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Domain Name News: Week 4 of 2011 in Review

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Oversee.net Acquires ShopWiki Shopping Comparison Network – 28-Jan-11
Oversee.net, the leader in Internet real estate, specializing in monetizing, registering, selling and developing domain names, acquires New York-based multinational shopping search engine to expand its portfolio of websites that help consumers make informed purchase decisions. The acquisition is the first in the consumer retail space for Oversee’s expanding Vertical Markets division, which is further developing the company’s contextual search and comparative results capabilities to create site experiences that help consumers make purchase decisions.
India Gets 7 IDN County Code Domain Names – 27-Jan-11
India gets seven IDN ccTLDS and more good news for IDN domain name supporters. One thing I learned on my trip to India earlier this month is that there are a lot of local languages. This week ICANN approved delegation of seven (yes, seven) internationalized county code domain names to National Internet Exchange of India.
Google Changes Algorithm to Address Sites With Unoriginal Content – 28-Jan-11
Algorithm change went into effect earlier this week. Google web spam czar Matt Cutts blogged today about a recent algorithm change to Google’s rankings. The algorithm change is a follow up to Cutt’s post a week ago about addressing low level “content farms”. This could affect parked domains which take advantage of re-used content to make a domain look fully populated, which in turn drives up the price of a domain name.
ICANN Approves Short and Numeric-only .tel Domain Names – 28-Jan-11
Telnic Limited (http://telnic.tel), the registry operator for the .tel top level domain (TLD), today announced that, following the ICANN board meeting conducted in January 2011, ICANN has now approved the release of both short (such as jj.tel) and numeric-only (such as 442074676450.tel or 88.tel) .tel domain names for registration.
Verisign Fourth Quarter Profit Edges Ahead of Estimates On Higher Domain Names – 27-Jan-11
VeriSign revealed Thursday a fourth-quarter profit of $40.5 million, or 23 cents a share, compared with a profit of $92 million, or 48 cents a share, in the same quarter last year, narrowly below average analyst estimates polled by Thomson Reuters of 30 cents.
Network Solutions Offers Extra Security for .co Domain Registrations – 26-Jan-11
Network Solutions is now offering its private registration service for .CO domain registrations for as little as $9.99 per year per domain. Private registration allows registrants to protect their contact information from being listed in the public WHOIS database.
Paypal and Facebook The Most Phished and Blocked Domains Online – 26-Jan-11
OpenDNS’s report on Phishing and content filtering looks back at 2010 and examines the stats from more than 30 billion queries a day. In their report, they list PayPal as the most Phished site by criminals, and show the love/hate relationship users have with Facebook.
Kenya On Verge of Growing .ke Domain Market – 26-Jan-11
I had secured several high quality domain names under the .ke space over the years. These domain names were quite clearly “to die for” in any context. However, being in Kenya, and waiting till the last minute to renew them, I was sure I could do so quite easily. This was not to happen. The domain names I had were snapped up within minutes of expiring by other parties. I lost all of them except one. It was a sobering moment.
Investing in .co Domain Names: My Current Thoughts and Outlook – 26-Jan-11
.CO domain names were introduced in 2010 and have become a hot topic among domain investors. With Google’s consideration that .CO is an international domain extension rather than another ccTLD (despite the fact that it is actually Colombia’s ccTLD), I believe .CO domain names have the ability to perform well as websites in any country. I believe that this will mean businesses will be able to successfully build on .CO domain names.
Internet Content Provider Demand Media Rises 38% After IPO – 26-Jan-11
The stock of Demand Media Inc. (DMD) rose almost 40% immediately after its initial public offering Wednesday after the Internet content provider increased the size of the offering to accommodate investor demand. The company’s stock opened at $23.50 a share on the New York Stock Exchange, up 38% from its IPO price of $17. A total of 8.9 million shares, 1.4 million more than expected, were sold at a price above its expected $14-to-$16 range.
The Perils of Working With ICANN – 25-Jan-11
Business models dependent on ICANN are risky. If the new top level domain name process and .xxx are any indication, staking an entire business model on something that must work its way through the ICANN process requires unending patience and a strong appetite for risk. New top level domain names haven’t even been approved yet, but we’ve already seen layoffs in the new TLD business. Companies that sprung up to launch new TLDs have had to cut back to lower their burn rate.
Network Solutions Offers Private Label Domain Registration Services for Companies, Organizations and Communities Planning to Register, Manage and Sell New Gtlds – 25-Jan-11
In March 2011, the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that develops policies that govern the operation and use of domain names, is expected to formally launch the new generic top-level domain program (gTLD) that will allow applicants to own and manage their own gTLD on the Internet beyond the most commonly known .com, .net and .org. Brand managers, product managers, program directors, city managers and others will be able to secure domain names, such as .yourbrand, .yourproduct, .yourcause or .yourcity, and own a unique namespace on the Internet to further promote their brands, products, programs, and special interests. Those interested in securing a new gTLD will have to complete and submit a detailed business and technical application to ICANN for review and approval.
Sedo to Auction Off Domain Names February 10 Through 17 – 25-Jan-11
Ever heard of the website Shoes.co or Art.co, entrepreneurs? Neither has anyone else, because right now those .co extension names are up for sale.
Microsoft Granted Kinect Domain Names – 25-Jan-11
The main name in question was wwwkinect.com which was registered at the same time as the Kinect’s release by Moniker Online Services LLC. Microsoft lodged the complaint with the National Arbitration Forum saying that the domain was “confusingly similar” to the Kinect trademark despite its apparent typo. Microsoft believed they should therefore have the rights to it as it would otherwise confuse people. They also said that the “Respondent does not have any rights or legitimate interests in the (wwwkinect.com) domain name” and that it was filed in “bad faith”.
