Be Interviewed on DomainSherpa
Every Friday, DomainSherpa.com provides you with a hand-selected, editorially-based review of the weekly news. In this summary, you will find the latest articles and videos produced by DomainSherpa staff and contributors. You will also find links to the best news articles in the domain name industry – so you don’t have to spend your time searching for news or reading something that was not worth your time.
This Week’s DomainSherpa Interview
- VIDEO: How to Sell a Domain Name Redux – With Adam Dicker
Everyone loves to hear about people selling a domain name for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. But a sales price of that magnitude is the exception, not the rule.In 2013, Sedo transacted more than 37,000 domain name sales on their marketplace. The average price was almost $1,900, with a median price of about $600. The fact is, most domain names sell in the range of $100 to $10,000.
To discuss his personal portfolio statistics, I invited back to the show past Domain Sherpa Adam Dicker, who shares his strategy and roll-up-your-sleeves tactics to sell three- and four-figure domain names.
Additional Resources
- DomainSherpa Discussion: U.S. Relinquishing ICANN Control; Verisign Stock; Go Daddy IPO…
This is the show where we discuss domain name industry news with a panel of veterans and thought leaders.In this DomainSherpa Discussion:
* U.S. Department of Commerce relinquishing control over ICANN in September 2015, Good for investors and the Internet?
* Verisign stock drops 10% on ICANN news, Why?
* Go Daddy talks to bankers about potential IPO, Will you invest?
* In the wake of the Donuts.co and eco.TLD “claw back”, what are the rights and responsibilities of registries?
* Mike Berkens’ MostWantedDomains.com sells Teabox.com for $30K, Startup seeks $1MM in seed funding on TechCrunch.com, Productive to look back at sales?
* And more! - DNTaxGuide: Domain Name Tax Guide for Investors
April 15 is tax day in the United States and we’re here to help.DomainSherpa has just published DNTaxGuide, a domain name tax guide that is written by a Certified Public Accountant and reviewed by a a former IRS Agent.
It covers all the essentials you need to know about as an investor, including income streams, legal entities to protect your personal assets, how to classify income, how to treat charitable donations and much more…
This Week’s News in Review
DNTaxGuide: Domain Name Tax Guide for Investors – 20-Mar-14
DomainSherpa has just published DNTaxGuide, a domain name tax guide that is written by a Certified Public Accountant and reviewed by a a former IRS Agent….
Breaking: Neustar Acquires .CO for $109 Million – 20-Mar-14
Neustar pays $109 million for registry that runs .co domain name. Domain name registry Neustar has acquired .CO Internet S.A.S and associated assets for $109 million, the company announced moments ago. .CO Internet, which commercialized the .Co domain name starting in 2010, exited last year with an annual revenue run rate of $21 million. The…
12 Year Old Hobbex.com Registered 4 Years Before Trademark Lost in UDRP – 20-Mar-14
Hobbex AB of Borås, Sweden, just won a UDRP on the domain name Hobbex.com which is owned by Vertical Axis Inc. The case is disturbing because the domain holder registered the domain four years before the trademark holder got their trademark yet the majority of the three member panel gave the domain to the trademark holder finding that they used the “trademark for many years before it secured its registration”…
Exposed: A GoDaddy Impersonator, Lies, and an Expired Domain Name Scheme – 20-Mar-14
This month I received a call from someone impersonating GoDaddy. Last year someone called impersonating ICANN. Here’s what they were up to. In August 2013 I received a phone call from someone who claimed to be working for ICANN. He said he needed to verify the contact information on a couple of my domain names…
Amazon.com Registers .domains Domain Names for Each of Its Proposed TLDs – 20-Mar-14
Amazon.com grabs .domains domains corresponding to its new top level domain applications. Amazon.com has registered corresponding .domains domain names for each of the 65 Latin script top level domain names it has applied for. All of the registrations follow the format dotTLD.domains, e.g. dotAmazon.domains, dotCloud.domains, and dotDeal.domains. This is an interesting move that adds to…
