns the intellectual property.

The judge rules in favor of Ming

Yesterday, the judge in the case issued (pdf) an order in favor of Ming. He said the plaintiff could file an amended complaint if it could somehow show that the domain expired and was registered anew by Ming.

But the judge said that any such filing can’t ignore the question he asked earlier about what’s going on with the entities in this case. The response is important because it could show that the Complainant in the UDRP didn’t actually have the trademark rights it claimed.

Post link: Judge gives TRX.com owner a win in court battle

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Related posts:

1. A new lawsuit over TRX.com
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3. Company seeks preliminary injunction against TRX.com domain name

Listen to how two domain investors performed in 2023.

Once a year, domain investors Mark Levin and Logan Flatt join me on the show to discuss their sales results from the previous year.

On today’s show, you’ll learn how many domains they sold in 2023 compared to 2022, a breakdown of which top level domains they sold, how they are acquiring domain names, and what they are trying differently in 2024 to try to improve their results.

Also: Mar-a-Lago, .com price increase, Epik’s owner, Namecheap v. ICANN, GPT.

Sponsor: Sav.com backorders

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)

Post link: Actual domain investor results – DNW Podcast #473

© DomainNameWire.com 2023. 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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Even aliens can’t get our attention without a website.

Squarespace (NYSE: SQSP) has been a regular fixture in the Super Bowl for many years now.

The company, which is one of the largest website builders and now (thanks to its acquisition of Google Domains) one of the largest domain name registrars, returns to today’s game with “Hello Down There.”

It’s the company’s tenth Super Bowl ad.

The commercial depicts aliens arriving on Earth, but no one is paying attention because they’re visiting websites on their phones and laptops. To get human attention, the aliens need to create a website.

Squarespace has a clever tagline: A website makes it real.

The 30-second commercial directed by Martin Scorsese might be a bit difficult to follow. But there’s a longer cut that is not restricted by the $7 million Super Bowl ad rate. I’ve embedded the full version below.

Post link: Watch the 2024 Squarespace Super Bowl Commercial

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But price hikes help the company post solid financials.

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) reported earnings yesterday and, once again, blamed China for a drop in domain name registrations.

The company had 9.0 million new .com and .net registrations during the quarter. That’s down from 9.7 million in the same quarter a year ago and 9.9 million in Q3 2023.

The overall base of .com and .net domains sunk 1.2 million names during the quarter, landing at 172.7 million. That’s also down from 173.8 million domains at the end of 2023.

Peeling back the curtain, the reason for the drop was a significant decline in China. The company lost 2.2 million domains under management there during 2023. So, without that precipitous fall, Verisign would have shown growth in the domain base last year.

Looking ahead to 2024, the company expects the domain base to shrink by as many as 1.0 million domains or grow by as many as 1.0 million.

You don’t need to cry for Verisign, though. Revenue increased to $1.49 billion, and the company pulled in $1.0 billion of operating income, or more than $1 million per employee.

Post link: China sinks Verisign’s domain base in Q4

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.Com domains will cost $10.26 plus markup beginning in September.

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) today announced that it is raising the wholesale price of .com domain names on September 1, 2024.

The registry currently charges registrars $9.59 per year for .com registrations. That will increase to $10.26.

Verisign is allowed to increase prices by 7% in each of the last four years of its six-year contract renewal. This year marks the final of those four years for the current contract. So, unless the U.S. government intervenes, the price should be fixed at $10.26 for the next couple of years.

Current registrants of .com domain names can avoid the price increase by renewing their domains in advance for up to ten years at today’s prices.

Verisign announced the hike in conjunction with its 2023 earnings results. The company reported revenue of $1.49 billion for 2023. While the number of domains under management fell over the course of the year, a 7% price increase instituted in September 2023 helped nudge revenue up 4.8% year over year.

Post link: Verisign announces .com price hike to $10.26

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Judge agrees to dismiss two of three claims.

Blockchain naming platform Unstoppable Domains has convinced a judge to dismiss two claims brought against it by the owner of the .wallet domain in Handshake.

Unstoppable Domains sued Gateway Registry in 2022 after Gateway started offering second level registrations in the Handshake .wallet name. Unstoppable offers a rival .wallet blockchain name.

Gateway was selling domains on behalf of Handshake .wallet registrant Scott Florsck. Gateway shut down shortly after the lawsuit was filed.

Unstoppable and Florsck then filed lawsuits against each other (within about an hour) on September 21, 2022. About a year later, Unstoppable dropped its suit against Florsck, but Florsck retained his suit.

In his suit, Florsck asks for a declaratory judgment that he isn’t infringing Unstoppable’s purported trademark rights. He also alleged that Unstoppable engaged in unfair competition under the Lanham Act and that it violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Unstoppable asked the judge to dismiss the latter two claims, and Judge Colm F. Connolly issued an order today agreeing with Unstoppable.

In the decision (pdf), Connolly noted that Florsck based both of the claims on Unstoppable’s decision to file a lawsuit against Gateway. He wrote:

Unstoppable argues, and I agree, that these claims are barred by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. That doctrine “provides broad immunity from liability to those who petition the government, including administrative agencies and courts, for redress of their grievances.”

The lawsuit will continue on the other count for declaratory judgment.

Post link: Unstoppable Domains wins partial motion to dismiss in .wallet lawsuit

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3. Unstoppable Domains drops lawsuit against Handshake .wallet owner

App for runners tries to get domain registered well before it had trademark rights.

Financial software company Intuit has won a reverse domain name hijacking charge against RunSmart Online, LLC.

RunSmart Online, LLC filed a cybersquatting complaint against Intuit’s domain name RunSmart.com. It appears that RunSmart Online, LLC is a small business that uses the domain runsmartonline.com.

It makes sense that the company would desire the shorter domain runsmart.com. Unfortunately for it, Intuit registered the domain more than a decade before the Complainant started using the name.

It appears that RunSmart Online, LLC wasn’t represented by a lawyer, and it shows. This case was dead on arrival because it’s impossible to show that Intuit registered the domain to target a non-existent trademark.

Panelist David S. Safran had no problem finding that the case was filed in bad faith as an attempted reverse domain name hijacking.

Fenwick & West represented Intuit.

Post link: Intuit wins reverse domain name hijacking charge

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