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• January 28, 2012
• 1:11

  The State of the Industry January 2012: DN Journal's Biggest Annual Cover Story is Now Out

   » ‎ Domain Name Journal
  For the 8th consecutive year, DNJournal.com kicks off the New Year with our annual State of the Industry Cover Story, an endeavor that brought together 15 experts and company leaders from across the industry to get their thoughts on the key trends of the past year and what they believe is in store in the year ahead.

• 0:04

  The WINNER of the $250 David Walsh Promo Code Contest

   » ‎ The Official Name.com Blog

  It was back in November of ’11 when the David Walsh deal went down. While at another registrar, Walsh’s domain was stolen, and the story exploded on the social-o-sphere like Justin Bieber had gone missing. Anyway, long story short, in lieu of lackluster support elsewhere, our legendary customer service kicked in and retrieved his domain…as well as a whole bunch of new customers. Our promise to these new Namers was that one of them (using the “DAVIDWALSH” transfer promo code) would win $250 dollars in Name.com credit. Well here is that day. The winner is…

  Kathy Ciaccarelli! (fireworks)

  She owns the gourmet gift shop Sweets N’ Smiles and creates high quality gift baskets, party favors and the best chocolate covered pretzels anywhere.

  We know this because she’s really good at selling her wares. When I emailed her the good news about the contest, she replied in perfect promotional form:

  “Sweets-N-Smiles is very excited to have won the name.com credit!  We are extremely happy with the ease of use of the name.com web site, as well as the customer service we received when we have had questions.  Our business, Sweets-N-Smiles, creates high quality gift baskets, party favors and the best chocolate covered pretzels anywhere.  Our web site www.sweetsnsmiles.com has an extensive selection of delicious chocolate gifts for any occasion.  We deliver nationwide.  We are so excited about our win that we would like to offer your customers a 10% discount on any order submitted on our website using coupon code NAMEDOTCOM through the end of February.”

  Sweet! Now she’s offering a promo code in return for our promo code. We could collapse into promo code spiral ending in a melee of free stuff. Until then, thank you Kathy for the virtual fist bump, and for encouraging great customer service. Please give her some love by visiting her site. It is, after all, almost Valentine’s Day.

• January 27, 2012
• 22:24

  Protests Erupt Over EU's Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

   » ‎ CircleID

  In a blog post today, Michael Geist writes: "The reverberations from the SOPA fight continue to be felt in the U.S. and elsewhere (mounting Canadian concern that Bill C-11 could be amended to adopt SOPA-like rules), but it is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that has captured increasing attention this week. Several months after the majority of ACTA participants signed the agreement, most European Union countries formally signed the agreement yesterday (notable exclusions include Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia). This has generated a flurry of furious protest..."

  Follow CircleID on Twitter

  More under: Access Providers, Censorship, Internet Governance, Law, Policy & Regulation

  

• 20:48

  Reseller Hosting with WHM is now Live!

   » ‎ ResellerClub Blog

  Over the past few months, as the team conducted numerous surveys and spoke to several Resellers, it became clear that Reseller Hosting is one of our most awaited products yet! We also realized that a significant part of our client base was also eager to have WHM & WHMCS access with this product.

  Reseller Hosting with WHM & WHMCS is now live!

  We’ve been listening. Today we’re thrilled to announce the launch of our latest Hosting Product – Reseller Hosting with WHM and WHMCS. This product has been in a limited beta for the past month, where over 800 Resellers tested it, and is now available across all our programs.

  Take Advantage of our Introductory Promo!

  Till the 26^th of February you can choose to purchase/sell any of the four Reseller Hosting packages at the following Introductory Price!

  

  Get Started Now!

  If you aren’t already signed up, you can sign up from the ‘Manage Products and Pricing’ section of your Control Panel.

  We’ve also prepared a Start-Up Guide for Reseller Hosting. Here, you’ll find all the information you need to set up Reseller Hosting on your SuperSite, purchase packages as well as help guides for cPanel and WHM.

  If you need a little help kick-starting your marketing efforts, we’ve put together this White-Labeled Marketing Kit. As always, do feel free to use any of the marketing materials we’ve put up on our Resource Center.

  –

  What do you think?

  Tell us what you make of our latest product offering – All your feedback is welcome!

  Tweet

• 20:37

  Moniker publishes final DOMAINfest auction list

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Two more valuable domain names added to auction.

  Moniker has published the final list of domains for next week’s live domain auction during DOMAINfest, as well as the online auction to follow.

  Bargain.com and Democracy.com have been added to the auction. Bargain.com’s reserve is north of $750,000 while Democracy.com is available for somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000.

  Bargain.com is owned by FYI Direct, the company behind credit score monitoring site FreeScore.com.

  Democracy.com should be interesting given the elections this year. It’s probably best for a think tank.

  A number of the other high dollar domains are owned by CA.

  Moniker’s last big auction resulted in the multi-million dollar sales of Social.com and Data.com, although neither were sold during the main auction. Salesforce.com paid $4.5 million for Data.com, which it uses for its Jigsaw.com product.

  The live auction takes place Thursday, February 2 from 4:30 to 6:00 pm PST. The follow on internet auction at SnapNames will go through February 16. The extended online auction includes 250 domain names in addition to any names that don’t sell in the live auction.

  

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Moniker Trims Silent Auction List for TRAFFIC Auction
  2. Moniker Releases Partial Domain Name Auction List
  3. Moniker Releases Initial TRAFFIC Domain Name Auction List
• 20:22

  Amazon.com’s Quidsi about to launch home decor shop Casa.com

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Casa.com is next online store from Amazon.com’s Quidsi unit.

  Mi casa su casa…

  Earlier this month I scooped that Quidsi, the company behind Diapers.com, Soap.com, Wag.com, and YoYo.com, was working on a new store called Casa.com.

  Quidsi has now published a “coming soon” page to Casa.com and launched a Facebook page.

  The site will offer “everything for your home”, including kitchenware, bedding, home decor, bathroom accessories, etc. Keeping with Quidsi’s tradition, it will offer 1-2 day free delivery. It will also have a 365 day return policy including free return shipping.

  Quidsi quickly grew its Diapers.com business into an ecommerce giant, scaring Amazon.com into buying it for $545 million in 2010.

  

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Amazon’s Quidsi appears to be working on Casa.com
  2. Amazon.com Company Quidsi Launches YoYo.com
  3. Diapers.com Parent Ready to Launch Soap.com
• 20:10

  USPTO to Karsten: not so fast with .PING

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Trademark office sends office action to PING Golf brand owner.

  On Wednesday I posted a list of 115 trademark applications that could be related to new top level domains, along with their current status.

  The USPTO has a policy of not granting trademarks on top level domains, and the number of “speculative” trademark applications has ballooned as ICANN gets ready to expand the TLD universe. I discovered that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was doing a good job catching these applications.

  One application that the USPTO may have missed was Karsten Manufacturing’s application for .PING. Karsten manufacturers the PING Golf brand of merchandise.

  The USPTO approved the mark for publication on January 17. But today it sent an office action to Karsten because of the top level domain issue.

  Karsten can certainly apply for a .ping top level domain — but it can’t try to trademark it under current rules. I can also think of other uses for a .ping TLD, so don’t be shocked if you see more than one application for this domain.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Ping Golf Considers .Ping Top Level Domain Name
  2. USPTO wising up to new TLD frontrunning
  3. 115 Top level domain trademarks and their current status

• 20:03

  Use the Hello Bar to Sell a Website

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  I believe it’s more difficult to sell a domain name with any type of development as compared to a parked domain name. Many people who are unfamiliar with the Whois database will type in a domain name to see if someone is using it. If they see a developed website (even a mini site), it’s likely they will move on to other domain names, unless they absolutely need a specific domain name.

  When you visit many domain names parked with Internet Traffic (and other parking providers), you can see a bright bar at the top of the landing page announcing that the domain name may be for sale. From what I understand, this helps drive a significant amount of offers for domain owners. Although many offers are unqualified, it still opens a dialog.

  The Hello Bar is a neat toolbar that you can easily add to the top of your website or blog, and it can be used to let visitors know the website is for sale. You can choose any color or font combination and add a link to a destination url of your choice. Many people traditionally use it to direct visitors to certain articles or make special announcements, and I think it’s a great tool to sell a website.

  It’s very easy to install the Hello Bar, whether you use WordPress, Typepad, Tumblr, or basically any content management system. For WordPress, you can download a free plugin, and then enter the code from the Hello Bar website into the correct field on the plugin editor page. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to install and add. You can then add a page on your site to let people know how to get in touch with you or how to buy the domain name and website.

  I want to share an example of how I set up the Hello Bar on one of my websites this morning, and it only took a few minutes. Visit BabyRegistries.com and you can see how the Hello Bar looks. Once I added my messaging to the Hello Bar, I set up a very quick and free form at Woofoo.com. It took less than 30 minutes to set up on my first try.

  I can’t tell you if it will work for certain, but it’s a great way to let people know your domain name with website is for sale.

• 19:42

  DOMAINfest “Dine with an expert” slots filling up quickly

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Opportunity to dine with DOMAINfest speakers quickly disappearing.

  Want some quality time with Brook Schaaf, John Morris, Lisa Box, Jay Weintraub, or Paul Nicks during DOMAINfest next week?

  Your easiest opportunity is no longer available.

  These are among the people who already have full tables for their “Dine with an Expert” session during the conference.

  Although I’m sure there will be other opportunities to chat with these experts, there are still a number of good options available under the program. Both Debra Domeyer and Scott Morrow, co-presidents of Oversee.net, still have space available at their tables.

  The dining options take place primarily during lunch on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, although there are also some available breakfast slots.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Dine With an Expert at DOMAINfest, But Frank Schilling is Booked
  2. DOMAINfest Brings Back “Dine with an Expert”
  3. DOMAINfest brings back “Dine With an Expert”

• 15:08

  Sedo.com Benelux Auction is Underway

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Sedo is hosting these days a Benelux auction for domains with the .BE and .NL extensions .The auction runs until February 2,2012 and features 129 .nl and .be domain names .
• 15:07

  AOL wins ShoutCastLive.com and ShoutCastLive.net domains in Arbitration

   » ‎ DomainNews
  An arbitrator with the National Arbitration Forum has awarded two domain names ,ShoutCastLive.com and ShoutCastLive.net to AOL.The company submitted a complaint on December 19,2011,asserting legal rights over the disputed domains .
• 15:06

  TechStartups.com hits the sales block

   » ‎ DomainNews
  According to a press release today,the domain name TechStartups.com is now available for sale .
• 9:46

  DOMAINfest 2012 Final Agenda Announced

   » ‎ DomainNews
  The final agenda for the 2012 DOMAINfest conference - which features a  list of experts who will offer opinions on many key changes that will impact the domain industry - has been announced.
• 9:45

  Domain Registrations pass another milestone - .COM hits 100.2 million

   » ‎ DomainNews
  DomainTools announced recently that there are more than 100 .COM domain name registrations up to date,according to their research .There are currently 100.2 million .COM domain name registrations .
• 9:44

  Verisign reports financial results for the fourth quarter of 2011

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Verisign,has recently announced it financial results for the fourth quarter of 2011 and year ended December 31,2011 .

• 6:57

  VeriSign plans to apply for about 12 new top level domain names

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Company will apply for about a dozen TLDs, mostly transliterations of .com.

  VeriSign plans to apply for “about 12″ top level domain names this year, Pat Kane, Senior Vice President and General Manager of VeriSign Naming Services, said on VeriSign’s investor conference call this evening. Most of these will be transliterations of .com. In other words, internationalized domain names (IDNs).

  Although he did not elaborate on what those domains would be, Kane previously told Domain Name Wire that you can expect .com equivalents in Japanese, Hangul, Chinese, Cyrillic, Arabic, and Hebrew.

  The company also said that VeriSign has already been selected as the registry provider by several brands that will apply for new top level domains. It did not reveal any numbers, although the company has predicted there will be 1,000 to 1,500 total new TLD applications.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  No related posts.

• 6:49

  2011 was record breaking year for .com and .net domain registrations

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Over 32 million new domain registrations in .com and .net last year.

  2011 set a record for new .com/.net domain registrations with over 32 million registration, VeriSign announced on its investor conference call this afternoon:

  In the fourth quarter, we added 1.9 million net names to the domain name base, and we processed 7.9 million new registrations, which is about a 4% increase over the same period a year ago. The fourth quarter was our strongest Q4 for new registrations on record. In fact, that’s true for each of the quarters in 2011, thus, making it our strongest year for new registrations with over 32 million new registrations processed.