UDRP Panel Gets AustinPain.com Decision Wrong – 20-Mar-14
Panel awards generic domain name to company with questionable trademark rights. A National Arbitration Forum panel has ordered the transfer of the domain name AustinPain.com, and I believe it got the decision wrong. The case was filed by Austin Pain Associates* against HugeDomains. The three person panel had to twist and rationalize UDRP rules in…
Another Banner Day for Domains As Total Adds is Almost 65,000; 35k From .com – 20-Mar-14
Domain name registrations continue to grow with a bunch of new gTLD going live and as people continue to register more of the orginal TLD’s .com, .net and .org. Yesterday new domain registrations over all TLD’s (not counting ccTLD’s) grew by a net of 64,430 domain name…
Frank Schilling’s Registrar is Live; The Good & The Bad – 19-Mar-14
Frank Schilling just rolled out Version 1 of his long anticipated registrar under Uniregistry as it went live today. Uniregistrar.com was going to be the name of the registrar but its now or shortly will be forwarded to Uniregisty.com…
15 Year Old Quebec.com Owned By Anything.com Saved in UDRP – 19-Mar-14
The government of Quebec just lost its bid to grab the domain name Quebec.com, but the domain owner failed to get a Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Ruling…
ICANN Last Resort Contention Auctions Look Like a Go With 1st Planned for June 4th – 19-Mar-14
ICANN just published a schedule of contention resolution Last Resort Auction and they start on June 4th with a goal of having 20 a month and resolving all of them in 1o months…
First ICANN gTLD Auction Slated for June 4 – 19-Mar-14
ICANN has published a preliminary schedule for its first new gTLD contention set auctions, which would see the first batch hit the block on June 4 this year. The plan is now to sell off roughly 20 strings every month, with the last lot going under the hammer in March 2015, a full year from…
Community gTLD Applicants Flunk On “Nexus” – 19-Mar-14
The first four Community Priority Evaluation results are in, and all four applicants flunked by failing to prove a “nexus” between the new gTLD string and the community they purport to represent. No applicant score more than 11 points of the 14 necessary to pass. A total of 16 points are available. Winning a CPE…
Donuts Plays The Genericide Card in Showdown With Belgian Government Over .spa – 19-Mar-14
Donuts has asked ICANN to approved its .spa new gTLD application over the objections of the Belgian government, saying the town of Spa no longer has exclusive rights to the string. As we reported at the weekend, Spa is asking Donuts and rival applicant Asia Spa and Wellness Promotion Council for an up to 25%…
One of The Worlds Best Domain; Chat.com is Sold By CBS Interactive – 19-Mar-14
One of the great domain names in the world, Chat.com was just sold. The domain name was owned by CBS Interactive, Inc. which acquired the domain it when it purchased Cnet in June 2008…
Strickling Refines Last Weeks Announcement On ICANN: No Government-led Solution Will Be Accepted – 19-Mar-14
Lawrence E. Strickling the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator seems to have backed off the statement he made last Friday, that the US was ready to let ICANN go out of United States control…
Marchex, Endurance Added to NASDAQ Internet Index – 19-Mar-14
NASDAQ (Nasdaq:NDAQ) announced the addition and deletion of companies to the NASDAQ Internet Index® (Nasdaq:QNET), which will become effective prior to market open on Monday, March 24, 2014…
.berlin Scores 30,000+ Registrations in Good News for City TLDs – 19-Mar-14
City domain name rockets out of the starting gate. The .Berlin top level domain name has quickly racked up over 30,000 domain name registrations according to the latest published zone file. A lot of domain industry insiders think .city domain names have some of the best potential among new TLDs, and .Berlin’s quick start is…
Registrar Suspends All Domain Names Transferred From Terminated Registrar – 19-Mar-14
