Latona makes two smart moves.

I was a little surprised to receive a press release from Rick Latona Auctions this week about an upcoming online auction, scheduled to start July 23. What concerned me was that I hadn’t heard about the auction until just this week and Latona was still accepting submissions. That could be a recipe for disaster. But hey, it’s his show.

Today Latona made two great moves in one: he canceled this week’s auction and announced a new theme for an auction next month: CPA/Lead generation domain names. It’s a huge market, although many lead generation companies view buying domains for traffic as too expensive. Nevertheless, I think this is a great theme if Latona can reach out to the affiliate community before the auction.

It always surprises me how most domainers are stuck in a pay-per-click mentality. The truth is, there are many lead generation firms out there that make domainers’ profits look like drop in the bucket. Merging the two worlds between domain names and pay-per-action/lead would be a home run. I guess it will take both sides educating each other rather than arguing that one is better than the other.

Cleveland Browns quarterback loses arbitration for BradyQuinn.com.

Brady Quinn’s domain name has been intercepted.

The Cleveland Browns quarterback filed for arbitration at National Arbitration Forum to get the domain name BradyQuinn.com from a Florida man. He lost the case, failing to persuade an arbitrator that the domain name was registered in bad faith.

The case hinged on when exactly Quinn got common law rights to the name “Brady Quinn”. The respondent argued that Quinn had only been featured in local media before the domain name was registered, and that Quinn hadn’t established common law rights. Quinn was a senior in college when the domain was registered, and had just been offered a scholarship to play for Notre Dame.

This case is one that really could have gone either way. I could see a panelist deciding that the respondent only registered the domain after learning about Quinn in the press, especially since the owner offered to sell the domain for $2,000. But this arbitrator was unconvinced.

The lesson is that you should really try to purchase your domain name early, especially if you’re a pseudo-celebrity. It amazes me how many people who get to the final leg on American Idol don’t own their domain names.

A brief look at domain name news.

.cm, .info, and other stories worth reading.

Is the .cm landrush a blight on domainers? Chad Kettner thinks so. I tend to agree. Rightly or wrongly, it’s easy for the media to point to major domain name companies supporting the .cm landrush and saying “see, they’re all cybersquatters”. I also question the amount of .cm typo traffic. Personally, I think .co is much more common. You also wonder if parking ad feed providers will monetize .cm traffic. Don’t forget it’s also a country code domain, so keep in mind there’s little oversight. Cameroon could decide to take your domains away.

.Info deals. If, like many spammers and sploggers, you are a fan of .info domain names, this news is for you. .Info registry Afilias has a new page dedicated to special registrar offers for cut-rate .info domains. Keep in mind most specials are only for the first year of registration. (Hey, I actually like .info. But the low price has led to quality concerns.)

SnapNames auction tops $100,000. SnapNames first monthly themed auction brought in over $100,000 in sales. DegreePrograms.com led the way at $31,555. Submissions for the August Showcase Auction are due by July 28; September submissions are due by August 25.

Arbitrator sued in Houston for allegedly presuming guilt.

One of National Arbitration Forum’s (NAF) most prolific arbitrators, The Honorable Carolyn Marks Johnson, has been sued in Houston for alleged judicial misconduct.

Judge Johnson has been an active domain dispute arbitrator with NAF. A 2001 analysis of UDRP cases (pdf) showed that, not only was she handed a disproportionate number of complaints by NAF, but she also found in favor of the complainant 97.2% of the time. Across the universe of cases at NAF, only 82.9% were found in favor of complainants at the time.

She has also decided some particularly egregious cases. She found in favor of the complainant for Freebie.com, even though the respondent owned a company called Freebie, Inc. that used the web site for a “points site” for Blockbuster Video. That decision found its way to court, where two separate courts found that the UDRP was flat out wrong. The first court decided that the UDRP was “unsupported by the evidence” and should be reversed. An appeals court agreed.

She was also the arbitrator on the recent MothersMilk.com case. She was the second arbitrator to hear what amounts to basically the same case. The first arbitrator ruled in favor of the respondent; Johnson found in favor of the complainant.

So what is she alleged to have done to find herself on the receiving end of a lawsuit? While serving as a judge in a Driving While Intoxicated case, she undertook what the defendant alleges was a “bizarre and illegal course of conduct”.

Just an upset defendant? It doesn’t appear that way. The defendant alleges that, while the jury was deliberating, Johnson opined about the need to punish the defendant and the need for the prosecutor and defendant to work out an agreement about the punishment that would be imposed on the defendant as soon as the jury reached a verdict. Johnson then allegedly ordered the defendant to take a drug test, and Johnson advised that, if found positive for illegal drugs, she would tell the jury as it was deliberating.

Keep in mind this all allegedly took place while the jury was deliberating. It then came back with its verdict: NOT guilty.

The suit alleges that the defendant was then detained against her will in order to take the drug test anyway, and makes several other claims. By the way, the drug test came back negative, too.

That one of its arbitrators is on the receiving end of such a lawsuit doesn’t look good for National Arbitration Forum, given that it was recently sued for bias by the Attorney General of Minnesota. NAF settled the case and exited the consumer arbitration business.

It’s up to the court to decide Judge Johnson’s case. After all, you’re innocent until proven guilty. Perhaps Johnson needs to apply that elusive right in both the court room and in domain arbitration cases.

RevenueDriver is the newest domain parking company on the block.

These days it seems like the number of domain name parking options is declining. So it’s nice to see a new option on the table in RevenueDriver.

Based in Italy, RevenueDriver brings multi-lingual support and a European perspective to the parking business. Currently, Sedo and NameDrive are generally considered the strongest European parking companies, but RevenueDriver uses a different ad feed provider. It’s worth testing RevenueDriver to see if its ad feed works better on your domains.

The company has about 40 graphical templates. Examples include these for boats, movies, and celebrities.

Like many parking companies, RevenueDriver lets you choose keywords for your domains or let the system automatically choose them. The system learns what people are looking for over time and changes keywords accordingly.

As most domainers watch their pay-per-click revenue fall, it’s nice to see new option on the table.