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: Generating Revenue with Lead Generation (and No Google AdSense) – With Frans van Hulle
How do you maximize the revenue you can generate from a website using lead generation and no Google AdSense?That’s the question answered in this interview focused on the insurance, home security and new-car buying industries.
Also discussed is the development of BestQuotes.com, AutoComparison.com and PetPremium.com, including business results (the good and the bad) and lessons learned along the way.
This Week’s News in Review
Marchex Shelves Plans to Spin Off Domains Division Archeo – 19-Sep-13
Archeo will remain a division of Marchex instead of becoming its own publicly traded company. Marchex has canceled its plan to spin off its domain name business into a separate public company, at least for now. The company announced plans last November to spin off its domain business into a new company called Archeo. Marchex…
Donuts Loses Another Objection to .pets Domain Name – 19-Sep-13
Another panelist finds that .pet and .pets are too similar to both be delegated as top level domain names Apparently two panelists agree: .Pets and .Pet should be in a contention set because they’ll cause confusion amongst internet users. International Centre for Dispute Resolution just posted a decision (pdf) by panelist Richard Page for Google’s…
GoDaddy Acquires Afternic From NameMedia – 19-Sep-13
Acquisition will make it easier for customers to buy domain names that are already registered. GoDaddy has acquired domain name sales platform Afternic from NameMedia in a move that will make it easier for people to buy domain names that are already registered. The acquisition also includes NameMedia’s domain name parking platform SmartName. The BuyDomains.com…
Neustar Analysis Shows ICANN Mitigation Plan Overstates Risk of Harmful Domain-Name Collision – 18-Sep-13
Neustar, Inc. (NYSE:NSR) today filed comments with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) opposing its proposal to delay the launch of hundreds of new generic top-level domains (TLDs). Neustar stated that its evaluation of existing data demonstrates that the inclusion of numerous proposed TLDs in an “uncalculated risk” category is unwarranted. The company believes that the risks can be calculated, and mitigated, and suggests a means for doing so.
Bergzeit Gmbh Owner of Bergzeit.de: Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking – 18-Sep-13
Bergzeit GmbH of Wooden Churches , Germany , represented by lawyers Riegger , Ludwigsburg, Germany has been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on the domain name Bergzeit.com by a one member WIPO panel…
Verisign Loses Objection Against Dish’s .dtv Top Level Domain Name – 18-Sep-13
Panelist says .DTV can coexist with .TV. Verisign has lost a String Confusion Objection against Dish DBS over the string .DTV. Verisign runs the registry for .TV, and argued that having .TV and .DTV as top level domain names would confuse the average internet user. Panelist Archibald Findlay turned in a rather lengthy (pdf)…
Friendfinder Networks Inc, Publisher of Penthouse & Owner of a Ton of Websites Files for Bankruptcy – 18-Sep-13
Just two years after it went public at $10 a share, FriendFinder Networks, publisher of Penthouse, and a ton of websites including AdultFriendFinder.com filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday…
Bright.com Raises $14 Million in Series B – 18-Sep-13
Bright.com, sold for six figures in 2010, is being put to good use. Job search site Bright.com has raised $14 million in a Series B round. The Bright.com domain name sold through Sedo for $112,500 back in 2010. Looking at historical whois records, I’m not 100% sure that it was the company that’s currently operating…
Google Signs First New gTLD Contract – 18-Sep-13
Google has signed its first Registry Agreement with ICANN, covering the new gTLD .み��”な. The string means “everyone” in Japanese. It had priority number 34. Google proposes to use it as an open TLD, available for anyone to register names in. Signed by Google subsidiary Charleston Road Registry, it’s the 34th new gTLD contract ICANN…
ICANN Looking Into String Confusion Confusion – 18-Sep-13
ICANN is looking at “consistency issues” in new gTLD String Confusion Objections, program manager Christine Willett said in an ICANN interview published last night. The nature of the probe is not clear, but ICANN does appear to be working with the dispute resolution provider, the International Centre For Dispute Resolution, on the issue. In the…
Thought Convergence to Launch Domain Name Escrow Service Agreed.com – 17-Sep-13
Domain company ready to enter the domain escrow business. Thought Convergence, the company behind domain parking company TrafficZ and domain sales and parking platform Aftermarket.com, is getting ready to launch its own domain escrow service. The company, which tends to pick high quality domains for its new products, has named the new service Agreed. Naturally, […]
20 Domain Registrars Sign 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement – 17-Sep-13