EnCirca finds that domains were used for nefarious purposes. ICANN terminated the accreditation of domain name registrar ABSYSTEMS INC (dba yournamemonkey.com) in December for multiple contract breaches. ICANN transferred the domain names to another registrar as ICANN does in cases of a de-accreditation. In this case, EnCirca was the (not so) lucky registrar. EnCirca got…
GoDaddy Loses 5% Market Share of New gTLD’s As .berlin Changes The Game – 19-Mar-14
Godaddy.com share of the new gTLD market dropped 5% overnight after the domain extension for .Berlin launched getting almost 32,000 registrations
German based registrar, InterNetX said they were able to secure 81% of all preregistrations for its clients, “making it the #1 registrar for .BERLIN domains in the B2B sector”…
Chinese Government Buys 20,000 New IDN Domain Names – 19-Mar-14
TLD Registry inks deal with Chinese government for over 10,000 domains in each of its new TLDs. TLD Registry Ltd, which is launching the new top level domain names Dot Chinese Online (.在线) and Dot Chinese Website (.中�-���’), has inked a deal with the Chinese central government’s own registrar for 10,226 domain names in each…
TLD Registry Sells 20k+ Idn gTLD Names to Chinese Gov – 19-Mar-14
TLD Registry has sold 20,452 new gTLD domain names to the Chinese government as it prepares to launch .中�-���’ (“.chinesewebsite”) and .在线 (“.online”) tomorrow. The deal, signed this week with the Service Development Center of the State Council Office for Public Sector Reform (SCOPSR) is for 10,226 names in each gTLD. The domains include the…
55 New TLDs Request Exemption From Registry Code of Conduct – 18-Mar-14
55 .brand application owners request exemptions. Today ICANN posted 55 requests made by new TLD applicants for an exemption from the Registry Code of Conduct. The Registry Code of Conduct for new TLDs includes provisions related to showing preference to different registrars, registering domains in the registry’s own right, frontrunning, and control between an owned…
Frank Schilling Gets Hit With UDRP On The Domain Name ClearCare.com – 18-Mar-14
One of Frank Schilling Name Administration domain names has been hit with a UDRP. The domain name ClearCare.com has been owned by Name Administration since at least 2008 according to DomainTools.com. The complainant is not listed but Alcon a publicly traded company (ACL) makes a contact lens cleaning product known as Clear Care, which it uses the URL Clearcaresolution.com…
Panel Won’t Find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Due to WHOIS Privacy – 18-Mar-14
UDRP panelist cites whois privacy as reason for not finding RDNH. A single member National Arbitration Forum panel has found in favor of the owner of Finell.com, but declined to find reverse domain name hijacking because the owner used a whois privacy service. The UDRP complaint was brought by Finell Co., LLC, which has its…
.club Teams Up With TLD Registry for The China Market – 18-Mar-14
According to a press release out this morning, .CLUB Domains, LLC, the company formed to own and operate the new “.CLUB” top level domain, and TLD Registry the company behind the new gTLD for the Chinese IDN for Online (.在线) as well as the registry for the new gTLD (中�-���’) (Dot Chinese Website) have teamed up to market .Club to the China market…
.menu Picks Up Over 1,500 Registrations in First Day – 18-Mar-14
.Menu enters general availability with over 1,500 registrations. The .menu domain name entered general availability yesterday and got over 1,500 new registrations shortly after GA started, according to zone file data. Here are some of the types of domain names that were registered. Restaurant Brands Most of the restaurant names I found were smaller restaurants…
Weirdest New gTLD Launch Yet? .wed Launches With a Single Registrar – 18-Mar-14
The new gTLD .wed went into sunrise yesterday with the strangest pricing model yet and a stringent Registry-Registrar Agreement that seems to have scared off all but one registrar. Atgron is positioning .wed as a space for marrying couples to celebrate their weddings, but only temporarily. It seemingly has little interest in domain investors or…
Registrars Screwing Up New gTLD Launches? – 18-Mar-14
Some of the largest domain name registrars are failing to support new gTLDs properly, leading to would-be registrants being told unregistered names are unavailable. The .menu gTLD went into general availability yesterday, gathering some 1,649 registrations in its first half day. It’s not a great start for the new gTLD by any stretch, but how…