  There were 113.8 million combined domain names registered at the end of December.

  According to DomainTools, there are now over 100 million .com domains registered, although VeriSign did not announce this milestone on its investor conference call today.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  No related posts.

• 6:26

  GoDaddy reveals Super Bowl commercial featuring the Pussycat Dolls

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  You won’t have to wait until the Super Bowl to see this year’s commercials.

  It’s likely you’ve already seen GoDaddy’s Super Bowl commercial featuring .co. GoDaddy has linked to it from its home page for about a week.

  Now the company is releasing its second half commercial on the web, too.

  The spot, dubbed “CLOUD”, features the new Pussycat Dolls. It also stars Danica Patrick.

  Patrick has officially been in more Super Bowl ads than any other celebrity, according to GoDaddy. She’ll be up to ten after this year’s Super Bowl airs. This is GoDaddy’s eighth consecutive Super Bowl ad campaign.

  I think releasing this commercials before the big game makes sense. There will still be the “continuations” after the commercials air during the game, so it will draw people back. Also, most people who see the commercials during the game will not have seen the early releases.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. New Pussycat Dolls to star in GoDaddy Super Bowl commercial
  2. GoDaddy.com Purchases Second Super Bowl Commercial
  3. .Co to return to Super Bowl in GoDaddy commercial

• 5:24

  IP Address Reputation Primer

   » ‎ CircleID

  There has been a lot of recent discussions and questions about reputation, content and delivery of email. I started to answer some of them, and then realized there weren't any basic reference documents I could refer to when explaining the interaction. So I decided to write some.

  This post is about IP address reputation with some background on why IPs are so important and why ISPs focus so heavily on the sending IP.

  Why IP addresses?

  ISPs built reputation around IP addresses because it was one bit of data that malicious senders / spammers couldn't forge. The connecting IP is a fundamental part of the network transaction and if you forge an IP then SMTP can't work. Because that was the reliable data they had to work with, that's what they used. Even now, when there are other kinds of data, the IP address is still the first thing the receiving MTA sees.

  What is IP reputation?

  IP reputation can best be summed up as "past performance is an indicator of future results." In other words if recipients responded well to mail from an IP address in the past, then they're likely to respond well to new mail from that IP address.

  How is IP reputation measured?

  While each spam filtering company and ISP have their own ways of calculating the reputation of an IP address, there are some similarities in what they measure.

  • How many non-existent email addresses is this IP attempting to deliver to?
  • How many abandoned email addresses is this IP attempting to deliver to?
  • How many "known bad" email addresses (spamtraps) is this IP attempting to deliver to?
  • How many recipients complain about receiving this mail?
  • How many recipients complain about not receiving this mail?
  • How respectful of my resources is this IP?
  • Does this IP keep connections open for long periods of time?
  • Does this IP retry deliveries too aggressively?
  • Does this IP stop mailing addresses after receiving a "user unknown" message?
  • Is this IP address configured as if the associated machine was infected by a virus?
  • Is this IP address listed on blocklists we use?
  • That is by no means an exhaustive list of what ISPs measure. If they can measure it they've tried. If the measurement helps them separate spam mail from not-spam mail then they're using it.

  How fast does IP reputation change?

  IP reputation is often measured over multiple time periods. ISPs can look at a 1 day, 7 day, 30 day and 90 day reputation. A good analogy is stock prices. Prices can be very volatile in the short term, but more consistent over the long term. A single bad day, where one or more reputation measurements go bad, may affect delivery that day or the next day but won't damage an overall good reputation. Likewise, a few days of improved mail may not be sufficient to counter months of poor reputation.

  How is IP reputation used?

  Mail from IPs with a high reputation is accepted faster and at a higher rate than mail from IPs with a lower or unknown reputation. IP reputation can also influence whether mail is delivered to the inbox or the bulk folder.

  Key IP Reputation takeaways

  • IP reputation is about how recipients react to mail from that IP. Happy, content recipients turn into good delivery.
  • Brief changes (for good or bad) don't necessarily ruin delivery over the long term.
  • Steady improvements will result in improved reputation.
  • It may takes as much time to change a reputation in one direction or another as it took to establish the reputation in the first place.

  Written by Laura Atkins, Founding partner of anti-spam consultancy & software firm Word to the Wise

  Follow CircleID on Twitter

  More under: Email, IP Addressing, Spam

  
• 3:52

  NORDUnet's Brilliant Internet Peering Strategy

   » ‎ CircleID

  Map Showing NORDUnet's 2011 completion of network expansion by taking a third connection to the US in production.
  (Click to Enlarge)NORDUnet, the R&E network connecting the Nordic countries has recently undertaken a brilliant Internet peering strategy that will have global significant ramifications for supporting research and education around the world.

  NORDUnet is now emerging as one of the world's first "GREN"s — Global Research and Education Network. NORDUnet is extending their network infrastructure to multiple points of presence throughout the USA and Europe to interconnect to major Internet Exchange Points (IXPs). This will allow them to negotiate as a Tier 1 Internet service provider and exchange traffic with other global commercial Tier 1 Internet transit providers. NORDUnet is also playing a global leadership role by extending this service offering, on a shared cost basis, to NRENs such as SURFnet (Netherlands), PIONIER (Poland) and perhaps others.

  Many network operators ask why they should build an extensive peering network when transit prices are only marginally more expensive than peering (and still dropping)? The NORDUnet engineering team are one of the first to understand that Internet peering is not about cost comparison between peering and transit pricing.

  Most universities (as well as consumers and business) have a fixed budget for Internet connectivity. So regardless of traffic volumes they can only spend so much money for Internet transit. As result many institutions cap traffic volumes to commercial transit providers. But peering traffic is done on a settlement free basis and therefore traffic volumes are not linearly related to cost. Many NRENs have discovered that content peering traffic has a huge benefit for their connected institutions in stabilizing costs without restricting use of the network. On some NRENs, content peering traffic is now 90% of their overall traffic volume. By connecting to the major IXPs in the USA, NORDUnet can eliminate purchase of virtually all transit traffic. Traffic volumes are expected to immediately jump because now institutions will not have to cap formerly transit traffic.

  This arrangement will have a huge benefit for the research community as more and more computational research is done on commercial clouds in the US. NORDUnet realizes, that despite concerns about US Patriot Act, researchers are voting with their wallets and using commercial cloud providers and value added cloud providers in the US. Many research disciplines, especially genomics and bio-informatics are being increasingly dependent on commercial application providers, because they have the necessary tools critical to their research. Numerous bioinformatics companies, like SoftGenetics, DNAStar, DNAnexus and NextBio, have sprung up to as they have found life sciences a fertile market for products that handle large amounts of information. Access to these commercial organizations through the commercial Internet or Open Lightpath Exchanges is essential for the future of research.

  This initiative by NORDUNet will have profound implications for the future of the Internet and data intensive science. The obvious next step after exchanging peering traffic is also to use this links for dynamic lightpaths and virtual networks for large data flows. It is no surprise that networks like NORDUNet and SURFnet are also leading the developments of dynamic optical networking through GLIF. The other important development is for other NRENs to build similar global links and exchange peering routes so collectively they can represent themselves as a global Tier 1 and finally eliminate the archaic telco business models that currently dominate the Internet. This will significant benefits for those NRENs who are deploying community IXPs and can extend the benefits of content peering to community anchors and support community broadband developments.

  Peering traffic also goes hand in hand with dynamic optical networks and GOLEs. Some NRENs are under pressure by some large institutions threatening to leave. Some institutions think that by directly connecting to a GOLE and purchasing commercial Internet for the balance of their traffic is all they need for R&E connectivity But peering dramatically changes the balance as it is a service and business model that is not available from commercial providers. The cost savings are dramatic for the connected institution and it does not cripple researchers accessing commercial research services such as clouds because of traffic caps.

  Once again, NRENs and GRENs are demonstrating their important role in redefining the critical role of the Internet and creating new opportunities for the global informational economy. Kudos to NORDUnet.

  Written by Bill St. Arnaud , Green IT Networking Consultant

  Follow CircleID on Twitter

  More under: Access Providers, Broadband

  
• 3:47

  Making the Web Faster: Google Working on Enhancing Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

   » ‎ CircleID

  As part of its efforts to speed up the delivery of web content, Google has proposed changes to Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), "the workhorse of the Internet." Yuchung Cheng who works on the transport layer at Google writes:

  "To deliver content effectively, Web browsers typically open several dozen parallel TCP connections ahead of making actual requests. This strategy overcomes inherent TCP limitations but results in high latency in many situations and is not scalable. Our research shows that the key to reducing latency is saving round trips. We’re experimenting with several improvements to TCP."

  Cheng believes the current transport layer badly needs an overhaul to catch up with other (networking) technologies. Read more.

  Follow CircleID on Twitter

  More under: Internet Protocol, Web

  

• 3:25

  .Com Registrations Pass the 100 Million Mark - Final Agenda Set for DOMAINfest Global

   » ‎ Domain Name Journal
  Today in the Lowdown at DN Journal: .Com registrations pass another milestone - the 100 million mark. Plus, DOMAINfest Global releases the final agenda for next week's big show in Santa Monica and domain sales giants Afternic and Sedo have announcements about the latest expansion of their respective platforms.

• 2:02

  Tucows to Join Afternic DLS

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  I read a press release this afternoon, and it should come as good news for Tucows domain registrants who are looking to sell their domain names.

  The company has been added to Afternic’s Domain Listing Service (DLS) Premium Promotion network, meaning that it is easier to list domain names for sale across the full DLS reseller network. With DLS, customers can seamlessly list, sell, and transfer domain names with far fewer hassles and delays that accompany many domain transactions. Customers can select names they want to sell, price them accordingly, and potential buyers will see the names at various POS opportunities at DLS partners.

  There are over 11 million domain names registered with Tucows and its affiliates, so this should also be a boost to Afternic as well.

  Press Release below:

  Toronto-based Tucows, a top ICANN- accredited registrar with over 11 million domains under management, and Afternic, the world’s leading reseller network for premium domain names, announced today that Tucows will join Afternic’s Domain Listing Service (DLS) Premium Promotion network.

  This exclusive agreement will allow registrants to sell their domains across the entire Afternic DLS reseller network—the largest domain reseller network in the world with the highest sales velocity in the industry.

  “We strongly believe selling premium names increases customer loyalty by allowing buyers to find the perfect domain and begin using it immediately,” said Adam Eisner, Director, OpenSRS Product Management. “Our inclusion in Afternic’s Premium Promotion network allows us to connect more sellers and potential buyers through the industry’s largest network.”

  Afternic is the world’s only true global domain sales network offering premium domains for sale to millions of buyers worldwide via a network of more than 50 partners including most of the world’s largest registrars. The Afternic platform features Instant Transfer technology, which automates the premium domain purchasing process, eliminating the lengthy administrative process required by legacy marketplaces.

  “Adding Tucows to the DLS Premium Promotion level is very exciting for us. Now, with the majority of the world’s top registrars enrolled in our Premium Promotion level, we are realizing our vision of a unified domain aftermarket,” said Jason Miner, senior vice president of sales and General Manager of Afternic. “DLS has become the center of aftermarket domain transactions, connecting the most buyers and sellers of premium domains.”

• January 26, 2012
• 23:43

  100 Million .Com Domains Registered

   » ‎ Domain Name News

  According to DomainTools.com, a provider of domain name research and whois information, the number of .com domains under management by the registry has eclipsed 100 million domains. In a statement issued earlier today DomainTools claims that through their research they “calculated the current total of domains managed by Verisign to be over 100.2 million”

  DomainTools’ points out that most counts taken on domain name totals use the zone files which are provided by the registry operator.  These counts, however, do not factor in several “classes” of domain names including those in redemption and pending delete status, as well as “dark” domains.

  Domains held in redemption and pending delete are removed from the zone files as they proceed through the 35 day process before being deleted from the registry. The “dark” domains are not included in the registry because these domains have not been assigned a DNS entry by the registrant or may be suspended.

  DomainTools conducted research on these 2 categories of names and estimates that there are 2.1 million domains in the redemption or pending delete status and another 400,000 “dark” .com domains. The current zone files as of the time of there release puts the size of the zone file at 99,837,548 with a gain in the total of nearly 22,000 new .com daily. The 2.5 million domains not estimated in previous counts brings the total .com domains under Verisign management to over 100 million.

