Smartphone maker gains 101 domain names in single dispute.

When it comes to getting bang for your buck in domain name arbitration, Research in Motion may have just set the bar. In a single UDRP case filed at World Intellectual Property Organization, the BlackBerry maker won 101 domains (and was denied 10 others).

BlackBerry filed the complaint against Georges Elias, who registered all 111 domains at GoDaddy. Elias’ imaginative registration spree included domains such as alwaysbetonblackberry.com, blackberryonice.com, and onceyougoblackberryyouwillnevergobackberry.com (no joke).

The panel decided that Research in Motion should get 101 of the domains, but denied 10 domains that focus on ‘berry’ rather than ‘blackberry’, such as mommyberry.com and berrydelsol.com.

Elias alleged that Research in Motion used Tucows’ (AMEX: TCX) Yummy Names division to approach the respondent about purchasing one of the domain names, insideblackberry.com, but never told Tucows that it was secretly enlisting it to gather evidence for its case. Elias alleged that Tucows said Research in Motion “procured Yummy Names’ services under false pretenses”, however the arbitrator decided there was no need to consider this.

Hard to prove demand for new top level domain names

One of the key questions facing ICANN and the internet community is if there is any demand for new top level domain names should they be released. So far no one has released convincing evidence of demand. And if past TLD launches are any indication, demand will be minimal.

One company, Quintaris, has taken a stab at proving demand by allowing people to ‘backorder’ new domains at Pool. These backorders are non-binding and don’t cost anything. They don’t give any precedence or privilege to those that backorder the domains. The motivation for backordering is unclear. So I was surprised when Quintaris announced last week that it was receiving 10,000 backorder requests a day. Why would people spend their time submitting pointless backorders?

I suppose it’s a little like voting for American Idol. One person can vote 1,000 times for the same person, and they receive no intrinsic value for doing so.

I contacted Quintaris today to understand how many people were behind the 10,000 backorders a day. The company declined to release this figure, but did say it will consider disclosing it in the future. To me the number of people placing backorders, if anything, is the important number.

It’s worth noting that Quintaris has a vested interest in new TLDs launching since it is a consulting company for entities wishing to launch TLDs. Part of the reason the company launched the backorder system is because it thought the new TLD plans may be scrapped because people claim there’s little demand.

The only hard data we have on the demand for new TLDs is looking back at previous launches. Based on both registrations and usage, I can’t think of any TLDs that have been a hit, especially when you factor in how little competition these TLDs had.

If anything, I can see some justification and demand for IDN TLDs. Unfortunately, Quintaris system doesn’t track that.

Monthly GreatDomains auction ends tomorrow.

Sedo’s monthly GreatDomains auction ends tomorrow, but no major domain name sales appear to be in the works. One domain may tip the scales: 80.com, which is currently at $60,000. The domain hasn’t met its reserve but the reserve is under $100,000.

The top domain in the auction to meet its reserve so far is 434.com at $8,100 with 13 bids. 434 is the area code for the south central area of Virginia.

A number of three letter domains in the auction have hit their reserves:

maj.com $5,201
gjv.com $4,299
ytt.com $4,200
juy.com $4,000
fuw.com $3,800
vxr.com $3,332

With a day left and most three character domains over $4,000, it looks like the market for three character domains may be improving somewhat. Over the past couple months low quality three character domain names had dipped into the $3,000s. I just sold one for $4,000 myself.

Although it’s not in the GreatDomains auction, BrandSpace.com will close tomorrow for 10,000 EUR.

BBI.net, Requirements.com and ApartmentsNow.com lead the pack.

NameMedia continues to sell over a half million dollars worth of domain names each week, a thousand or two thousand dollars at a time. Last week the company tallied just over $550,000 in reported sales. The median sales price for .com domains was at the company’s typical $1,200 and the median for non-.com (mostly .net and .org) was $1,000.

The top sale was BBI.net at $11,800, followed by requirements.com and apartmentsnow.com at $10,000 each. I like requirements.com, which would be perfect for a requirements software vendor. The domain appears to have been purchased by a business analyst community.

Here are other .com domain sales of note:

advancedpractice.com $5,839.20
LetsGIVE.com $5,800.00
socialtv.com $5,500.00
entertainmentbusiness.com $5,188.00
sattva.com $4,800.00
computerandelectronics.com $4,700.00
inventoryliquidators.com $4,000.00
mallplus.com $3,888.00
onesee.com $3,788.00
callsoft.com $3,750.00
organiz.com $3,741.00
dancefanatic.com $3,740.00
nylighting.com $3,591.00
orthosurgeons.com $3,513.61
viewprice.com $3,321.00
freefox.com $3,300.00
nativehealing.com $3,190.00
creditcardlenders.com $3,141.00
digitalsugar.com $3,088.00
eyet.com $3,000.00
churchlighting.com $3,000.00

And here are .net/.org domains:
blook.net $8,250.00
ldk.org $5,000.00
biblesearch.org $4,000.00
savelives.net $3,988.00
performanceparts.net $3,372.00
moneymaker.net $3,188.00
urns.org $3,188.00
environmentaleducation.org $3,000.00

Four tricks to access whois information on DomainTools faster.

Last week I visited the DomainTools offices in Seattle and it inspired me to write a series of posts about how I use DomainTools.

This first article is about what we all use DomainTools for at the simplest level: whois lookups. If you are manually going to domaintools.com and typing in your whois query, you’re wasting time. Here are four ways to access a whois record on DomainTools much faster.

1. Whois Toolbar Bookmark – drag this simple bookmark to your browser’s link bar. Then when you’re visiting a page, just click the bookmark and it will go directly to the whois record for that web site.

2. Google Toolbar Plugin – You can add the DomainTools plugin to your Google toolbar. It works similar to the bookmark; when you’re on a web page just click the button to access the whois record.

3. Direct navigation – if you aren’t currently on the web site you want to look up, just type in domaintools.com/domain.tld to immediately access the whois record. This is much faster than going to the domaintools.com home page and typing in a query.

4. Google search – use this only if you’re looking for the domain’s registration and expiration date. On Google type in “whois domain.tld”. The first result will show the domain’s key dates with a link to the full record on DomainTools. (Note that Google is showing key dates because it relies on this data when constructing its search results.)