New API makes it easier for large domainers to manage inventory on NameMedia sales network.

Domain name sales venue Afternic has released a new product for large domain name portfolio owners called Afternic Portfolio Manager. The company bills the product as an easy-to-use domain distribution and inventory management tool for selling domain names.

Among its features is the ability to instantaneously add, edit, and remove domains from Afternic and its distribution partners, such as Register.com and Network Solutions. While the existing Afternic management interface works well for most portfolios, the new web service can handle larger portfolios.

TurnCommerce, the company behind NameBee, has been using Afternic Portfolio Manager over the past month to manage is 200,000+ domain name inventory. The company reports a 20% increase in domain sales through Afternic since it started using the new product.

Afternic customers interested in using the the new manager should contact Afternic support or their account manager for details and access.

A possible new entrant into the trademarked domain recovery industry.

NameDepot.com, Inc. has filed a trademark application for “RealRegistrant”, with services described as:

Application service provider, namely service, software, database, web interface, and technical support for users to obtain information about the owner or registrant of a domain name when the WHOIS information is obscured by a domain name WHOIS Privacy or Proxy service; domain name information and research databases via the Internet for consultation, legal counseling, trademark and domain screening and clearance, competitive and legal research and watch purposes; application service provider, namely providing software as a service which facilitates users to obtain information about the owner or registrant of a domain name when the WHOIS information is obscured by a domain name WHOIS Privacy or Proxy service and in protecting their brands, domains and trademarks

In other words, the company will help people figure out who is behind a proxy domain name. This can be done by filing complaints with the proxy or privacy service.

The NameDepot.com web site says it’s coming soon but doesn’t have any more information, other than a link to TMSecure.com. The page title for TMSecure.com is “Detect and Recover Trademark-Infringing Domain Names”. NameDepot.com was purchased from BuyDomains last year, and TMSecure.com was registered in December 2009.

I contacted the registrant of NameDepot.com via phone today and he wasn’t willing to share any information at this time. However, it looks like another competitor in the trademark domain tracking and recovery field.

Domain company makes a small error, but builds trust in the process.

Let’s face it, the domain name business is based on trust. One of these areas of trust is for parking company affiliate programs. As an affiliate of numerous parking companies, I really have no way of knowing if I’m being paid my actual share of referrals. I just have to trust that the parking company is playing straight.

I received a pleasant surprise in my inbox this morning from Craig Rowe of WhyPark:

During a review of our payments to customers, we noticed that some accounts were not being paid the referral revenue earned, although it was being shown as paid with your PayPal payments.

Fortunately, this was only a small set of customers, but unfortunately, one of those customers was you. We have shown that we paid you referral revenue of $- total, but that amount was not included in your PayPal payments. To apologize for this error, we’re adding 20% to the amount we should have paid you. So, we’ve added $- to your account. You can view this amount in My Account > Payments Received. If your total pending revenue, including this adjustment is over your Payment Threshold, you’ll be paid on July 7th.

We sincerely apologize for this oversight and have fixed the issue that was causing the referral revenue not to be included in your payments. Please contact me with any questions.

About 40 people were affected by this error and 15 people are owed $10 or more.

WhyPark could have let this slide and I wouldn’t have noticed. Not that I’d expect that from Craig, who is one of the nicest guys you’ll meet in this industry. But still, WhyPark was able to build even more trust through this error. When a company comes clean on an error like this and even pays a little extra, you know you can trust that they’re playing straight with all aspects of their business.

Stuart Lawley talks about the future of his TLD.

ICM Registry founder Stuart Lawley just got back from a successful ICANN meeting in Brussels. In this Q&A, Lawley answers some common questions about the .xxx top level domain name. He also reveals that the company has received 30,000 pre-reservations for the domain since the news broke last Friday that .xxx is on path for final approval.

DNW: Given the process you still need to complete before launching .xxx, when do you think we’ll be able to register and start using .xxx domains?

Lawley: Q1 2011

DNW: One issue trademark interests have with all new top level domains is feeling like they have to pay for defensive registrations to protect their brands. This could be especially important for .xxx, since most brands don’t want to be associated with adult content. You have a unique way for trademark holders to effectively “block” the registration of their name in .xxx. How will this work?

Lawley: This is laid out in Appendix S of the draft contract but basically, non members of the Sponsored Community will be given the chance during the Launch period to protect their trademarks for a low fee to apply to have their trademarks permanently removed from being registered. We will administer this in conjunction with one of the trademark validation specialist services that have popped up recently and we spoke with a couple of them at the ICANN meeting in Brussels . There will be an appeals process and, of course, our sponsored community members will have priority of non-community members in registering good faith bona fide trademarks

DNW: You’ve accepted pre-registrations for .xxx for some time. How many pre-registrations do you have now, and how many of those were made over the past 12 months? Is it mandatory for those that pre-registered to follow through? In other words, do you think most of these pre-regs will turn into actual registrations?

Lawley: Pre-reservations are voluntary but, subject to our terms and conditions state, pre-reservants will be given priority, so yes we do expect most to follow through. We have, as of Sunday morning 142,626 such names with over 30,000 received since Friday. As you can appreciate this is a moving target and we will update the rapidly growing numbers via our blog.

DNW: Do you anticipate major registrars such as Go Daddy, Network Solutions, and eNom will offer .xxx as an option for their customers?

Lawley: Absolutely! We have spoken with ALL the leading registrars and many of them are forecasting selling hundreds of thousands each. Most registrars we have spoken to seem to indicate that 10-15% of their registrations are “Adult” , so this is one new TLD they are very keen to carry.

DNW: When new TLDs are finally released, do you think you’ll get competition from other adult domains, such as .sex or .porn?

We have always believed that the string .XXX is by far the best new TLD for the adult business. Any such other TLD’s are a VERY long way off and will be subject to challenges and delays as we were. In the new round (if and when it ever happens) there are hurdles and challenge mechanisms, that simply were not present in our round for such things as Morality and Public Order, which is still an unsettled overarching issue, confusingly similarity (.sex and .se anybody?). Any such competing string would be several years down the line by which time we hope to have established .xxx as the de-facto online location for adult entertainment .

DNW: Anything else you want to discuss?

Lawley: As a sponsored TLD we have plans, that we will announce over the coming months, that will provide, in our opinion, HUGE benefits for our sponsored community in terms of reduced payment processing rates, vastly reduced chargeback issues. In addition we will embark on a worldwide marketing campaign to educate the general population on the benefits .xxx brings. We expect registrants to enjoy greater traffic and more profitable and predictable recurring revenue streams. This will lead to .XXX being the preferred domain of choice for the adult industry once they see these benefits converting into hard dollars.

Possible new top level domain name gets even more exposure.

If you’re ICM Registry, you couldn’t ask for better publicity for the .xxx top level domain name: CNN has a poll on its home page asking people “Do you think pornographic websites should have their own “.xxx” domain?”

So far a whopping 272,555 have voted in the poll. 83% have answered “Yes”.

It’s an unscientific poll, and who knows the thinking behind why people are answering “yes”. But it doesn’t really matter as this means over a quarter million people have processed the idea of a .xxx domain name.

Anyone planning to launch a new TLD would love to get exposure like that. This is added on top of dozens of mainstream articles about the TLD over the past week. Sure, not all of it was favorable and much of it was inaccurate. But all press is good press.

Check back later today for a Q&A with ICM Registry’s Stuart Lawley.