  
  

  

• 23:35

  VeriSign likely to announce 100M .com milestone today

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  DomainTools claims milestone reached; VeriSign earnings call on tap for today.

  At the end of October VeriSign was very, very close to hitting the 100 million .com domain name milestone.

  Now, according to DomainTools, there are officially 100 million .com domain names registered, not including those going through the redemption process or pending delete.

  Given that VeriSign has its earnings call today at 4:30 PM EST, I’m betting the company will announce this milestone today.

  According to DomainTools, yesterday’s .com zone file had 99,837,548 domain names. This doesn’t include 2.1 million domain names in redemption or pending delete status. More importantly, the company says it doesn’t include so-called “dark domains” that are not pointed to nameservers and aren’t listed in the zone file.

  Add the dark domains in (but exclude the expiring ones) and you get 100.2 million.

  Update: VeriSign announced it earnings but didn’t mention the milestone.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Tucows Hits 10 Million Domain Milestone
  2. Go Daddy Set to Hit 40 Million Domains Milestone on Wednesday
  3. Go Daddy Hit 50 Million Domain Milestone Over Weekend
• 22:45

  LeadRefs.com helps you find buyers for your domains

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Free service finds potential buyers for your domain names.

  Sure, you can sit on your domain portfolio and wait for the right buyer to come along. But you’ll sell a lot more domains if you actually try to sell them.

  The big challenge is finding qualified buyers for your domains.

  That’s a problem that LeadRefs.com is trying to solve.

  Just plug in a domain name and it searches for potential buyers of your domain name. For example, plug in TradingDerivatives.com and some of the leads returned are emails for ertradingderivatives.com and starttradingderivatives.com.

  Most of the hits are for owners of similar domain names. However, the site also finds Twitter users that may be interested in your domains.

  Estibot offers a similar lead generation service, which finds owners of similar domains as well as advertisers bidding on the key term.

  Now before I recommend LeadRefs.com I want to discuss a big caveat: be careful about domain sales spam.

  It’s becoming a big problem. Some of it is misleading (especially regarding expired domains) while other is just annoying. The problem, as I see it, is when people use automated systems to email potential buyers of domain names. They don’t check the quality of the leads and send out what is essentially spam to dozens of unqualified leads.

  I’d also be careful about contacting someone on Twitter. I’ve received solicitations for domains before and usually report the user as spam.

  I’m all for proactive selling of domains. Just don’t take shortcuts.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Use Valuate.com to Find Targeted End User Buyers for Domain Names
  2. TailWords.com Helps You Find Unregistered Keyword Domain Names
  3. .Pro domain names attract buyers

• 21:41

  Go Daddy Nominated for Stevie Awards

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  I learned that Go Daddy was nominated for two Stevie Awards in the Customer Service Department of the Year – Computer Services category and the Best Use of Technology in Customer Service – Computer Hardware, Software, Services, Electronics, or Telecommunications category.

  According to the award website, “The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service honor and generate public recognition of the accomplishments of sales, customer service, and call/contact center professionals worldwide.” There are dozens of categories in which companies in different industries and of different sizes are competing. Judges for the awards come from some of the largest companies in the world, like Microsoft, AT&T, Marriott, Canon, and many others.

  Just yesterday, I wrote a comment about Go Daddy’s customer service team. Although I think it’s sort of tacky to quote myself, I wrote “for people without reps at Godaddy, the company has great 24/7 US-based customer service. I can’t recall ever being dissatisfied with an issue at GD.” 

  Companies also competing for the Customer Service Department of the Year award are: Reputation.com, BUMI, CenterBeam, Datapipe, and and Rosetta Stone. Companies competing for the Best Use of Technology in Customer Service – Computer Hardware, Software, Services, Electronics, or Telecommunications include CrunchTime! Information Systems, L-com Inc., OnStar, Rosetta Stone, and VIZIO, Inc.

  Congratulations to the company on this honor and good luck to them. It’s nice to see the company honored with these nominations.

• 21:01

  SIDN reports great results for 2011

   » ‎ DomainNews
  SIDN,the company behind .nl domain name,announced that 2011 was a great year for them .Net growth was 607,265 domain names (14.5%): a huge increase on 2010.

• 20:36

  GoDaddy .Co Super Bowl commercial model Natalia Velez to attend DOMAINfest

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Colombian model to attend dinner party on February 1.

  DOMAINfest organizers have just announced that Columbian model Natalia Velez, who stars along with Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels in a GoDaddy Super Bowl commercial this year, will attend the conference taking place in Santa Monica next week.

  Velez will be in person at the Petersen Automotive Museum for the conference’s SuperCars dinner party sponsored by .Co on February 1.

  Velez was recently unveiled as the star of one of GoDaddy’s commercials that highlights the .co domain name. The commercial has already been released and will be aired during the SuperCars party.

  And for those that are bummed about the conference not returning to the Playboy Mansion this year, take note: there will be Playboy Playmates at the SuperCars event.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. .Co to return to Super Bowl in GoDaddy commercial
  2. New Pussycat Dolls to star in GoDaddy Super Bowl commercial
  3. GoDaddy Crowns New $250,000 Commercial, Announces 2 Super Bowl Commercials

• 20:27

  We Are All Internet Exceptionalists Now

   » ‎ CircleID

  The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its defeat call attention to a delicious irony in public discourse on Internet governance. Even those who don't want the Internet to be an exception from traditional forms of regulation and law are forced to admit that something new and exceptional must be done to bring it under control, such as massive departures from traditional concepts of territorially bounded sovereignty through the use of in rem jurisdiction. Reinforcing the irony, these attempts by the anti-exceptionalists to subordinate the Internet to established institutions immediately locks them into conflict with a highly mobilized, highly transnational community of Internet users and service providers who vow to resist those controls. The resistance comes precisely because the mobilized community believes that the controls cannot be applied to the Internet without threatening to fundamentally alter its status as an open, innovative and — dare we say it — exceptional space. In other words, we are all Internet exceptionalists now.

  You know that the anti-exceptionalists have raised the white flag of surrender when they are forced to whine that the thousands of web publishers who went dark are "abusing their power” — thus admitting that a critical mass of Western society's eyes are turned toward the Internet and that the people who occupy and publish and interact in that globalized space constitute enough of a cohesive community to collectively turn against those who threaten them.

  It doesn't matter whether one is on the pro-control or anti-control side of the spectrum; governing the internet forces a choice upon one: either go for new and unprecedented forms of technical intervention and transnational political cooperation, or go for some kind of ratification and institutionalization of the Internet's special status as a zone for the free flow of information and a diminished role for territorial government and traditional informational property rights.

  Mind you, one needn't be a cyber-utopian to be an Internet exceptionalist. In other words, you don't have to believe that the Internet will by its very nature make politics fair and democratic and that the good guys will always win. SOPA or some equivalent could rise again, in some other form. Some key actors could be bought off with some concessions in the new legislation. The mobilized community's resolve could weaken over time, as it grows accustomed to things. We need to be heedful of Benkler's warning that as the networked environment resists control, there will be strong pressures to suck ever more of it into the law enforcement vortex. But surely, after 15 years of these battles (starting, roughly, with the CDA mobilization of 1996) we can dismiss these jaded admonitions that Internet regulation is just business as usual. If the Internet stops being an exception, we will have no one but ourselves to blame.

  Written by Milton Mueller, Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies

  Follow CircleID on Twitter

  More under: Censorship, Internet Governance, Law, Policy & Regulation

  

• 20:20

  WIPO gives Twitter popular typo Twittr.com

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Twitter gets typo of its Twitter.com domain name.

  A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has awarded Twitter the domain name Twittr.com in a uniform domain name dispute resolution policy (UDRP) proceeding.

  Twittr.com was originally registered before Twitter’s “first use in commerce” date on its trademark for “Twitter”. Although Twitter says it actually started the service prior to this first use date, it was a moot point in this case because the current owner purchased the domain after the first use date.

  The owner of the domain, identified as 21562719 Ont Ltd a/k/a Galt Networks Inc., did not respond to Twitter’s complaint. The registrant acquired the domain after Twitter purchased the Twitter.com domain name.

  Twittr.com receives nearly 10,000 unique views a month according to Compete.com.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Arbitration for Twitter Typo Twiter.com Terminated, Then Refiled
  2. Twitter Bought Twitter.com for $7,500 in 2006
  3. WWW Prefix Typo Popular Among Trademark Infringers
• 20:02

  Sedo clarifies listing levels and a price comparison with Afternic

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Sedo publishes fact sheet about its promotion and pricing levels.

  I have to admit I’ve been a bit confused by the various listing levels now offered at Sedo, especially when it comes to the SedoMLS system.

  Sedo has published a new fact sheet that compares the levels, and it makes more sense to me now.

  Here’s the basic gist.

  There are three levels: Sedo, SedoMLS Basic, and SedoMLS Premium.

  If you list your domains on Sedo, regardless of the options you choose the domains will show up on Sedo.com (and its international sites) as well as select SedoMLS Basic partners. That said, most SedoMLS Basic partners will only display your name if it has a “buy now” price.

  If your domain sells on Sedo’s web sites you pay a 15% commission unless the domain is parked with Sedo and has a fixed price, in which case you pay 10%. If the domain sells on a partner site, you pay a 20% commission with no discount for parked domains. There are also minimums.

  For maximum exposure you need to list your domains with SedoMLS Premium. This is akin to Afternic DLS Premium. At the premium level you must list a fixed price for your domains. Customers of partner sites can instantly purchase your domain on those sites, so your domain must be registered at a partner registrar. The commission is 20%.

  There are a couple notable differences between pricing at Sedo and Afternic.

  Afternic offers “DLS Network”, which is fairly similar in concept to SedoMLS Basic. DLS Network charges only a 15% commission compared to Sedo’s 20%, and if you park your domain with Afternic the commission drops to 10%. With Sedo you get similar pricing only if your domain sells on Sedo’s web sites.

  Second, at both company’s premium levels the commission rate is 20%. However, with Afternic it’s only 15% if you park your domains with them. Sedo does not offer a parking discount if your domain sells anywhere except its own web sites.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Afternic Drops Basic Listings, Offers Commission Discount for Parked Domains
  2. United Domains Integrates SedoMLS Premium for Aftermarket Sales
  3. Scoop: Afternic Will Change Game This Week with eNom and Moniker Partnerships
• 19:42

  Tucows customers can now list domains in AfternicDLS Premium

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Potential inventory boon for Afternic.

  Customers of Tucows can now list their domains for sale on AfternicDLS at the Premium level, Afternic announced this morning.

  This means customers can list their domains with “buy now” prices and they can be sold through AfternicDLS’ instant transfer process.

  Tucows had previously offered the ability to buy domains from AfternicDLS on its platform, which includes OpenSRS and Hover. But they couldn’t sell their domains though the Premium level on AfternicDLS, which requires the registrar to enable instant transferring of domain names.

  This could prove to be a huge inventory boost for Afternic.

  Tucows already listed its own portfolio of domains on Afternic, but not its customers will get access too.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  No related posts.

• 18:02

  Our Estimate: Verisign Manages Over 100 Million .COM Domains

   » ‎ DomainTools Blog
  A number of organizations track the .com domain registrations without taking into consideration the complete picture, thus underestimating the current count. Our research shows that the .com count is already well past that number.

  Verisign publishes a daily “zone file” of registered .com domain names with their associated nameservers.  Yesterday the zone file listed 99,837548 .com domain names and that number has been growing by an average of about 22,000 net new .com domain names per day so far in 2012.  But there are two general categories of domain names that exist but are not listed in the zone files.

  The first category is well known, at least to people who work in and around the domain industry:  domains in the Redemption or Pending Delete periods.  Each day tens of thousands of .com domain names hit their renewal date. There are currently 2.1 million .com domain names in either Redemption or Pending Delete status.

  The second category is much less well known, a category DomainTools refers to as ‘dark domains’.  Domain names that exist, but are not pointed to nameservers, are not listed in the zone file and therefore not counted by most sites that track domain registration data.   An example of such a domain is Spectrum.com; it exists but has no nameservers, and does not resolve to a website.  Another example is theexpertcare.com; the Whois record indicates a fraud alert on the domain name and a ‘suspended’ status.  This domain is also not in the zone file and yet is certainly not available for anyone to register.