Full TMCH Database Published By Registry? – 17-Mar-14
DotBerlin seems to have published the full list of trademarks and other strings protected by the Trademark Clearinghouse. The list, published openly on nic.berlin as the .berlin new gTLD went through its sunrise period, contains 49,989 .berlin domain names that the registry says are protected. Neither the TMCH nor DotBerlin have yet responded to a…
First City New gTLD to Goes Live Tomorrow .berlin – 17-Mar-14
Arguably it is the extension that kicked this whole new gTLD thing off. On March 18, .BERLIN will launch into the General Availability phase. 777 years after the city was founded, any business, organization or individual can register Internet addresses under .BERLIN…
After Winning UDRP, Denver Nuggets Let DenverNuggets.com Domain Name Expire – 17-Mar-14
Denver’s NBA team fought hard for domain name but then dropped the ball. After going through the effort to win the domain name DenverNuggets.com in a UDRP, the NBA team has failed to renew the domain name. It now points to an expired domain parked page including ads for Denver Nuggets tickets. The basketball team…
You Can Bid On The Super Premium Live Domain Auction for The Chinese Idn Online – 17-Mar-14
TLD Registry the company behind the new gTLD for the Chinese IDN for Online (.在线) as well as the registry for the new gTLD (中�-���’) (Dot Chinese Website) will be holding a live auction in Macau starting at 11 a.m. Friday local Macau Time (03:00 UTC) March 21, 2014 (Thursday March 20th at 11pm EST), and Sedo.com will be taking online bids for those that cannot be in attendance…
Verisign Stock Punished After US Move From Root Control – 17-Mar-14
Verisign’s share price is down around 8% in early trading today, after analysts speculated that the US government’s planned move away from control of the DNS root put .com at risk. The analyst firm Cowan & Co cut its rating on VRSN and reportedly told investors: With less US control and without knowledge of what…
Panel Doesn’t Consider TLD in The First-ever New gTLD UDRP Case – 17-Mar-14
The first new gTLD domain name has been lost to a UDRP complaint. The famous German bike maker Canyon Bicycles won canyon.bike from a registrant who said he’d bought the name — and others — in order to protect the company from cybersquatters. The panelist in the case, WIPO’s Andrew Lothian, declined to consider the…
6 New TLDs Have Eclipsed The 10,000 Registration Milestone – 17-Mar-14
.Directory enters the club as I become more sure of my forecast for new TLD registration volumes. Of the dozens of new top level domain names to enter general availability so far, six have now topped 10,000 registrations based on zone file records. .Directory is the most recent entrant in this club after hitting the…
Verisign Now Down Over 10% Despite Assurances That ICANN’s Move Has No Effect On .com/.net – 17-Mar-14
Shares of Verisign are now down over 10% in trading today. Shares of the company ended trading on Friday at $54.85 are now trading at $49.17 after touch off of its intraday low of $48.55…
Verisign Tells Markets NTIA News Doesn’t Affect Its .com Contract While Stock Drops – 17-Mar-14
Verisign points out that NTIA announcement has nothing to do with .com, but at least one analyst has downgraded the stock due to uncertainty. Verisign issued a press release this morning reminding investors that Friday’s big news about the U.S. government transitioning internet responsibilities does not affect its lucrative contract to run the .com domain…
Canyon.bike Lost in 1st UDRP Decision On a New gTLD Domain Name – 17-Mar-14
Canyon Bicycles GmbH of Koblenz, Germany, just won the first UDRP decision on a new gTLD domain name, canyon.bike (all other decision up to now have been URS cases). The one member panel found that when it comes to new gTLD’s the will take the entire domain name, both on the left and right of the dot in determining whether the domain name infringes on a trademark…
Verisign Issues Statement On ICANN’s Move & is Down Over 5% in Pre-market – 17-Mar-14
VeriSign, Inc. VRSN today provided a statement on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) announcement of its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions. Verisign shares are down over 5% in pre-market activity trading at just over $52 a share…