Most large domain name registrars have yet to sign the new agreement. Two months after the first five domain registrars signed the new 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement with ICANN, only 15 more have signed on. In fact, two of the registrars that were on the registrar negotiating team for the agreement have yet to sign […]
Centralnic Business Model Will Cause Lots of New TLD Confusion – 17-Sep-13
Selling registrations under second level domains that match new TLD strings will increase confusion as new TLDs launch. Earlier this month CentralNic went public, largely on the promise that new top level domain names can generate significant revenue for the registry services provider. Yet it’s CentralNic’s current business model – which it continues to extend […]
Tencent is Latest to Challenge ICANN On New TLD Objections – 17-Sep-13
Company lost legal rights objections for weibo domain names. Chinese internet giant Tencent is the latest company to ask ICANN to reconsider a new top level domain objection decision. The company is challenging the legal rights objections brought by rival Sina against its applications for .微博 and .weibo. Sina was the only other applicant for […]
14oz.net Loses Bid to Grab 13 Year Old Domain Name 14oz.com in UDRP – 17-Sep-13
Bread & Butter GmbH & Co. of Berlin, Germany, which operates under the domain name 14oz.net just lost its bid to gain control of the domain name 14oz.com in a one person UDRP decision…
Coming Soon: Phone Numbers in .tel – 17-Sep-13
Will companies defensively register their phone numbers? Telnic is to start selling long numeric .tel domain names for the first time, so we’re about to find out. The company plans to lift the longstanding restriction on numeric domains of eight characters or longer on October 15, according to a press release (pdf) this morning: Registrants […]
HealthySolutions.com Owned Since 2000, Lost in UDRP As Panel Rejects Laches – 16-Sep-13
Health Management Resources Corporation just won the rights to the domain name HealthySolutions.com in a one member panel National Arbitration Forum Decision, despite the fact that the domain was registered and owned by the domain holder Todd Kingsley since March 6, 2000 and the case seemed to turn on the fact the domain name was parked and some of the links were found to be in the classes covered by the trademark…
Interisle Cashes in As New TLD Hopefuls Pay for More Data – 16-Sep-13
New TLD applicants turn to Interisle for more data in effort to avoid more delays. Interisle Consulting Group dropped a bombshell on new top level domain name applicants when it submitted its 197 page report to ICANN about name collisions and new top level domain names. As a result of the report, about 20% of […]
Interisle Cashes in As New TLD Hopefuls Pay for More Data – 16-Sep-13
New TLD applicants turn to Interisle for more data in effort to avoid more delays. Interisle Consulting Group dropped a bombshell on new top level domain name applicants when it submitted its 197 page report to ICANN about name collisions and new top level domain names. As a result of the report, about 20% of […]
.club Offers Solution to Name Collision Risks – 16-Sep-13
.CLUB Domains has come up with a simple workaround for its applied-for .club gTLD being categorized as risky by ICANN. The company wants to reserve the top 50 .club domains that currently see DNS root traffic, so that if and when .club goes live the impact on organizations that use .club internally will be greatly […]
Google Buys Bu.mp – 16-Sep-13
Google (GOOG) just bought Bump, a developer of Android/iOS apps that allow users to share contact info, photos, and other files by bumping their phones together. MarketWatch.com is saying the acquisition was between $30 Million and $60 Million and the company reportedly took in some $20 Million in investment…
Nominet Under Fire for Lack of Transparency – 16-Sep-13
Nominet has raised the ire of critics of its Direct.uk proposal for refusing to engage with them, including forcibly ejecting one of their number from a .uk policy meeting. Opponents of Direct.uk, which would open .uk’s second-level for the first time, have cataloged a number of instances of Nominet apparently failing to act in a […]
Stolen Domain Name Recovered Through UDRP – 16-Sep-13
Education group that manages Thompson Island gets its domain name back. Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center has recovered the domain name ThompsonIsland.org through a UDRP case. The group alleges that the domain name was stolen from its Network Solutions account. According to documents provided to the UDRP panel, it appears that an unauthorized person […]
Paramount Pictures Gets Paramount.co.UK in Nominet Ruling After Owner Asks for £120,000 – 16-Sep-13
Paramount Pictures Corporation was awarded the domain name the domain name Paramount.co.uk in an arbitration decision by Nominet when operates the .Uk ccTLD. Its a pretty interesting decision since the domain Paramount.co.uk, was first registered as on June, 25th 2005 with the then Registrant identified as TagNames Limited (UK Co. No. 4534942), and with the Administrative Contact listed as “Andy Hugh”…
Another .me Covered By Techcrunch: PushPage.me Raises $1.7m in Seed Funding & Launches W/ 5k Users – 16-Sep-13
TechCrunch.com just covered another company built around a .Me domain name.