  Only Verisign knows for sure how big the list of dark domains is, but we have conducted ongoing proprietary research that reveals over 400,000 known dark .com domain names, as found in blank-nameserver.com.  This count is included in the  recently updated domain statistics data on our DailyChanges.com website.  Our calculation of .com domains includes those listed in the zone file plus the dark domains.  With that information in mind, we calculated the current total of .com domains managed by Verisign to be over 100.2 million.

  100 million actively registered domains is an enormous achievement for the dominant TLD worldwide, and congratulations are in order for Verisign and the registrars which support .com.

  As we all know, .com is the biggest top-level domain by a long, long way. For comparison, the next biggest gTLD today is .net with a relatively small 14 million domains. In country codes, Germany’s .de leads with almost 15 million. The closest competitor to .com among the gTLDs introduced by ICANN since the year 2000 is .info, with about eight million domains.

  There’s no doubt at all that .com is the domain of choice for most of the world, but it’s taken it a long time to get to 100 million. From its creation in early 1985, it took the registry two and a half years to reach just 100 active names. It was not until 1997, in the middle of the rightly-named dot-com boom, that the one millionth concurrently active .com domain name was registered.  In addition, there have been over 300 million other unique .com domain names registered and deleted since the inception of the TLD.

  Our records show that the biggest growth period for active .com names came between 2005 and 2007, the height of the domain tasting craze. During this time, many domain investors used a loophole in registration rules to sample type-in traffic for free.  Investors kept the domains they found that were most likely to profit from pay-per-click parking. In 2006 the .com zone grew by over 14 million names, driven by this speculation. In both 2005 and 2007, it grew by over 12 million names.

  Since then, a change to ICANN’s rules means the tasting market has dropped to virtually nothing, but the .com zone continues to grow faster than it did pre-tasting, showing an increased demand for domain names as more new Internet users come online globally. In 2011, DomainTools counted almost 8 million net new active .com names added to the DNS. The number was about the same in 2010.

  The big question in 2012 is: what will new gTLDs – such as .web, .music, .green, .shop, .paris, .gay and all the others, not to mention “dot-brand” domains – mean for .com? Many people believe that .com’s position is unassailable, that .com will always be king.

  Will new gTLDs mean that .com will grow more slowly in future? Will companies use their new branded gTLD domains instead of buying up thousands of defensive .com registrations? Or is it more likely that for every registration in a new gTLD a company makes, it still feels the need to register a matching .com domain? Nobody knows the answers to these questions yet, but it’s going to be fun finding out!

  What do you think?

  

• 16:47

  Sedo Greatdomains Auction Ends Today

   » ‎ Domain Name News

  Sedo’s monthly GreatDomains auction ends today. At the time of this post, 53 out of the listed 71 domains have received bids. The auction ends today (Jan 26) at noon Eastern Time.

  Domain	Current Bid	Price Range	# of Bids received	Bid now
  zimbabwe.com	45,000 USD	25,000 – 49,999 USD	16	Continue
  channel.com	41,000 USD	100,000 – 249,999 USD	10	Continue
  soulmates.com	11,111 USD	50,000 – 99,999 USD	3	Continue
  weddingphotograph…	10,000 USD	50,000 – 99,999 USD	3	Continue
  goldchains.com	7,500 USD	5,000 – 9,999 USD	4	Continue
  mayan.com	5,500 USD	5,000 – 9,999 USD	2	Continue
  balletshoes.com	5,000 USD	5,000 – 9,999 USD	2	Continue
  interviews.net	5,000 USD	5,000 – 9,999 USD	6	Continue
  liabilities.com	5,000 USD	10,000 – 24,999 USD	1	Continue
  rots.com	3,600 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	6	Continue
  township.com	3,300 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	7	Continue
  backups.net	3,300 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	14	Continue
  dishwasher.net	3,200 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	3	Continue
  forexspread.com	3,100 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	2	Continue
  adgame.com	3,100 USD	500 – 999 USD	17	Continue
  vxz.com	3,000 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	3	Continue
  pillowcases.com	2,600 USD	25,000 – 49,999 USD	2	Continue
  vpy.com	2,000 EUR	1,000 – 4,999 EUR	10	Continue
  chili.net	2,000 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	1	Continue
  ewar.com	2,000 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	8	Continue
  tradeaccount.com	1,300 USD	500 – 999 USD	4	Continue
  moroccan.com	1,150 USD	500 – 999 USD	7	Continue
  ill.net	1,010 EUR	1 – 499 EUR	22	Continue
  economize.com	1,000 USD	10,000 – 24,999 USD	4	Continue
  mycupid.com	1,000 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	1	Continue
  georgewashington….	1,000 USD	50,000 – 99,999 USD	1	Continue
  sucre.com	950 USD	10,000 – 24,999 USD	5	Continue
  aux.net	750 USD	500 – 999 USD	5	Continue
  o6.net	700 USD	500 – 999 USD	3	Continue
  erh.net	666 USD	500 – 999 USD	2	Continue
  venturecapitalfir…	600 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	2	Continue
  discountinternet….	510 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	2	Continue
  carolyn.net	500 USD	500 – 999 USD	1	Continue
  onlineads.net	500 USD	500 – 999 USD	2	Continue
  gentler.com	360 USD	1 – 499 USD	15	Continue
  cred.net	350 USD	1 – 499 USD	3	Continue
  bourbonwhiskey.ne…	300 EUR	1 – 499 EUR	7	Continue
  akef.com	205 USD	1 – 499 USD	8	Continue
  mints.net	181 USD	1 – 499 USD	2	Continue
  dubaivilla.com	180 EUR	1 – 499 EUR	3	Continue
  rxz.net	150 GBP	1 – 499 GBP	2	Continue
  colibri.net	150 USD	1 – 499 USD	6	Continue
  grandchampion.com	125 USD	1 – 499 USD	3	Continue
  visitjapan.net	110 USD	1 – 499 USD	2	Continue
  upuy.com	110 USD	1 – 499 USD	2	Continue
  loanus.com	110 USD	1 – 499 USD	2	Continue
  buyerhub.com	110 USD	1 – 499 USD	2	Continue
  aides.net	100 USD	1 – 499 USD	1	Continue
  uduy.com	100 USD	1 – 499 USD	1	Continue
  proshop.net	100 USD	1,000 – 4,999 USD	1	Continue
  governmentbenefit…	100 USD	1 – 499 USD	1	Continue
  eroticgirls.net	100 EUR	1 – 499 EUR	1	Continue
  transfermoney.net	100 EUR	1 – 499 EUR	1	Continue
  adobo.net	-	1 – 499 USD	-	Continue
  disloyal.com	-	5,000 – 9,999 USD	-	Continue
  trustful.net	-	1 – 499 USD	-	Continue
  frenchvisit.com	-	1 – 499 EUR	-	Continue
  onlinejoblistings…	-	1 – 499 USD	-	Continue
  iraqjobs.com	-	1,000 – 4,999 USD	-	Continue
  forfeiture.net	-	1 – 499 USD	-	Continue
  prawns.net	-	1,000 – 4,999 USD	-	Continue
  gymsocks.com	-	1,000 – 4,999 USD	-	Continue
  scififilms.com	-	500 – 999 USD	-	Continue
  iraonline.com	-	1 – 499 USD	-	Continue
  humongous.net	-	1 – 499 USD	-	Continue
  drugdiscounts.com	-	1,000 – 4,999 USD	-	Continue
  medicaldevices.ne…	-	1,000 – 4,999 USD	-	Continue
  neckrest.com	-	1,000 – 4,999 USD	-	Continue
  fightcards.com	-	1,000 – 4,999 USD	-	Continue
  fightodds.com	-	1 – 499 USD	-	Continue
  hockeyodds.com	-	1,000 – 4,999 USD	-	Continue

   

  Disclaimer: Managing Editor Frank Michlick is also consulting for Sedo through his company DomainCocoon.

  (c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (9)

  Advertisement
  DomainTools is giving away a free Reverse Whois Report for up to $99 to a winner in a giveaway they launched recently. In order to enter, visit their site to send an email to Santa before January 2nd, 2011.

  
  

  

• 12:02

  Another .XXX UDPR dispute filed !Finans Bank files complaint over FinansBank.XXX domain name

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Finans Bank submitted a complaint with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center,asserting legal rights over the domain name FinansBank.xxx  .
• 9:19

  Neomobile wins weekly sales list at $58,500

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Neomobile.com  domain name sold for $58,500 million through Sedo ,topped Domain Name Journal weekly sales list of reported domain names in the week to January 22,,2012 .
• 9:17

  The Registrars' Committee to create a working group to develop procedure for the registration of vacated domain names

   » ‎ DomainNews
  At an extended meeting held on 23 January, the Registrars Committee discussed prospective solutions to the problem of vacated domains registration. The Committee meeting was attended by representatives of the Technical Center of Internet (TCI) and the CC’s Council members.
• 9:16

  Moniker and SnapNaems to host "Premium Spring" Domain Auction

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Moniker and SnapNames,both Oversee.net companies will host a Premium Spring Auction,which features a world-class line up of high quality, brandable generic domain names at all price points including Low and No Reserve!

• 8:17

  An Introduction to Conversion Rates

   » ‎ The Official Name.com Blog

  It’s time to analyze a buzzword that seems to pop up all over the Internet these days. Conversion. What is conversion and why does it matter?  Simply put, an online conversion occurs when a website visitor does what you want them to. Conversions can take many forms depending on what type of website you’re running. Whether it is a monetary transaction, inputting an email address, utilizing a free service, or clicking through to another site. No matter what type of business you’re running, if you’re doing it online your conversion rate matters. Period.

  How do you calculate a conversion rate? First you have to define what a conversion is for your website. Here at Name.com a conversion occurs when a user purchases a domain or a product from our website.  Once a conversion has been defined calculating the rate is a breeze. Divide the number of conversions by the number of unique visitors your website had over the same time period. Viola! Now you know your conversion rate.

  You may be wondering how to go about obtaining a count of your unique site visitors and conversions. Well, you’re in luck. There are a number of useful tools out there to help you do just that and through the wonders of the web you can access a few of them for free.

  The ecommerce dashboard in Google Analytics

  Google Analytics is a free service that calculates and summarizes website statistics. Once configured, you can see how people arrive on your website, how long they stay, where they go, calculated conversion rates, revenue generation, and so much more.  If you don’t already have this service enabled we strongly recommend it. Learn more about Google Analytics here.

  PadiTrack is a sales funnel calculator that plugs into Google Analytics and allows users to set up specific conversion funnels. It is particularly useful if you are selling multiple products with separate pages and flows.

  

  So, you have gone through all the trouble outlined above. You defined a “conversion”, set up Google Analytics on your website (which is an amazing accomplishment in and of itself), and calculated the conversion rate. Whew, that was a lot of work! Now, what do you do with the information?

  This is the age-old problem that a lot of companies face. We know our conversion rate, but what do we do with it? The answer is both simple and complex. You know the conversion rate, now INCREASE it! That was the simple answer. Things get complex when you ask, “How do I increase conversion?” There is an entire field devoted to accomplishing this task, known as conversion optimization. Conversion optimization attempts to analyze user behavior, provide marketing insights, and establish recommendations to help your site get an increased conversion rate.

  Thus begins a series of blog posts about conversion optimization. Today is the introduction to the concept with more specific concepts and topics to follow… all designed to make sure you know how to build a website, setup hosting, get more traffic, and convert that traffic into revenue. Be sure to tune in!

• 3:17

  Role Reversal: 6 Non .Com gTLDs and 2 ccTLDs Join 12 .Coms on this Week's Sales Chart

   » ‎ Domain Name Journal
  Last week a half dozen ccTLDs and a pair of non .com gTLDs earned placed on DN Journal's all extension Top 20 Sales Chart.. This week they did a complete switch with the non .com gTLDs taking six places while the country codes had to settle for two. One constant was the .coms who again took the most chart entries.

• 2:30

  NASA Website Blocked Due to DNSSEC Error

   » ‎ CircleID

  A misconfiguration in NASA's DNSSEC implementation on its website caused Comcast's network to block users from the site last week. NASA had incorrectly signed DNSSEC in its implementation of the new security protocol that last week, causing Comcast's newly DNSSEC-enabled service to automatically block access to the site. the day part of the Web went dark in protest of controversial anti-piracy legislation, leading some users and pundits to inaccurately speculate this was Comcast's way of protesting the government-based bills.

  Read full story: Dark Reading

  Follow CircleID on Twitter

  More under: DNS, DNSSEC, Security

  

• 1:32

  Is Marchex considering selling its domain name portfolio?

