Group in New York wants a .nyc domain.

A non-profit organization in New York City — connecting.nyc — wants to secure a new top level domain (TLD) for the city. The TLD, .nyc, would allow the city, its businesses, and residents to brand themselves as part of the city.

The idea of a TLD for a city is not new. A group in Germany is well-known for trying to get a .berlin domain.

.nyc’s goal is to get the domain during 2008. Connecting.nyc cites a number of benefits to a .nyc domain:

More Livable City – Daily life in the city will improve as we begin to use the Internet to organize the city’s resources. For example, when searching for a school, begin at www.schools.nyc.

Economic Development – Additional, short, descriptive, and easy to remember domain names will be available to those seeking to start small businesses, especially among the young and immigrant communities. Domain name revenue will remain in the city. The .nyc TLD says “Made in New York City.”

Identity, Trust, Community, Justice, and Civic Pride – Residents and businesses can more easily locate and network with one another within a managed .nyc top level domain. Civic awareness, community pride, and self empowerment will follow.

Tourism / Marketing – The city can better market itself globally as a tourist destination and business center by setting aside and managing names like www.hotels.nyc.

Internet Access & Training – Funds raised through name sales and other revenue opportunities will be used to provide Internet access, technical training, and educate New Yorkers about opportunities that arise from a networked world.

Preparing for Global Competition – New York City will be better able to compete as a corporate headquarters-city with Singapore (.sg) and Hong Kong (.hk), which have TLDs.

.nyc would be similar to a country code domain, in that it would not be fully managed by ICANN. The organization that runs .nyc would retain control on who can register the domain, which domains will be reserved for government or other use, etc. For example, .EU is a country code domain. Registrars for .EU do not have to be ICANN-accredited.

Moniker Marketplace now has 3M domain listings.

Moniker has announced the addition of domains from Name Media and Domain Distribution Network (DDN) to its Marketplace and domain search results. With the addition of these listings, Moniker’s Marketplace now has over 3,000,000 domains.

Moniker’s Marketplace was soft-launched at the end of 2006. Since then, Marketplace has been the site of Moniker’s silent domain auctions. By joining Name Media’s network and DDN, Moniker will be able to provide a more robust marketplace. It can also offer the domains for sale when someone searches for a similar domain (or unavailable domain).

Name Media is the parent company of BuyDomains and Afternic. Afternic customers need to choose “expanded promotion” (also called AfternicDLS) to have their domains syndicated to Moniker. Domains listed with AfternicDLS are ten times more likely to sell than domains simply listed at Afternic.

Domain Distribution Network was created by domain company Fabulous as a way to provide quality generic domains, typically under $5,000, to small and mid-sized companies. DDN allows domain buyers to receive control of domains usually in seconds, rather than the traditional escrow method of domain transfer that can take a week or more.

Company has raised $320M to date.

According to several blog and media reports today, domain name company Demand Media has raised an additional $100M in capital. That brings its total to a staggering $320M. Demand Media was founded by former MySpace executive Richard Rosenblatt.

The company owns eNom, the second largest registrar (by names registered), as well as a large portfolio of good domain names. The company also markets the .TV domain name, which it is trying to “rebirth” after its initial failed launched. Demand Media tries to apply social networking tools to domain names.

Some of Demand Media’s sites include Run.com, Trails.com, and Grab.com.

According to legend, Rosenblatt got the idea for the company after reading “Master of Their Domains”, a 2005 story in now defunct Business 2.0. In November 2006 Rosenblatt said he wanted to take the company public in 2007 at a market cap of $2B.

The numbers don’t make much sense to me. If you’ve raised $320M and go public with a market cap of $2B, the return to early investors isn’t that great. I assume that recent investors bought in at a very high valuation.

I’m not fully bought in to Demand Media’s stated mission, including applying social networking to thousands of domain names and the .tv domain, but I’m sure there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that I don’t know about.

List includes 3800 domain names ranging from no reserve to over $5M.

Moniker released a tentative list of domain names to be auctioned at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East, which kicks off October 9 in in Hollywood, Florida.

The list of about 3,800 domain names includes both those that will be in the live auction and the ensuing silent auction. FantasySports.com has the highest reserve at over $5M USD. Other big ticket domains include Computer.com, Polls.com, and Taxes.com.

All told, there are a half dozen domains with reserves between $1m-$5M. If a couple of these sell, Moniker may be able to break its record-breaking auction from the last TRAFFIC show in New York City. There are another half dozen domains with reserves between $.75M-$1M, and the same number between $.5M-$.75M. Two dozen domains are in the next lowest category, with reserves of at least $.25M. Domains in that category include Bad.com, Bourbon.com, and Tortillas.com.

There are a handful of good domains priced under $10,000, including:

EmergencyLoan.com
Guys.org
ImageViewer.com (OK, so I own that one)
Lotto.info
Software.info
TuxRentals.com
AirlineClub.com
Archbishop.com

You can download the entire inventory of domain names at Moniker’s web site.

ICANN advisory would clarify the circumstances when a registrar can deny a domain name transfer request.

Many people who have tried to transfer a domain name from GoDaddy to another registrar have faced a hurdle. If they’ve changed their whois information within the past 60 days, GoDaddy will deny the transfer for “security reasons”. Only one other major registrar, Network Solutions, has been known to do this.

But the practice may come to an end thanks to an ICANN advisory. I actually mentioned this problem to Vint Cerf, Chair of ICANN’s Board of Directors, at a Domain Roundtable conference two years ago. He was surprised to hear about GoDaddy’s policy.

The new ICANN advisory, which is in its public comment period for the next 30 days, states:

1. Registrars are prohibited from denying a domain name transfer request based on non-payment of fees for pending or future registration periods during the Auto-Renew Grace Period
2. A registrant change to Whois information is not a valid basis for denying a transfer request.

The latter specifically targets user and other registrar’s frustration with GoDaddy. In practice, you can push a transfer out of GoDaddy if you take the time to complain to the Office of the President. But GoDaddy’s customer service reps frequently site “ICANN policy” for denying the transfers, which simply isn’t true.

Rather than write this in my own words, below is a post from a small registrar, Tiger Technologies LLC, about this practice (from ICANN’s public comment forum):

I applaud this action from ICANN. Over the last year, many legitimate registrants have been unable to transfer their domain names to us because GoDaddy (and more recently Network Solutions) denied transfers on this arbitrary basis.

GoDaddy claims that their policy is necessary for security reasons, but that claim is specious. As a smaller registrar that focuses on customer service, we pursued every one of these cases on behalf of our customers, and not one of the transfers was fraudulent.

In fact, GoDaddy eventually agreed to release most of these domain names to us after we complained. But we shouldn’t have to argue with GoDaddy to get a legitimate transfer completed: it’s cost us many uncompensated hours of our time, and we’ve seen transfers delayed for days or weeks even in cases where we’ve been able to help the registrant. In some cases, legitimate registrants gave up on the transfer and renewed with
GoDaddy against their will because we couldn’t resolve it before the domain name expired. This kind of nonsense is *exactly* what the transfer policy was designed to stop…

…In short, the additional transfer restrictions imposed by some registrars are not justified. The harm these restrictions do to legitimate registrants far outweighs the rare security benefits.

–
Robert Mathews, Tiger Technologies