According to the story PushPage.me is “launching its personal homepage and Q&A platform today, backed by $1.7 million in seed funding. ”…
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Auction List Revealed – 16-Sep-13
The organizers of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C conference, which will be held in just about one month at the Ritz Carlton in Ft. Lauderdale from October 20-23, just released its “First Glance List” for the domains that will be going up on auction during T.R.A.F.F.I.C…
ICANN Smacks Cheapies With The Ban Hammer – 16-Sep-13
ICANN for only the second time has suspended an accredited registrar’s ability to sell domain names. Cheapies.com, which has roughly 12,000 gTLD domain names under management, will not be able to create new domains or accept inbound transfers until January 2, 2014, according to ICANN. The 90-day suspension of its accreditation, longer by two months […]
EUrope Continues to Object to .wine gTLD – 16-Sep-13
The European Union is continuing to fight the proposed .wine and .vin gTLDs, even after ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee formally withdrew its advice on the applications. Neelie Kroes, vice president of the European Commission, wrote to ICANN on Thursday to say that its “firm position” is: under no circumstance can we agree having .wine and […]
Hundreds of New gTLD Applicants Still in GAC Limbo – 16-Sep-13
A little over five months after the Governmental Advisory Committee issued its controversial Beijing communique, demanding strict controls over hundreds of new gTLDs, ICANN has still not taken any action. ICANN’s New gTLD Program Committee “accepted” a bunch of the GAC’s advice on new gTLDs during its meeting last week, but yet again punted the […]
Africa.com Now Selling Subdomains From $40 – $5,000 Per Year – 15-Sep-13
Africa.com has become the latest site to sell Subdomains and according to the registry trademark holders have already grabbed a bunch…
Mashable: NSA.org Owner Selling Subdomans and Email Addresses for $100 – 15-Sep-13
According to Mashable.com, the owner of NSA.org just started selling email addresses for $100. According to the story, Chris Fisher, is registered the domain in 1995…
UDRP Filed On 12 Year Old Generic Domain Name Canary.com – 15-Sep-13
A UDRP has been filed on the generic domain name Canary.com. According to DomainTools.com the domain name was create in 2001 by a Lin ZanSong of China who still seems to be the registrant…
Media Options Expands Brokerage Services With New Broker Neal Resnik – 13-Sep-13
Domain name broker Media Options announces a new addition to their family: expert domain advisor Neal Resnik.
Montblanc Files Federal Cybersquatting Lawsuit Over 126 Domain Names – 13-Sep-13
Montblanc the luxury pen maker filed a federal lawsuit today in the Virginia Eastern District Court against a bunch of domain holders for CyberSquatting under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) seeking control of the domain names, $100,000 statutory damages for each domain name and attorney fees…
9 String Confusion Objections Dismissed, Commercial Connect Loses 8 – 13-Sep-13
.Shop applicant Commercial Connect is the big loser in the latest batch of String Confusion Objections. After a long drought, International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) has posted an updated list of String Confusion Objection decisions. Today’s list includes nine more determinations, all found in favor of the applicant for the domains. First, Verisign lost […]
.kiwi.nz Domain Shows 35.7% Growth in Registrations – 13-Sep-13
One year after its launch, the .kiwi.nz domain is the top performing second level domain in terms of newly created domain name percentages.
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