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Company considering what to do with its domain name portfolio.

  Marchex is often cited as starting a wave of acquisitions of domain portfolios when it announced the purchase of Ultimate Search from Yun Ye in 2004 for $164 million.

  Now it is looking at “strategic alternatives” for its domain name portfolio.

  From a press release issued today announcing preliminary earnings for Q4:

  Marchex is also announcing that it is evaluating potential strategic alternatives for its non-call-driven products and assets, including its domain name assets, with a goal of further focusing on the products and opportunities that can drive business growth.

  “The exploration of alternatives for our non-call advertising products and assets is driven by our goals to enhance shareholder value and to sharpen our strategic and financial focus,” said Mr. Horowitz. “As we have stated previously, we believe that we have a very rich asset base that is not being properly valued, and whether achieved through select development of these assets, sales of these assets, or a combination of both, we should more aggressively pursue how best to get this value realized.”

  Marchex is betting the company on paid calls and is considering what to do with its domain portfolio.

  The company already sells a couple million worth of domains from its portfolio each quarter. But it has a high median price tag on them.

  A good purchase for someone like NameMedia?

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Marchex acquires domain names
  2. Marchex Sold $2.1 Million of Domains Last Quarter
  3. UPDATED: Marchex Revenue Sinks, Sells $1M in Domain Names
• 0:41

  115 Top level domain trademarks and their current status

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  I’ve made plenty of commotion about companies filing for trademarks on future top level domain names. It always seems that they’re successfully pulling a fast one on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  But after an exhaustive analysis of 115 trademark applications, I’ve actually found that the U.S.P.T.O. is mostly on top of things when it comes to this trademarking game.

  In almost all cases, the trademark examiner has sent an office action to the applicant questioning if the use is for top level domain names.

  There’s only one case where it looks like the examiner dropped the ball: .ping. Karsten Manufacturing (PING Golf) applied for this domain and said it was for registry services. Yet it’s proceeding to publication with no office action.

  Another brand is having more trouble. Schott AG wants to trademark .schott and is clear in its application that it’s for a top level domain. It was refused. Schott is drawing comparison to other trademarks, and the response to the company is a good explanation of exceptions:

  The applicant argues that the applicant’s mark should be registered on the Principal Register because the marks DOTVEGAS and .NUDOMAIN were registered by the Office. However, the DOTVEGAS mark is not being used as a top-level domain name extension based on the specimen of record. With respect to the .NUDOMAIN mark, this mark was registered in February, 2005. The Office’s policy with respect to the registrability of top-level domain name extension has changed since 2005. Thus, the existence of this mark on the Principal Register is irrelevant with respect to the case at hand.

  Below is a list of 115 trademark applications potentially related to new top level domains.

  - The “status” column shows the current status of the application. Pending typically means it’s still undergoing initial review. Note that most responses have brought up the issue of not granting trademarks for top level domains.

  - This probably isn’t an exhaustive list. Some of the trickier applications don’t mention “domains” at all in their class of service, as with a series of five applications from theDot Communications Network to trademark .music.

  - If a mark is listed twice for the same applicant, that means the applicant filed twice under different classes of service.

  - These are just U.S. trademarks. Some companies have been granted TLD trademarks by other countries.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Companies File Trademarks for New Top Level Domain Names
  2. More TLD Trademarks: .Law, .Kom, .Tom, .Construction, .Hub
  3. New Top Level Domain Trademark Frontrunning Battle Heats Up

• 0:31

  What Does Google Know About You?

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  I saw an article on Business Insider with a link to a page within your Google account where you can see what information Google believes it knows about you based on your browsing habits.

  Topics they monitor include things like news preferences, topics of interest, and demographics. Based on this information the company collects, they can then show advertising to you they believe will be relevant (I believe it’s on websites that have Adsense enabled). You can opt out of this if you’d like, and I chose to opt out via Chrome plugin.

  You might find this interesting if you use Adsense on your websites. By disabling this cookie, you can see what ads would be displayed to the average user who visits your website. For instance, on DogPark.com, the ads now seem more related to dog parks and even dog walking than previously, when I would see web hosting and other technology links.

  It’s interesting to see what Google thinks it knows about you, and you can either edit or remove those insights, or you can prevent Google from using the cookie.

• January 25, 2012
• 23:58

  Sedo and .ME Registry Partner to Auction .me Domain Names

   » ‎ Domain Name News

  Sedo today announced an exclusive auction of premium .ME domain names. The company has successfully brokered the sale of more than 1,000 .ME domain names, totaling nearly two million U.S. dollars, including such premier names as Business.Me for €40,000, and online meeting platform Join.Me for $45,000. Global brands such as WordPress (wp.me), Facebook (FB.Me), Porsche (Porsche.Me) and Yahoo (ME.Me) have taken advantage of the .ME domain name extension.

  Running in partnership with the .ME registry, Domain.Me, the auction begins on February 2, 2012 and runs until February 9, 2012. The auction will include a wide range of prices and a unique selection of premium .ME domain names such as:

  • Hotel.Me
  • Singles.Me
  • Boats.Me
  • Yoga.Me
  • Creditcard.Me
  • Gift.Me
  • Movies.Me
  • Webhosting.Me
  • Friends.Me

  The complete list of .ME domain names available for auction on Sedo.com can be found at http://www.sedo.com/ME.

  Disclaimer: Managing Editor Frank Michlick of DNN also is working as a consultant for SedoMLS.

  (c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (8)

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• 23:53

  Sedo and .ME Registry Partner to Auction Premium .ME domain names

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Sedo,in partnership with the .ME Registry announced an exclusive auction of premium .ME domains.The auction begins on February 2,2012 and runs for a full week,until February 9,2012 .

• 23:26

  We are all Internet exceptionalists now

   » ‎ IGP Blog
  The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its defeat call attention to a delicious irony in public discourse on Internet governance. Even those who don’t want the Internet to be an exception from traditional forms of regulation and law are forced to admit that something new and exceptional must be done to bring it under control. Reinforcing the irony, these attempts by the anti-exceptionalists to subordinate the Internet to established institutions immediately locks them into conflict with a highly mobilized, highly transnational community of Internet users and service providers who vow to resist those controls. The resistance comes precisely because the mobilized community believes that the controls threaten to fundamentally alter its status as an open, innovative and – dare we say it – exceptional space. In other words, we are all Internet exceptionalists now.

• 21:56

  Importance of an Account Manager at a Domain Registrar

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  A little over a week ago, I expressed my dismay that Bari Meyerson no longer works as my Account Executive at Moniker. Today, I want to share some reasons why having an Account Executive or Account Representative at a domain registrar is important to me.

  Obviously we all put a lot of trust into our domain registrar. Our assets are digital, and there is always a concern they could be stolen and pushed to another account or transferred out all together. Should something like that happen, the process to recover domain names is a bit opaque, and having someone to help with that process is assuring. Knowing I have someone to email who would advocate for me and help me is important and reassuring.

  In addition to this worse case scenario, there are every day issues that come up. There have been a number of times where transfers were denied for various reasons, and it’s always helpful to have someone tell me exactly what the problem was. Further, instead of having to submit a ticket to resolve the issue and then submit a ticket to get a refund and re-try the transaction, it has been helpful to have someone willing to make this easier and expedite it.

  When I receive renewal notices via email, I am often away from my desk. It’s great to be able to forward the email to my account representative and ask him or her to take care of the renewal for me. It’s one less thing for me to worry about, and it also means that I won’t end up transferring the domain name elsewhere.

  Oftentimes, domain registrars are larger companies with various products and services (hosting, web design, marketing…etc). When a problem arises, it’s nice to know you have an ally within the company that will speak with the people who can get things done when they aren’t able to do it themselves. My account representatives know what steps need to be taken to resolve an issue or head off potential trouble, and they are proactive on my behalf.

  In various domain related surveys I’ve taken over the years, I’ve been asked to state the importance of having an account representative and/or good customer service compared to other needs like pricing, security, back-end user interface, additional products and service offerings, and other features/aspects. I am pretty sure that customer service was the first or second choice for me – always.

  With a dedicated account representative, it’s likely I will do more business with the domain registrar. I am inclined to work with people I like and trust, and if I have an established relationship with an account person, it’s more likely I will register and renew domain names at that registrar.

  I understand that it wouldn’t be economically feasible for companies to assign Account Executives to each client, but I can tell you that it does impact my decision when it comes to registering and transferring domain names.

• 21:00

  Best Buy buys PhoneFreedom.com and other end user domain sales

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  A big retailer makes a small domain purchase.

  Electronics retailer Best Buy is the biggest name on this week’s end user domain sales report.

  The company paid $2,588 for PhoneFreedom.com through Sedo. This domain is intuitive for one of the largest mobile phone sellers.

  The rest of this week’s end user domain sales took place through Afternic:

  Skydex, which makes materials to mitigate shock and blasts (think military uses), bought BlastMitigation.com for $2,500.

  PowerSoak, which offers a washing system that eliminates scrubbing, bought PowerMelt.com for $1,500.

  Childrens book seller Palm Publishing paid $1,400 for readytoread.com and $2,100 for readytolearn.com.

  Music lessons company In Bloom Music bought RockInstitute.com for $1,200.

  Ontario’s Clarington Toyota bought MyAutoMall.com for $1,583.50.

  Payroll services company Employer Services Online, Inc, which owns EmployeeMax.com, bought Payamax.com for $3,000.

  Dallas based SteelTex Fabricators shortened its domain from SteelTexFabricators.com to SteelTex.com for $2,500.

  National Restaurant Association bought ChefsatHome.com for $3,388.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. 10 End User Domain Name Sales Over the Past Week
  2. Samsung Buys Chaton.com and Other End User Sales This Week
  3. End User Domain Buys from Washington Post and Entrepreneur

• 18:56

  Sedo to Hold Exclusive .ME Auction

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  Sedo will be holding another .ME auction from February 2, 2012 through February 9, 2012. Like the last auction, this auction will include a wide selection of .ME Registry-owned domain names at a variety of price points.

  There are a ton of solid keyword domain names included, although I don’t know how helpful the .ME extension will be for many of them. As you’ve probably read, Meet.ME sold for $450,000, but that keyword makes sense for a .ME domain name. While many of the keywords in this auction are exceptional, there are few that really stand out as “ME call to action” domain names.

  Some of the names that will be auctioned (that I think are solid) include:

  • Forex.ME
  • Attorney.ME
  • College.ME
  • Friends.ME
  • Lawyer.ME
  • Pet.ME
  • Tickets.ME
  • Tours.ME
  • 999.ME

  The entire list of domain names up for auction can be found at [www.sedo.com].

• 14:31

  2012 Domain Name Conferences

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Domain Name conferences are very important for domainers . You can establish contacts with other domainers from the industry and learn many new things about the domain name industry .
• 14:31

  SocialMagazine.com is up for sale

   » ‎ DomainNews
  e21 announced recently that the domain name SocialMagazine is now up for sale .SocialMagazine.com would be a perfect domain name for a social network .
• 11:32

  Sedari Signs With dot Moscow Bidders

   » ‎ DomainNews
  [news release] Sedari has been engaged by the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development (FAITID), a not-for-profit Russian foundation which is preparing applications for the .MOSCOW and .MOCKBA (in Cyrillic) top-level domain names. The implementation of the new top-level domains will make possible websites with addresses such as WWW.COMPANY.MOSCOW and for museums МУЗЕИ.МОСКВА.
• 9:44

  Sedo reports $1,36 million in domain sales ! Neomobile.com tops Sedo's weekly sales list

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Neomobile.com topped Sedo's weekly sales chart at $58,500 .Highlights also include Wiglle.ru,leading the ccTLD category at 12,000 EUR and Paydayloans.info,leading the other category at $10,000 .
• 9:44

  DistanceLearning.com domain is up for sale

   » ‎ DomainNews
  DistanceLearning.com domain name is now available for sale.DistanceLearning.com is a premium education domain name and ranks highly across Google,Yahoo and Bing .
• 9:43

  SoStupid.com domain name hits the sales block

   » ‎ DomainNews
  SoStupid.com domain name has been listed for sale .SoStupid.com is unforgettable,and it's very important nowadays to have a domain that is extremely easy to remember .

• 4:18

  Failing to Act on Accountability

   » ‎ CircleID

  More than a year has passed since the first organizational review team delivered its final report on ICANN's accountability and transparency. Disappointingly, ICANN has done precious little to act on a key recommendation in that report. Its failure to act threatens to damage ICANN's credibility, just as it enters one of the most critical periods in its history.

