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
- DomainSherpa Review – Mar 24, 2014
Get into the minds of the Sherpas with the DomainSherpa Review!* An investor’s portfolio is reviewed and appraised
* 21 domain names going to auction at NameJet are valued
* Page Howe takes the crown in this week’s “Name That Price” gameFor each domain name portfolio, the Sherpas answer:
* Which domains are valuable, and in what way?
* What is the market value (both wholesale and retail) of the best domain names?
* Which domains are worthless and should be dropped?
* Which domain names may invite legal issues, such as a UDRP case or cybersquatting lawsuit?
* Which domains do our Sherpas want to make an offer on?We’re joined by three Domain Sherpas: Adam Dicker, Andrew Rosener and Page Howe.
Additional Resources
- DomainSherpa Discussion: ICANN Singapore; Neustar Buys .CO; IRS & Bitcoin…
This is the show where we discuss domain name industry news with a panel of veterans and thought leaders.In this DomainSherpa Discussion:
* What actually happened at ICANN 49 in Singapore this week?
* Neustar acquires the .CO registry, who’s it good for?
* The IRS decides how you should treat Bitcoin on your taxes, know how?
* Page Howe finds a potential “We Get It” TRAFFIC award nominee in Water.com
* Does Twitter “get it” with First-Tweets.com registration?
* And more!
This Week’s News in Review
1st URS Filed On a .uno Domain, Aeropostale.uno Leads The Weekly URS Report – 27-Mar-14
The first URS has been filed on a .Uno domain name. .Uno just launched this week. The clothing maker Aeropostale filed a URS against the domain name Aeropostale.Uno which was just registered on the 21st of March…
Microsoft is Happy About The US Giving Up Oversight of ICANN – 27-Mar-14
In a statement issued by Microsoft today they “applaud The US NTIA’s transition of key Internet domain name functions”. The statement was made on behalf of Microsoft by David Tennenhouse Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Technology Policy…
Sedo Holdings Reports: Revenue Up 5.5%; Domain Parking Down; 16.5 Million Domains for Sale – 27-Mar-14
Sedo Holding AG just issued its Annual Report for 2013 and revenues overall were up by 5.5% to €140.0 million (previous year: €132.7 million). But the growth was driven by the Affiliate Marketing segment, “although it performed significantly more weakly than expected”…
Twitter Files UDRP On Twıtter.com (IDN) – 27-Mar-14
Twitter.com filed a UDRP on the domain name twıtter.com. Twıtter.com is an IDN; xn--twtter-4ja12b.com and goes to a page that has a picture of what appears to be someone in the armed forces somewhere by the name of RUHUNUZ ŞÂD OLSUN �-CÜNÜZ ALINDI…
EU Buys More Time for .wine Talks After Surprise GAC Objection – 27-Mar-14
The ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee deposited a shock fly into the wine-related gTLD ointment tonight, asking ICANN to delay approval of .wine and .vin on a technicality. ICANN’s board of directors had at the weekend basically approved the two new gTLDs, over the objections of the European Union, but the GAC today said the board’s…
UDRP Panel Punts Denying Google’s UDRP On AndroidTV.com – 27-Mar-14
Google Inc. (“Complainant”) just lost a UDRP on the domain name androidtv.com and xbmcandroidtv.com. Its a pretty interesting case in which the Panel winds up punting saying the dispute is outside of scope of the UDRP but I think having read all the facts and findings of the panel and the argument of the respondent, this UDRP should not have been dismissed on its merits not as being outside the scope of the UDRP…
ICANN Acts: .vg; .zm; Collision Issue, Approves Studies for 2 Round; Get’s Ready for US Exit – 27-Mar-14
ICANN Board passed some resolutions last night on the last day of the ICANN Meeting in Singapore…
After 1st Day of Availability .email Has 12k Registrations & Becomes 7th Most Popular New gTLD – 27-Mar-14
.Email is stilling just short of 12,000 registrations after its first full day of General Availability. According to ntldstats.com .Email zoomed past .Company to become the 7th most registered new gTLD to date…
PBS: Who Should Oversee The Web ? – 26-Mar-14
PBS covered the topic of just who should oversee ICANN and what part government should have in that role. Host Judy Woodruff sat down with Vint Cerf from Google and Randolph May of the Free State Foundation. There is a full transcript on the site if you do not wish to watch the video…
Sign.com and Signs.com Settle Dispute – 26-Mar-14
You can’t trademark “sign” for selling signs. The owners of the category-killer domain names Sign.com and Signs.com have settled a legal battle over their ability to co-exist. In Janauary 2013 I wrote about how the owner of Sign.com made the bizarre claim that Signs.com was violating its service mark by using the domain Signs.com to…
.UK Adds Registry Lock Option – 26-Mar-14
.UK domains can now get added protection against nameserver and domain hijacking. .UK registry Nominet is now offering its own version of a registry lock service, dubbed “Domain Lock.” Similar to Verisign’s Registry Lock service for .com domain names, Domain Lock requires manual intervention and authentication in order to change key details about a domain…