Roundup: Industry Reaction to US Giving Up IANA Role – 16-Mar-14
Members of the domain name industry and ICANN community reacted generally positively to the news Friday night that the US will step aside from its central role in ICANN oversight. Several companies, organizations and individuals issued early statements in response. We present a summary of those to hit the wires so far here. First, the…
Belgians Do Want a Piece of Donuts’ New gTLD Action – 16-Mar-14
The Belgian government is blocking approval of Donuts’ bid for the new gTLD .spa until the company agrees to hand over up to 25% of its .spa profits to the community of the city of Spa. It emerged in a letter from Spa published by ICANN this weekend that the city is also demanding a…
U.S. Aims to Give Up Control Over ICANN – 14-Mar-14
U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move likely to please international critics but alarm some business leaders and others who rely on smooth functioning of the Web…
U.S. Plans to Relinquish IANA Contract in 2015 – 14-Mar-14
The NTIA has just announced that it plans to turn its IANA functions contract counterparty role over to “the global multistakeholder community” when the current contract expires at the end of September 2015…
WSJ: GoDaddy Prepping for Initial Public Offering – 14-Mar-14
WSJ reports that GoDaddy is interviewing bankers. It’s no secret that the next step for domain name registrar and webhosting company GoDaddy is an initial public offering. But now we have a bit more concrete understanding of where the company is the process. The Wall Street Journal reported this afternoon that GoDaddy is in the…
Here is The Offical Statement of The US Giving Up Control Over ICANN – 14-Mar-14
We just published that the United States is giving up control over ICANN. Here is the official statement from the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)…
Breaking: US to Give Up Control Over ICANN: We Predicted It in 2008 – 14-Mar-14
According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. government is preparing to relinquish oversight for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). We predicted back in 2008 that the Obama Administration would give up control over ICANN…
Teabox.com Sold By MostWantedDomains Featured in Tech Crunch – 14-Mar-14
Back in June of 2013 our very own Michael Berkens and his company Most Wanted Domains sold Teabox.com for $30,000. Today the company was featured on Tech Crunch as the company is seeking to raise $1million in seed funding…
Donuts: “Eco” Registrants Could Get Their Names Back – 14-Mar-14
Registrants whose domains were deleted by Donuts this week could get their names back, should ICANN release them from its reserved lists in future, the company said today. In an email to affected registrants, believed to number a few dozen, Donuts said: We are actively lobbying ICANN to make the domain names you registered available…
French Registrar Gets WHOIS Data Waiver – 14-Mar-14
The French registrar OVH has been told by ICANN that it can opt out of a requirement to retain its customers’ contact data for two years after their domain names expire. The move potentially means many more registrars based in the European Union will be able to sign the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement and start…
See Who Registered 1,659 .domains Domain Names in First Hours – 13-Mar-14
A look at registrants of .domains domain names. Individuals and companies registered 1,659 .domains domain names in the first hours after the domain entered regular-price general availability yesterday. I’d group the purchases in five groups: Brands: domain name brands were on top of this release, of course. Many of them got the domains through sunrise…
Patient.com Domain Name Hit With UDRP – 13-Mar-14
UK health software company claims that owner of Patient.com is cybersquatting. Egton Medical Information Systems Limited, an electronic healthcare records software company, has filed a UDRP against the domain name Patient.com. The domain name was registered in 1997 but was acquired at Sedo in 2012, according to historical whois records. I don’t believe the sale…
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