  In December 2010, the Affirmation of Commitments Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT) published its Final Recommendations. The ATRT urged that "the ICANN Board should ... seek input from a committee of independent experts on the restructuring of the three review mechanisms — the Independent Review Panel (IRP), the Reconsideration Process and the Office of the Ombudsman." It explained that the committee should conduct "a broad, comprehensive assessment of the accountability and transparency of the three existing mechanisms and of their inter-relation, if any ..."

  Timing was considered crucial. The ATRT assigned Recommendation 23 a "high priority" and specified that it was to be implemented "[a]s soon as possible, but no later than June 2011." This urgency reflects the intrinsic importance of Board review mechanisms to ICANN's accountability and the compromise behind referring that issue to an expert committee: the ATRT's members were uniquely divided over whether ICANN needs a review procedure that entails binding authority over the Board.

  Quite apart from the urgency expressed by the ATRT, ICANN promised in the Affirmation of Commitments to act on the recommendations of such organizational review teams within six months. Yet ICANN recently confirmed that it has so far failed to carry out the very first task in implementing Recommendation 23 by engaging a committee of independent experts. Not until November 2011 did the Board Governance Committee direct staff to draft a Request for Proposal. And still another two months have passed without that RFP being posted.

  A new White Paper details ICANN's inaction and its consequences, but even a high-level summary of the implications paints a troubling picture:

  • ICANN's inaction is inconsistent with its obligations under the Affirmation.
  • Failure to act undermines the voluntary self-correction process prescribed by the Affirmation by casting doubt on whether organizational reviews can bring about needed institutional changes.
  • It substitutes top-down management for bottom-up consensus by interposing a management decision in place of the ATRT's recommendation.
  • It frustrates the process of forming future bottom-up consensus by inhibiting, if not preventing, the ICANN community from having an open and fully-informed conversation about what standard of accountability the ICANN Board should adopt.
  • Finally, ICANN's failure to implement the ATRT's recommendation is a missed opportunity to show that ICANN is committed to honoring the Affirmation and the processes it agreed to there, regardless of where they lead.

  With a multi-million dollar New gTLD Program now underway, ICANN's accountability profoundly matters to stakeholders around the globe. One hopes that ICANN will offer them the reassurance that it stands behind its written commitments. To do that, it should implement ATRT Recommendation 23 promptly and completely.

  Written by R. Shawn Gunnarson, Attorney at Law, Kirton & McConkie

  Follow CircleID on Twitter

  More under: ICANN, Internet Governance, Top-Level Domains

  

• 4:11

  Europe's Domaining 2012 Conference Announces Additions to the Show Speakers Line Up

   » ‎ Domain Name Journal
  Europe's Domaining 2012 conference, coming up in Valencia, Spain April 26-28, is still three months away but show organizers have been hard at work for weeks now putting together an all-star speaker's line-up. Here are some of the industry experts who will be on stage.

• 2:37

  Doh! AARP lawyer forgets to attach screenshot, loses case

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  AARP wins two cases for similar domain names but loses third.

  The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) just received determinations in three cases it filed for aarpdiscounts.info, aarpdiscounts.net, aarpdiscount.org, and AARPdiscounts.org.

  It won rights to all of the domains except AARPdiscounts.info.

  You may be asking yourself how three different panelists looked at very similar domains, all of which allegedly forward to monetization pages, and one disagreed with the others.

  Here’s the answer.

  In the AARPdiscounts.info case the AARP alleged that the domain diverts visitors to websites not related to the AARP, some of which are competitive. But it didn’t provide any proof. So panelist Tyrus R. Atkinson, Jr said sorry, an uncorroborated allegation isn’t enough.

  In the case for aarpdiscounts.net and aarpdiscount.org, the panelist specifically said that the AARP provided screenshots of the use of the domains. For aarpdiscounts.org the panelist doesn’t specifically say the AARP provided screenshots but he still awarded the domain to the group.

  It’s possible the lawyer didn’t have anything showing competitive use for AARPdiscounts.info. When I checked it this afternoon it forwarded to one of those “survey” sites. That’s still easy to prove as bad faith in a UDRP, but it requires a different argument.

  Still, it’s going to be difficult for the lawyer to explain this result to his client.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Subway Lawyer Misses Layup, Loses Domain Name
  2. Paris Loses another Geo Domain Case, But You Won’t Believe The Dissent…
• 2:21

  Some legal advice: LegalAdvice.org is generic

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Panel rules against company claiming rights to LegalAdvice.org.

  A company called Capitalism, Inc. didn’t quite get the legal advice it needed in a recent UDRP case.

  The company asked a National Arbitration Forum panel to give it the domain name LegalAdvice.org.

  No such luck, the panel ruled.

  After all, it’s merely a descriptive term. Capitalism, Inc does have a trademark on the term, but not in the class of legal services.

  The terms of the domain name are common and descriptive, when applied to the use employed by Respondent—the rendering of “legal advice” to browsers. Had Complainant attempted to register LEGAL ADVICE in International Class 45, for example, which includes legal services, it seems very doubtful that it would have issued. Rather, Complainant’s use of the mark is unusual when describing mortgage and job finding related services and can therefore uniquely identify the source. In the field of legal services, Complainant’s mark has no such power. Therefore, Complainant does not have an exclusive monopoly on the terms on the Internet. The terms of the disputed domain name are actually descriptive of the services offered at the website to which it resolves.

  UDRP panelist James A. Carmody wimped out on finding reverse domain name hijacking, though. He cited Capitalism, Inc’s trademark as enough reason to not find RDNH.

  OK, commence “capitalism” jokes about buying domain now…

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Pre-Paid Legal Has Rebranding Problem with Domain Name
  2. EducationDynamics Snags a Generic Domain Through Arbitration
  3. Arbitrator Refuses to Hand Over Generic .Org Domain to .Com Owner
• 0:58

  QE.com hits reserve and other Moniker auction insights

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Three domains have already hit reserve ahead of auction, and CA lists five domains for sale.

  Next week DOMAINfest comes to Santa Monica, California. That means it’s time for another Moniker premium domain auction.

  As it has done recently, the company is holding “pre-bidding” on a number of domains that will be in the auction. Already QE.com has hit its reserve with a $57,500 bid. That means the domain will sell for sure at next week’s auction.

  A couple other small price tag domains have hit reserves during pre-bidding, including WeddingCards.net for $590 and CaliforniaRolls.com for $300.

  Computer Associates, aka CA, has five domain names for sale in the auction: Security.com, Empire.com, Platinum.com, 1800business.com, and Cheyenne.com.

  The acquisition juggernaut came into many of these domain names through acquisitions.

  Security.com – Netegrity in 2004
  Empire.com – appears to be acquisition of Empire Technologies, but can’t find details
  Platinum.com – Platinum technology in 1999
  Cheyenne.com – Cheyenne Software in 1996

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  No related posts.

• January 24, 2012
• 22:57

  BoracayHotels.com – Relisted for Sale

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  I had a tentative deal to sell BoracayHotels.com for $16,500 in the middle of 2011 on my blog, but the buyer and I couldn’t come to terms (payment time table). Throughout the last year, I also had several individual offers on the name ranging from $4,000 – $8,000. I am listing it now for $9,500. First come, first served.

  For those unaware, Boracay (located in the Philippines) was named TripAdvisor’s #2 beach in the world last year. Borcay was named the #1 beach in Asia also by TripAdvisor, beating out the Maldives. There are a whole lot of hotels in Boracay at various price ranges, according to Hotels.com.

  The price has been reduced from $16,500 to $9,500 to help close a deal. The first to agree to buy it at the sales price will get it and we’ll use Escrow.com to close.

  Other domain names for sale:

  • BikeRacer.com (1997 creation date) – $2,600
  • LittleBigHorn.com – $1,800
  • CampManagement.com – $4,500
  • TermiteDetection.com – $2,200
  • BirdSupply.com – $6,500
  • HousingDevelopers.com – $2,300
  • CasinoLessons.com – $1,800
  • AirplaneTracking.com – $2,400

• 22:24

  New gTLDs - 2012 Calendar

   » ‎ DomainNews
  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) began accepting applications for new gTLDs on January 12,2012.

• 21:14

  UK-based Transpact offers domain escrow services

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Another option for domain name escrow services.

  There are lots of options for domain name escrow services. One I just became aware of is Transpact.com based in the UK.

  Two things make Transpact interesting: its location and low fees.

  The company (Transpact is actually the trading name for Anpa Forward Ltd) is based in the UK and specializes in pound and euro transactions.

  It’s fees are also low and not based on a percentage of the transaction.

  The company charges £2.99 per party for (GB) Pound transactions or €3.49 each for Euro transactions, and $24.99 per party for US dollar transactions. That’s for transactions up to £10,000 / €15,000.

  I always recommend doing your due diligence before selecting an escrow company. Transpact works with some large web companies such as AutoTrader UK and is regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the United Kingdom. Still, I don’t have first hand experience.

  Any readers have experiences with Transpact?

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Escrow.com Offers “Payment Plan” Escrow on Domain Transactions
  2. Survey: Escrow.com Still Top Domain Escrow Service
  3. Escrow.com Rated Top Domain Name Escrow Service

• 20:59

  Privacy Rules to Change in the EU, But What If …?

   » ‎ CircleID

  In a presentation EU Commissioner Viviane Reding gave a preview of the new Privacy regulation her DG is preparing. As she states, privacy rules need to be brought up to date and harmonized. With all 27 member states having the same rules and tools to enforce, a company only will deal with one privacy commissioner, i.e. the one of the country of its main establishment. What a lot of red tape gotten rid off. So, what if we, for the sake of this blog, take this initiative towards spam and cyber crime. What would this do to spam enforcement?

  ACMA receives a major compliment

  In 2004, when I first entered the anti-spam arena, this was a mantra that I had to hear very often: "Spam is international. We cannot do anything", spoken with a lot of emphasis and some despair. Unfortunately in 2012 this is still true for many countries. Not because of the fact that it is impossible to do something about spam, no, but due to a lack of initiatives. I think that a great compliment to Australia's ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) was published on CircleID in a comment to an article about the impact of Canada's spam law on local businesses. Brett Watson, an Australian internet engineer, writes:

  "However, my present (and general) lack of anything to complain about reflects well on the law and its enforcement… Perhaps what's most telling is that I have, for the first time, subscribed to some advertising newsletters in recent years. I don't feel the need to jealously protect my email address any more, or diligently use uniquely tagged addresses when handing them over. I trust ACMA to keep the companies in line, and the trust seems well placed so far."

  This proves that fighting spam is effective and that the combination enforcement with filtering by ISPs keeps mailboxes clean. Spam hasn't gone away, but at national level companies are disciplined and mostly act within the law in the few countries with vigorous enforcement bodies.

  Who enforces what?

  Privacy and spam are closely related. Spam is seen as an invasion of privacy. But it goes way beyond mere privacy. Privacy sensitive data is often used, sold or worse stolen in order to approach people. Whether to sell a(n illegal) product, phish for more (bank)data or industrial espionage, a stolen e-mail address is often the basis of law violations. The patchwork of enforcement agencies, unclear enforcement powers, the lack of understanding of the issues at stake, of resources, training or powers, the unavailability of online reporting of spam or cyber crime, all make that enforcement is far from optimal in most countries.

  Standardisation of spam and cyber crime law

  Could a standardised law, with a standardised toolkit for enforcement agencies make a difference? Yes, I think that it would. For the public it would mean that there is the certainty that when the law is broken, it is clear who to report to and that it is likely that an investigation follows. That it makes a difference to complain. For senders it also sets clear boundaries. Their business continues, as is proven in e.g. The Netherlands, but in compliance with the law. Next to that it offers this clearness in 27 states.

  As spam, e-fraud, phishing, cyber crime and worse are all so closely related and often involves several countries, it makes sense to be more directive from Brussels. At national level there are so many different laws, ministries and enforcement agencies involved, that coordination there is almost utopian. Next to the fact that success without industry participation is clearly unthinkable. Despite the fact that the Dutch National Cyber Security Centre is a promising initiative, it is obvious that for most countries this form of public-private cooperation is hard to attain.