Cyber Criminals Sell .gov, ,mil and .edu Domains for a Price of $55 – 24-Jan-11
Hacked government and defense domains are being sold by cyber crooks at relatively acceptable prices. .gov, .mil and .edu domains in the United States and Europe can be sold to interested parties for a price between $55 and $499 each. Besides, the hacker also sells admin login credentials to hacked sites and looted personal data from compromised sites.
Google Lowercases Adwords Display Urls – 24-Jan-11
As expected Google has started to roll out their new policy of requiring the domain portion of the display URLs in the AdWords ad to be lowercase. If you search at Google, all the domain names in the AdWords ads should appear lowercase. If not, then maybe you are on an older data center and you will soon see it.
.jobs Changes are Not an Example of The Power of New Top Level Domains – 24-Jan-11
.Jobs changes could be done without the .jobs TLD. Over the weekend I read The Washington Post’s article about the liberalization of the .jobs TLD and what this means for companies such as Monster and Career Builder. Last week 40,000 .jobs web sites went live for just about every major profession (e.g. nurse.jobs) and city…
Judge Shuts Down Zuccarini Fight Against Namejet, Netsol, and Verisign – 24-Jan-11
Judge calls for an end to lengthy domain name battle. United States District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema has said enough is enough in a domain name lawsuit filed by John Zuccarini. Zuccarini filed the lawsuit after a court appointed receiver failed to renew domain names of his that were seized to settle a cybersquatting judgment.
Is Amazon.com Planning a Free 3 Day Shipping Plan? – 24-Jan-11
Recent domain name registrations hint to new promotion. Amazon.com currently offers free ground shipping on purchases of $25 or more and free two day shipping to members of its paid "Amazon Prime" promotion. But is the company launching a new free three day shipping option? Some recent domain name registrations suggest this may be…
In Another Blow at Content Farms, Google Could Let You Block Domain Names From Searches – 24-Jan-11
Google is finally doing something about spam. The noise is growing louder about the spam gumming up many Google queries, and about content farms like Demand Media (goodbye, eHow). Some people even think it might erode Google’s dominance over search. The latest move is that Google might allow you to blacklist entire domain names (like businessinsider.com) from searches. Once you add a domain to your blacklist, pages from that domain wouldn’t appear in your search results. In time, Google could use the domain names people blacklist as a repository of spam services.
Google May Let You Blacklist Domains to Fight Spam – 23-Jan-11
Ready for do-it-yourself spam fighting? Google has discussed giving searchers the ability to remove domains from its search results. That‚Äôs according to Matt Cutts, Google‚Äôs top spam fighter, who‚Äôs been posting frequently in a Hacker News discussion about Google‚Äôs search quality/spam blog post from Friday morning. In the discussion, Hacker News user ‚Äúbradly‚Äù asks if Google would consider letting searchers remove domains from search results themselves. Cutts replies, ‚Äúwe‚Äôve definitely discussed this,‚Äù and seems to hint that some kind of announcement may be on the way…
Dine With an Expert at Domainfest, But Frank Schilling is Booked – 23-Jan-11
Hurry if you want to dine with an expert at DOMAINfest. DOMAINfest is trying something new at its conference the first week of February: Dine With An Expert. Attendees can reserve a spot at the breakfast or lunch table with a handful of the event’s speakers. So who are the hottest tickets? Frank Schilling and SEO…
New Top Level Domain Timeline Takes Another Hit – 22-Jan-11
More delays likely to handle GAC issues. ICANN has released details about its upcoming meeting with the Governmental Advisory Committee regarding new top level domain names. Although the meeting will take place ahead of the ICANN meeting in San Francisco this March, the February 28-March 1 get together does not appear to be the final meeting…
A Visit to Directi Headquarters in Mumbai, India – 21-Jan-11
The Directiplex is a 1,500 seat building in the Andheri East area of Mumbai. It’s an impressive testament to Directi’s growth. The building houses all of the company’s businesses including ResellerClub, LogicBoxes, Skenzo, BigJumbo, and Media.net. It also houses the company’s new domain registrar BigRock.
Namedrive Releases Details On Investment and Reorganization – 21-Jan-11
Today I received information from domain name parking and sales company NameDrive about its recent investment from BIP Investment Partners and its company reorganization. BIP Investment Partners S.A., a public investor listed on the Luxembourg stock exchange, made an undisclosed investment in the company. BIP is no stranger to domain names; it holds investments in German registrar Key-Systems, Luxembourgian registrar EuroDNS, domain fund Domain Invest, as well as Polish registrar az.pl.
Wikipedia Owns Some Wikileaks Domains, But Assange Won’t Take Them Over – 21-Jan-11
Wikipedia owner Jimmy Wales says that WikiLeaks has not completed the paperwork on some Wikia-owned domains it transferred and that Wikia will let the domain names expire. Although some people confuse the two entities, they have no official relationship. Wales started the encyclopedia site called Wikipedia, which has involves people working collaboratively to write and edit online encyclopedia entries. Julian Assange started WikiLeaks, the organization that obtains secret documents from governments and businesses for the purpose of leaking them to the public.
Why I Rarely Hand Register Trend Domain Names – 21-Jan-11
3-D was hot last year, and some might argue it‚Äôs still hot. Everywhere you went, people talked about 3-D televisions and movies, and practically everything else 3D. From my perspective, that chatter seems to have died down a bit and consumers aren‚Äôt buying 3D tvs as much as expected. Too expensive, ugly/annoying glasses, not enough programming‚Ķetc all contributing to this… They‚Äôll be discarded like the losing lottery tickets they were hoped to be by their owners.

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