End User Sales Report: People Still Want The Matching .com – 26-Mar-14
Many examples of companies buying the matching .com when they use a .net, .org, or ccTLD. Frank Schilling said something during his keynote at NamesCon that really rings true. When companies get a domain name other than .com, they say to themselves “we really ought to get the .com domain too”. In the year 2014,…
Whibse.com New Bulk Domain Lookup Tool – 26-Mar-14
Domain name intelligence service Whibse.com has released an update to its bulk Whois tool that “quickly and accurately retrieves and fully parses all fields in the Whois records, along with reputation information, all IP address information, all server information”…
Cheers! .wine and .vin Domains Ready to Be Bottled – 26-Mar-14
Wine domain names can move forward without additional restrictions. The New gTLD Program Committee of ICANN’s board has given the green light for the .wine and .vin top level domain names to move forward without additional restrictions. A number of governments, particularly in Europe, were opposed to the delegation of the domain names without added…
.wine is a Go – 26-Mar-14
ICANN has approved the new gTLDs .wine and .vin, despite objections from the European Union. In a resolution this weekend, published today, its board’s New gTLD Program Committee said “that the applications for .WINE and .VIN should proceed through the normal evaluation process.” The resolution acknowledges the Governmental Advisory Committee’s lack of consensus against the…
Zeptolab Seeking to Cancel King.com EU Trademark On Candy – 26-Mar-14
We have written before how King.com the makers of the wildly popular Candy Crush Saga were seeking to trademark Candy for video games and clothing. Last month King.com decided to pull their US application and are no longer seeking to trademark the word ‘Candy’ with the USPTO…
Famous Four Alleges Link Between Panelist and Opponent for .sport – 25-Mar-14
Company says panelist that killed its .sport application had a conflict of interest. Last fall Famous Four Media saw its plans to run a .sport top level domain dashed after a panelist found in favor of rival applicant SportAccord in a community objection. Famous Four appealed the decision to ICANN through a reconsideration request and…
Some Interesting .email Domain Registrations & The Dallas Cowboys Miss Again – 25-Mar-14
As we said in an earlier post today we went through the zone file for .Email to see what people have been registering. We noticed some interesting registrations. The Dallas Cowboys which has an illustrious history when it comes to domain names, just missed again not applying for the domain name cowboys.email, in Sunrise and the owner of the domain is now Cowboys Concert Hall, Inc which is also out of Dallas…
IRS Rules Bitcoin (Virtual Currency) Will Be Treated As Property Not Currency – 25-Mar-14
The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday that it will treat Bitcoin and other virtual currencies like property, like stock or other intangible property rather than currency. If the virtual currency is held for investment, any gains would be treated as capital gains…
5 More Donuts TLDs Available to Register Tomorrow & .email is The Winner So Far – 25-Mar-14
.Email has the most registrations so far for this week’s batch. Five more of Donuts’ new top level domain names revert to regular registration pricing tomorrow: .training, .solutions, .support, .builders and .email. So far it looks like .email is the winner — but anything can change when prices drop tomorrow. The latest .email zone file…
Over Half a Million Trademark Claims Notices Served – 25-Mar-14
The Trademark Clearinghouse has delivered over 500,000 Trademark Claims notices and prevented over 475,000 trademarked names from being registered, according to the TMCH. The 500,000 number announced in a press release today seems to refer to pre-registration warnings that the name about to be registered matches a trademark in the TMCH database. Three weeks ago…
.hotels Applicant Files IRP On ICANN – 25-Mar-14
New gTLD applicant Booking.com has filed an Independent Review Process complaint against ICANN. ICANN and Booking.com attorney Flip Petillion of Crowell & Moring confirmed the filing with DI this evening. Earlier Belgian newspaper reports of a full-on lawsuit appear to be inaccurate. The IRP — ICANN’s final appeals process, designed to avoid lawsuits — is…
Bad Decision: HugeDomains.com Turns Down $6k & Loses Generic Domain in UDRP – 24-Mar-14
Austin Pain Association (“Complainant”), just won control of the domain name AustinPain.com which was owned by HugeDomains.com. As someone who is the subject of UDRP complainants as well (2 pending) it brings me no joy to report on these cases, but the cases are the cases and in this case HugeDomains.com lost control of AustinPain.com which the panel acknowledged was generic in nature and for which the complainant didn’t even have a registered trademark and a common law trademark which “Complainant has done just barely enough to show trademark rights in AUSTIN PAIN…
Go Daddy Closing The Go Daddy Direct Affiliate Program – 24-Mar-14