  A proposed course of action for the EU Cyber Security Centre

  The discussion about the EU Cyber Security Centre is under way. Let me give a pointer on what the centre could do. To my mind it ought, also, to actively collect, analyse and share data with those involved: public and private entities, universities. This gives the centre coordinative powers in matters cross border and across different enforcement organisations as well. Two difficult hurdles taken… should this come to pass. The combination of the overview and oversight with the transparency caused by available, shared data makes all concerned answerable for their (lack of) actions to the centre and each other. I am also convinced that this model will lay the foundation for cooperation with whole new groups of Internet industry partners that are now harder to reach/convince.

  Ambition at Commissioner level

  If Commissioners Kroes, Malmström and Reding used their powers to harmonise the laws and enforcement in the way Ms. Reding proposes for privacy, i.e. the same law and enforcement tools, standardised enforcement agencies and a point of case handling, the fighting of privacy infringements, spam, malware and cyber crime may actually take a turn for the better. They are so intertwined that another approach is (well, should be) almost unthinkable.

  The combination of a pro-active EU Cyber Security Centre with a layer of harmonisation where enforcement is concerned will prove to be a structural step forward from the present situation in many countries. Yes, this is ambitious, but it is clear that the present approach is not going to change much. Everything cyber is still a field day for criminals and a private company, Microsoft, so far is the most successful in fighting botnets. This ought to be different, shouldn't it?

  Written by Wout de Natris, Consultant international cooperation cyber crime + trainer spam enforcement

  Follow CircleID on Twitter

  More under: Cybercrime, Data Center, Email, Law, Malware, Policy & Regulation, Privacy, Spam

  

• 19:18

  HostExploit says Oversee.net is improving, making a case study

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  HostExploit applauds Oversee.net for fixing problems that landed it at top spot at recent “Bad Hosts” list.

  HostExploit, a group that compiles a list of what it calls “Bad Hosts”, no longer lists Oversee.net as the #1 bad host.

  In its fourth quarter report, the group says Oversee.net is now ranked as the #12 bad host.

  Why? It’s kind of hard to tell. Last quarter I reached out to both Oversee.net and HostExploit about the ranking. I heard back from neither so I guess I’m on my own to interpret the results.

  But HostExploit applauds Oversee.net in its latest report, stating:

  For a responsible host, the shock of finding they are ranked unusually high, or even worse in the #1 position, can be enough to prompt immediate remedial action.

  Take, for example, the Q3 2011 #1 overall Bad Host (#1 for both Badware and Infected sites) AS33626 Oversee.net. This customer oriented reseller swiftly investigated the causes behind its undesired status. The introduction of a clean-up program and new procedures promptly reversed the trend. (More on this in a future case study.)

  The clean-up for Oversee.net progresses with an added confidence that their high ranking will drop further and take them off the #1 spot for badware.

  Indeed, Oversee.net is still ranked #1 for badware. But the report notes that it continues to work on negating false positives for badware on parked domains. (Oversee.net is parent company of domain parking company DomainSponsor.)

  Sedo is also on the overall “bad” list at #39. Google is ranked #43.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. HostExploit Names Oversee.net #1 Bad Host
  2. HostExploit Exploits Demand Media’s IPO Filing
  3. Case Study: Parked Domains Outperform Search Ads

• 12:50

  Nominet Announces Single & Multi-Year Registration Details

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Nominet has announced the rules and prices they charge to registrars for multi-year registrations, with the options for registrations from one to ten years, when the new rules come into place on 1 May 2012.
• 12:47

  Neomobile.com sells for $58,500

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Neomobile.com domain name was sold through the Sedo domain name marketplace for $58,500.According to whois records the domain name owner is Raminder Oberoi .
• 12:46

  Newspapers.com domain name is up for sale

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Newspapers.com domain name is up for sale and the owner hopes to get up to $1 million for it .According to whois records,the domain name is owned by Internet Express Inc
• 10:18

  DOMAINfest 2012 Global Conference - one week away

   » ‎ DomainNews
  DOMAINfest 2012 Global conference is one week away.This year's conference will be held in Santa Monica,California from January 31,2012 to February 2,2011 at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel Biz Stone,Twitter co-founder will be the keynote speaker .
• 10:17

  Nancy Gofus,named Chief Operating Officer of .ORG

   » ‎ DomainNews
  .ORG,The Public Interest Registry,has appointed Nancy Gofus as Chief Operating Officer.Nancy Gofus will will oversee the marketing,sales,product and strategy functions.
• 10:16

  Nominet welcomes five new experts for the Dispute Resolution Service

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Nominet,the company behind .UK domain names,welcomed five new experts for the Dispute Resolution Service .
• 10:15

  SIDN signs five-year contract with NLnet Labs

   » ‎ DomainNews
  SIDN,the company behind .NL domain,has recently signed a five-year contract with NLnet Labs,the Dutch internet technology expertise centre,which has a worldwide reputation for its work in the field of DNS and DNSSEC.
• 6:38

  ICANN: Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy Part B Policy Development Process

   » ‎ DomainNews

  Recommendation 9, Part 2 Concerning a New Provision to Lock and Unlock Domain Names

  Purpose (Brief): Public notice is hereby provided of the proposed change to the Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy to address the locking and unlocking of domain names that is considered for adoption as well as an opportunity to comment on the adoption of the proposed policy change, prior to ICANN Board consideration.

• 2:30

  SOPA goes to Ireland

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Ireland may enact a SOPA-like law without much debate.

  The Stop Online Piracy Act in America may be “dead” for now, but the United States isn’t the only country that wants to fiddle with the internet.

  Net heads in Ireland are revolting against a proposal from Sean Sherlock, Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation in Ireland. His proposed law would curtail access to websites in Ireland by forcing ISPs to block sites that are reported to link to infringing content, according to StopSOPAIreland.com.

  According to the site, Sherlock plans to enact the law by ministerial order rather than sending it to Oireachtas, which is basically Ireland’s version of Congress. It would be like the Obama administration making an executive order to implement SOPA without letting Congress have a say.

  Officially, the law is “S.I. No. of 2011 European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2011″.

  Much like SOPA, site owners would be considered guilty until proven innocent — and that wouldn’t be easy:

  Site owners faced with one of Minister Sherlock’s injunctions will have no legal recourse without a €30,000+ legal warchest. The new law mandates no warning process, no mediation and no appeals process outside the High Court. Smaller sites including individual blogs, podcasts and independent news sources who don’t have the money to mount the costly legal campaign needed to defend themselves will automatically lose out to corporate interests with deep pockets.

  StopSOPAIreland.com has over 300 petition signatures less than one hour after being online.

  Among the people raising awareness is Michele Neylon of Blacknight Internet Solutions.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Customers use GoDaddy to register anti-SOPA domains
  2. SOPA.com goes up for sale for $50,000
  3. SOPA and PIPA web site protests memorialized on Screenshots.com

• 1:43

  Geeks vs. Nerds… Hilarious Infographic

   » ‎ The Official Name.com Blog

  All right, we admit… as a bunch of domain name developers, web hosting tech lovers, SEO number crunchers and website building internet lovers, we probably fall into this category.  The question is… which one?

  

   

  P.S. Yes, we got bitten by the infographic bug this weekend.

• 1:30

  3 New Party Venues Ready to Welcome Guests at Next Week's DOMAINfest Global Conference

   » ‎ Domain Name Journal
  The DOMAINfest Global 2012 conference will be running next week in Santa Monica, California. Over the past couple of weeks I've posted about some of the business highlights on the agenda, but one of the biggest changes will involve the evening social events. After a 3 year run, the Playboy Mansion is out & 3 new venues are in.

• 0:58

  Exporting SOPA-Like Rules to Other Countries

   » ‎ CircleID

  "While SOPA may be dead (for now) in the U.S., lobby groups are likely to intensify their efforts to export SOPA-like rules to other countries," says Michael Geist in a blog post today.

  Geist writes: "With Bill C-11 back on the legislative agenda at the end of the month, Canada will be a prime target for SOPA style rules. In fact, a close review of the unpublished submissions to the Bill C-32 legislative committee reveals that several groups have laid the groundwork to add SOPA-like rules into Bill C-11, including blocking websites and expanding the 'enabler provision' to target a wider range of websites. Given the reaction to SOPA in the U.S., where millions contacted their elected representatives to object to rules that threatened their Internet and digital rights, the political risks inherent in embracing SOPA-like rules are significant."

  Follow CircleID on Twitter

  More under: Access Providers, Censorship, Internet Governance, Law

  

• 0:55

  Public Comment: Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy Part B Policy Development Process - Recommendation 9, Part 2 Concerning a New Provision to Lock and Unlock Domain Names

   » ‎ ICANN Announcements
  23 January 2012

• 0:04

  European Commission Proposes "Right to be Forgotten" Internet Law

   » ‎ CircleID

  A new law promising internet users the "right to be forgotten" will be proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday. It says people will be able to ask for data about them to be deleted and firms will have to comply unless there are "legitimate" grounds to retain it. The move is part of a wide-ranging overhaul of the commission's 1995 Data Protection Directive.

  Read full story: BBC

  Follow CircleID on Twitter

  More under: Internet Governance, Law, Privacy

  

• January 23, 2012
• 23:05

  Buy.XXX: a case study of consumer awareness of TLDs

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  The general public doesn’t know that domains can end something other than .com.

  On November 22 I wrote an article about ICM Registry’s TV ad campaign. The ad campaign invited viewers to visit www.buy.xxx to learn more about the new .xxx domain extension.

  The campaign reached a lot of eyeballs judging by the flood of traffic Domain Name Wire received from search engines.

  But did people understand that Buy.xxx was a domain name, just like Buy.com is?

  Some did, but there was a lot of leakage.

  Michael Berkens has made note of a couple good data points. He owns BuyXXX.com, which has received a bunch of traffic. Also, Compete.com shows a spike in traffic to XXX.com.

  Here’s another data point: the actual search terms people used to find the article on Domain Name Wire.

  The good news is that 76% of the over 10,000 searches that meant to look for www.buy.xxx actually used that as the search term. They typed in www.buy.xxx or buy.xxx. (Why they didn’t type that into the address bar rather than the search box is a different matter).

  But that leaves 24% of people that didn’t realize something other than .com could come after the dot.

  www.buy.xxx.com and www.buyxxx.com each received 6% of the searches. (That would explain the flood of traffic to Berken’s buyxxx.com domain name.)

  Other terms getting at least 100 searches include:

  www.buyxxx
  buyxxx.com
  wwwbuyxxx.com
  www.buy xxx
  www.buy xxx.com

  The numbers are striking, and applicants for new top level domains should keep them in mind.

  I believe that over time people will understand that something other than .com (or a country code) can come after the dot. But it will take a while for many people to figure it out.

  In the mean time, it wouldn’t hurt to buy second level .com domains that you think will be applied for at the top level.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Only $750k To Raise Awareness of New TLDs? Seriously?
  2. Case Study: Parked Domains Outperform Search Ads
  3. IRT: Classic Case Study of How Not to Sell a Plan

• 22:51

  Domaining.com Newsletter Sells 9 Domains for a Total of $20,789 USD

   » ‎ Domain Name News

  As Francois from Domaining.com reports, his blogger newsletter special to celebrate the beginning of 2012 sold 9 domain names to 5 buyers. A 6th buyer did not follow through on his payment for the 10th name.

  The sales were:

  • GoldBangles.com … $7,000
  • Winy.com … $3,900
  • PartyAccessories.com … $3,000
  • MarketingService.com … $3,000
  • DesignerPens.com … $899
  • Mung.com … $1,600
  • Anibal.com … $750
  • CreditCardFaqs.com … $390
  • ImpressFriends.com … $250
  • Dudu.co … buyer did not pay, so it was cancelled

  Total is $20,789

  The Escrow service will be provided by ECOP.com so the total amount to be distributed to the 24 participating bloggers is the 10% sales commission: $2,078. Some of the bloggers have refused their share while others will be donating it.

   

  (c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (7)

  Advertisement
  DomainTools is giving away a free Reverse Whois Report for up to $99 to a winner in a giveaway they launched recently. In order to enter, visit their site to send an email to Santa before January 2nd, 2011.

  
  

  

• 22:13

  Domaining.com Sale Nets $20,789

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  Francois Carrillo, owner of Domaining.com, just announced the sales total for the domain sale to benefit domain bloggers. In total, the sale grossed $20,789, with 9 domain names sold (10 domain names were actually sold but one person didn’t pay).

  The sales consummated through this joint effort between domain bloggers and domain forums were:

  • GoldBangles.com … $7,000
  • Winy.com … $3,900
  • PartyAccessories.com … $3,000
  • MarketingService.com … $3,000
  • DesignerPens.com … $899
  • Mung.com … $1,600
  • Anibal.com … $750
  • CreditCardFaqs.com … $390
  • ImpressFriends.com … $250

  24 domain blogs participated in promoting the sale, and with 4 blogs opting to not participate in the payout, the 20 remaining bloggers will receive $102 each, which is the 10% sales commission from ECOP.com. Forums that participated include DNForum, DomainState, and AcornDomains.

  I think it was a neat idea, and I am sure the recipients will appreciate the shared sales commission for their efforts.

   

• 22:05

  Every Investor Has a Different Strategy

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  There are a whole lot of sources to learn about investing in domain names, much more so than years past. There are individual bloggers (and people who comment on blogs), websites that discuss domain names, and various people on domain forums. There are also various tools to track what some of the bigger domain investors are doing with their own portfolios.

  With all of this information available to domain investors of all stripes, it’s important to remember that we all have different investment goals and strategies, and you need to keep that in mind when you read about various transactions and tactics.

  When I hear about some of the most successful investors making huge sales, it gets me excited. It’s thrilling in a way to hear about a $100,000 offer that was turned down and later turned into a $250,000 sale, all for a name that was bought at auction for a couple thousand dollars.

  That said, many of us couldn’t afford to gamble on a $100,000 offer. We would be happy with a 40x ROI and would move on to the next domain name. It’s great to read advice and hear how others maximize their returns on domain sales, but for many of us, that isn’t reality.

  We all need to be mindful that our business models are very different from each other, despite the fact that we operate in a small industry. Some of us make the majority of our revenue through parking, some through infrequent (but large) domain sales, some through frequent (but small) domain sales, and others through web development or hybrid models. Our business models may look similar, but they are very different.

  When you (and I) read about people using different tactics and strategies to buy, sell, and monetize domain names, we must also look at the person who is discussing these ideas. Their business model may appear to be similar to ours, but in reality, it’s a very different model that works differently.

• 22:04

  New domain search to find available domains…fast

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Lean Domain Search finds available domain names that include your search term.

  A couple years ago I wrote about domain finding tool Domain Pigeon.

  Creator Matt Mazur is back with a new tool to identify available domain names that include a specific keyword.

  Just type in a keyword and Lean Domain Search matches it with 1,000 words commonly used in domains. It then tells you which ones are available.

  I tried out multiple searches on the site and was impressed with the results. This tool is very fast, returning results in just a few seconds. More importantly, it returned domain suggestions that are actually worth registering.

  When I reviewed Domain Pigeon I complained that many of the names it returned violated all sorts of naming conventions. It appears this new tool takes that into account. In fact, on the FAQ page it says that domains with numbers and hyphens are excluded because they don’t pass the “radio test”.

  There is no charge to use the service. The site makes money as an affiliate to several domain registrars.

  Lean Domain Search is simple and by no means exhaustive. But it’s definitely worth adding to your domain tool chest.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  No related posts.

• 21:16

  USPTO wising up to new TLD frontrunning

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Cancels two approvals, more to come?

  The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is finally catching on to a game I’ve reported about many times: trying to sneak through a trademark on a top level domain name.

  The USPTO has a policy of not issuing trademarks for top level domain names. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying to get one, which may give them some negotiating or legal power for TLDs.

  One common trick is to use a Wild West Domains domain reseller account as proof of using .whatever in commerce.

  These applications often also say the goods and services covered are domain registration services, rather than registry services.

  But last week the USPTO “took back” the registration (albeit on the supplemental register) for .bank as well as for .secure. In a letter to the applicant, the USPTO wrote:

  The imminent expansion of available generic TLDs underscores the consumer perception that TLDs used in connection with domain name registration services should be perceived as TLDs rather than as source indicators.

  This is a great start. Now may I recommend that the USPTO look into several other curious trademark applications?

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. New Top Level Domain Trademark Frontrunning Battle Heats Up
  2. dotSPORT Continues its Trademark Frontrunning
  3. How Secure is the .Secure Trademark Application?

• 21:08

  Industry Heavyweights Find New Domain Monetization Gold in Old Vein: Email Addresses

   » ‎ Domain Name Journal
  When I got an email from Chicago.com owner Josh Metnick with a subject line that said "Something amazing is happening!" I sat up and took notice. Josh is not a guy who is given to hyperbole. We got on the phone and he did indeed have an amazing story to tell - one that will be music to the ears of owners of top tier .com domains.

• 21:04

  AFNIC sponsors the 83rd IETF Meeting in Paris 25 – 30 March 2012

   » ‎ DomainNews
  AFNIC is sponsoring the 83rd Meeting of the IETF - the Internet Engineering Task Force - which is being held at the Paris Palais des Congrès.

• 20:51

  Mail Boxes Etc. in Spain gets Mailboxes.org in dispute

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  UDRP panel hands over Mailboxes.org domain name.

  MBE Spain 2000, S.L., which manages franchises of Mail Boxes Etc. in Spain, has been awarded the domain name Mailboxes.org by a World Intellectual Property Organization panel.

  The domain name was owned by a franchisee of MBE Spain.

  After the case was filed the franchisee forwarded the domain name to a new web site. The decision is in Spanish, so I can’t quite understand if the previous page it resolved to used the MBE trademarks.

  But I don’t think it should matter. I think this is a case that should not have been handled by UDRP, or at least found in favor of the complainant.

  How is Mailboxes.org not generic? Even if you are a franchise of Mailboxes Etc., what you do is sell mailbox rentals.

  I also question if the MBE Spain should have been the complainant in this case instead of the main Mail Boxes Etc. This may have been because MBE Spain has the Spanish trademarks.

  You can read a Google translate version of the decision here.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  No related posts.

• 20:15

  DomainParking.com to Offer Store Front for Domain Investors

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  I received a press release from DomainParking.com and wanted to share the information with you. The company was founded by Internet entrepreneur and domain investor, Igal Lichtman, who you can read more about on Wikipedia.

  DomainParking.com is offering domain investors a store front to exhibit their domain names. I believe the crux of the idea is that every person who launches a store front for their domain names will also help promote other domain names in the DomainParking.com network, thus giving all domain names additional exposure. Appraisals are also available via the new store front.

  If you’d like to check out an example, you can visit DomainLandscape.com. If you’re attending DomainFest next week in Santa Monica, you can visit the DomainParking.com booth to learn more about this new offering. I’ve embedded the press release below, which has additional information.

  Press Release:

  Now there is a new way for domainers to maximize their revenue. According to DomainParking.com, domainers can manage and promote their personalized domain store, while getting exact appraisals for their parked domains free of charge.

  The company, owned by the experienced Domainer Igal Lichtman, has recently launched a new service which allows domainers to exhibit and appraise their domain portfolio in one place. Instead of spending hours and hours advertising domains in different forums, domainers can simply use a personalized domain-store to showcase their domains.

  What is unique about this domain-store is that as part of this free service, DomainParking.com automatically promotes domainers’ store from a well-promoted DomainParking sites and a distributed network of participating domainers.

  The company is also launching an integrated domain appraisal system, based on a comprehensive set of forecasting parameters. This exciting system provides a true-price appraisal and supports bulk searches and appraisal.

  DomainParking.com is a Silver Sponsor at the DomainFest 2012 exhibition and will demonstrate these new solutions, so indeed – there is something to look forward to!

  By the way, during the exhibition, the company promises to help its clients to advertise their domains.
  For more information, visit www.DomainParking.com, powered by TrafficMedia

• 19:35

  CIT gets control of nasty John Thain domain names

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Domains transferred to Thain’s latest employer.

  There are a lot of people out there who don’t care for John Thain, current chairman and CEO of CIT. He was, after all, at the helm of Merrill Lynch during the banking meltdown…and apparently spent $1 million renovating a couple offices while on the government dole.

  When his new employer CIT hired him, apparently a slew of protective domain names came along with him.

  CIT was just unmasked this month as the owner of several variations of these gems:

  F@ck-JohnThain.com
  johnthain-blows.biz
  johnthain-stinks.biz
  johnthain-suck-ass.biz
  johnthainsucksass.biz
  ihate-johnthain.info
  Boycott-johnthain.org
  boycottjohnthain.biz
  firejohnthain.com
  dontbuyjohnthain.biz
  johnthain-sux.net
  johnthainsucks.info
  f@ck-johnthain.com /.biz /.us
  f@ckjohnthain.us
  ihate-johnthain.biz
  ihatejohnthain.biz
  johnthainsux.biz
  johnthain-sucks.biz
  johnthain-sux.biz
  johnthainblows.biz
  johnthainsucks.biz

  The domain names were registered back in 2008 by brand protection company MarkMonitor when Thain was still at Merrill Lynch (before selling to Bank of America).

  Alas, these registrations are a futile attempt to keep the web quiet about Thain. A perfect example? Look at this “defensive” registration:

  f@ckjohnthainjohnthain.biz

  You see, f@ckjohnthainjohnthainjohnthain.biz is still available.

  And you don’t even need a John Thain domain name to say bad things about him.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Bank of America Gets Split Decision in Domain Name Dispute
  2. Governments Want Control of New Geo Domain Names
• 19:06

  Which domain forum is best?

   » ‎ Domain Name Wire

  Take this five minute survey.

  There’s been a bit of news in the domain name forum world recently, with NamePros selling to the owner of Bodis.com.

  Will that shake up the “ranking” of domain forums?

  You tell me…

  You have the opportunity to vote for the best domain name forum on the 7th annual Domain Name Wire Survey.

  Click here to take the survey.

  The survey has already received hundreds of responses, but I want to know your opinion. In addition to selecting the best domain forum, you can:

  - Select the best parking program
  - Estimate how many new top level domain name applications will be submitted
  - Pick the best domain registrar.

  The survey is open until January 31.

  © DomainNameWire.com 2011.

  Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

  Related posts:

  1. Survey: DNForum is Best Domain Name Forum
  2. Survey: DNForum Still Top Domain Name Forum
  3. Battle of the Forums: Which Domain Forum is Best?

• 17:46

  Domain Investing: “Weird, Arcane and Occasionally Profitable”

   » ‎ Elliot's Blog

  There’s an article about domain names that I found interesting on NorthJersey.com, an online publication covering northern New Jersey news and people.  The article is primarily about the sale of 45.com and the story behind it, which is described as “a window into the weird, arcane and occasionally profitable world of Internet domain names.” The former owner of 45.com is Glen DiGirolamo, who is from Wayne, New Jersey.

  I’ll let you read the article for yourself, but I thought it was pretty neat how DiGirolamo was able to come into possession of the domain name, and how he stuck to his asking price to make a solid profit on the sale. I don’t really agree with the author’s description of the domain business being weird or arcane (maybe 10+ years ago), but it was interesting to read.

  Do you have any similar stories about acquisitions or sales that you’d like to share?

• 14:03

  Deniz Bank files complaint over DenizBank.XXX domain

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Deniz Banks submitted a complaint with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center,asserting legal rights over the domain name DenizBank.xxx .
• 14:02

  Online Pre-bidding DOMAINfest 2012 Auctin is Underway ! QE.com hits $57,500

   » ‎ DomainNews
  Online pre-bidding for the DOMAINfest domain name auction is now underway.QE.com is the domain name with the highest bid at $57,500 and it has met its reserve.
• 12:43

  Minds+Machines Signs Agreement with Bavarian Government to Manage .BAYERN

   » ‎ DomainNews
  The Directors of Top Level Domain Holdings Limited have announced that Bayern Connect GmbH, the German operating company in which TLDH has a majority holding, has been exclusively awarded the contract to apply for the .BAYERN gTLD string by the Bavarian State Government.
• 11:56

  Number Of DNSSEC Signed .SE Domains Soars

   » ‎ DomainNews
  The number of .SE domains that were signed using the DNSSEC security standard rose from 4,299 in early 2011 to 171,650 by 31 December, 2011. The registry has attributed this to a considerable increase to a long-term strategy and a proactive initiative from .SE and several of its resellers (registrars) to enhance the security of the Internet in Sweden.
• 11:39

  The Future of the Internet - Who Decides? Speech by Rod Beckstrom

   » ‎ DomainNews

  In this half hour speech, Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's CEO and president, gives the keynote address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

• 10:03

  Ofen.de hits 10,250 Euro in Sedo GreatDomains Auction

   » ‎ DomainNews
  The auction for Ofen.de is live on Sedo.Ofen.de received three bids and hit 10,250 Euro with less than four days until the auction will close .