Go Daddy is closing its Direct Affiliate Program. “After months of compiling data, projecting development timelines and deciding how to best serve our Affiliates’ needs, we have decided to close the GoDaddy Direct Affiliate Program…”
Cybersquatting Lawsuit Filed Against AnnualCreditReport.com Typos – 24-Mar-14
Company goes after ten typos of popular website. A company created by the three major U.S. consumer credit bureaus has filed an in rem lawsuit against 10 typo domain names. Central Source LLC was formed to operate the AnnualCreditReport.com website after the U.S. government passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) in 2003. The law…
Radix Boots ARI in Favor of CentralNic – 24-Mar-14
CentralNic picks up contracts for new TLDs from rival. New top level domain name applicant Radix has selected CentralNic to be the backend registry provider for its .website, .host, .space and .press top level domain names. Radix had originally said that ARI Registry Services would be the technical services provider for all of its top…
Secure Domain Foundation Launches Backed By Facebook, Verizon, Verisign, Rightside, .ca, .co, Domaintools, Blacknight – 24-Mar-14
Experts and companies in the information security industry formed the Secure Domain Foundation (SDF), a non-profit, community-driven organization devoted to the identification and prevention of Internet cyber crime utilizing the DNS and launched it at the ICANN’s 49th Public Meeting…
Cleveland Clinic’s .med Application is Alive Again – 24-Mar-14
Board Governance Committee to consider if application should move forward. A lot of new top level domain name applicants have filed “Reconsideration Requests” after finding themselves on the losing end of objections. They all have the same story: we were wronged, and we were wronged in a way unique to everyone else who has failed…
UDRP Panel Orders Return of Purportedly Stolen Domain – 24-Mar-14
A one member UDRP panel has ordered the return of a purportedly stolen domain name, Teenee.com. The UDRP was decided by the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre…
OMG! gTLD Applicant Actually Wins Objection Appeal – 24-Mar-14
Medistry has become the first new gTLD applicant to win an appeal to ICANN over an objection decision that went against it. The .med hopeful has also become the first entity in years to successfully use the much-derided Reconsideration Request process to get ICANN’s board of directors to revisit a decision. The company’s application received…
Who Runs The Internet? An ICANN 49 Primer – 23-Mar-14
The ICANN 49 public meeting is kicking off here in Singapore right now, and control of the domain name system is going to be the hottest of hot topics for the next four days. Two Fridays ago the US government announced its plan to remove itself from oversight of key internet functions currently managed by…
Why Neustar Paid $109 Million for .co and What It Means for New TLDs – 21-Mar-14
While the circumstances behind Neustar’s acquisition of .CO Internet were unique, it bodes well for operators of new TLDs. Neustar announced yesterday that it is paying $109 million to acquire .CO Internet, operator of the .com domain name. It’s a big price tag, and here’s how it breaks down: * $68 per currently registered .Co…
A Domain Investor Goes to WIPO’s Home in Geneva to Learn More About UDRP – 21-Mar-14
Nat Cohen traveled to Geneva to learn more about the current state of UDRP. Here’s what he learned. Last October, at the suggestion of attorneys John Berryhill and Zak Muscovitch, I flew to Geneva to attend a workshop presented by WIPO entitled WIPO Advanced Workshop on Domain Name Dispute Resolution: Update on Precedent and Practice…
Top Level Domain Holdings Starts Trading Under Minds + Machines Today – 21-Mar-14
Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (“TLDH”) has officially changed its name to and started trading today under Minds + Machines Group Limited. From today, the Company’s shares will trade uwith the EPIC ticker symbol, MMX…
First IDN gTLD Auction Raises $181,000 – 21-Mar-14
TLD Registry today raised over $181,000 in “premium” Chinese IDN domain names. A live/online auction coordinated by Sedo and held at the China Rouge members’ club here in Macau saw 39 lots go under the hammer, 33 of which managed to raise at least the $2,000 minimum bid. All the names were in .在线 (“.online”),…
Sedo Macau Auction Concludes With Close to $200,000 in Sales – 21-Mar-14
In what was an interesting way to follow an auction, Sedo concluded their Macau auction this morning and they were updating people on Twitter as the auction ran. They actually set up a Twitter handle for the auction, @twitter.com/macauauction The account had 20 followers and they made close to 400 tweets…
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….
ICANN: Important Corrections to Inaccuracies and Misconceptions Regarding U.S. Announcement – 20-Mar-14
ICANN in a blog post today, entitled Important Corrections to General Inaccuracies and Misconceptions Regarding U.S. Announcement and IANA Functions tries to quite the outrage coming from many in the domain community and Congress.
Here is some of the blog post (edited)…
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…
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