Lots of exposure for premium listings.

I added a couple domain names with Afternic’s Premium distribution over the past few days to try out the system. There was a technical glitch with Moniker’s implementation, but this has been sorted out and customers shouldn’t experience any problems going forward.

(One note on eNom: you may need to do some sort of internal transfer from your reseller account to eNom’s registrar credentials to get your listings live. Afternic walks you through this after you submit your name.)

So what sort of attention does your domain name get when it’s listed in the registration path of four of the top 10 domain name registrars?

Network Solutions:

Register (my favorite implementation):

eNom:

Moniker’s implementation is kind of basic. It shows the domain as unavailable, but there’s a link below to buy it at SnapNames.

Benefit of the doubt given to complainants in .co cases.

Companies have filed 51 UDRPs against .co domain names since the relaunch of .co into an international domain name extension over the summer. They haven’t lost yet.

Complainants are 25-0 in cases that have been decided, and further settled seven cases prior to having them heard by World Intellectual Property Organization panelists.

In most cases the domain at issue is an exact match to a famous brand such as aolmail.co and cointreau.co. But the benefit of the doubt is afforded to complainants, such as in the case of TGV.co. The complainant merely pointed to a parked page offering the three letter domain name for sale as evidence. And the respondent in HGTV.co didn’t even bother to respond.

If you registered a generic or acronym .co domain name for good intentions, be sure you aren’t parking it. It’s an easy way to lose the domain name.

Company defensively registers hundreds of domain names for its senior executives and board members.

As Bank of American awaits a possible release of information from WikiLeaks, it wants to ensure that you don’t think its executives suck. Or blow for that matter.

The company has been aggressively registering domain names including its Board of Directors’ and senior executives’ names followed by “sucks” and “blows”.

For example, the company registered a number of domains for CEO Brian Moynihan: BrianMoynihanBlows.com, BrianMoynihanSucks.com, BrianTMoynihanBlows.com, and BrianTMoynihanSucks.com. Just to be sure, it also picked up the .net version of these names and some .orgs as well.

I count hundreds of such domain name registrations on December 17 alone. They were registered through an intermediary that frequently registers domain names on behalf of large companies.

Some of the other names are for CFO Charles Noski, Chairman of the Board Charles Holliday, and board member Charles Rossotti (who is also Senior Advisor, The Carlyle Group).

I’m not sure if this strategy will work. You can always go register BrianMoynihanBlows.info.

Current negotiations and delays could result in unfavorable terms for domain name investors.

A lot of domain name investors are against the wholesale introduction of new top level domain names, or at least some of the provisions attached to them. They worry that new intellectual property guidelines, a lack of pricing controls, etc. will be extended to existing top level domain names such as .com. They also worry that ICANN will crumble under the weight of legal action, throwing the entire naming system into disarray.

These are valid worries. But at this point in the game, I think any further delays and negotiation on new top level domain names will only hurt domainers.

When ICANN meets with the Governmental Advisory Committee in February, intellectual property rights will very much be on the table. I worry about last minute concessions that could jeopardize legitimate domain name owners by giving too much power to IP interests.

I should reiterate that I’m a fan of legitimate protections for trademark owners. But we often see trademark owners overstep their rights.

Frankly, domainers needn’t worry too much about IP protections built into the existing applicant guidebook. But further delays and negotiation could result in something getting slipped in at the last moment, not giving domainers a chance to respond.

Site shows latest registered domain names.

There’s a new site to search through today’s (OK, yesterday’s) newly registered domain names: AddedDomains.com.

All you do is type in a search term and the site displays domain names including the term that were registered yesterday. It uses an instant search technology, so as soon as you start typing letters you’ll see results displayed in a colorful, whimsical way.

Soon you’ll be able to set up e-mail alerts as well, such as if anyone registers a domain name including your brand.

It’s a fun little tool, although it could be more useful if it provided a way to analyze new registrations. For example, if you typed in a keyword it would tell you exactly how many domains were registered with that keyword in the day. It appears the company behind the site provides analytics to institutional investors in VeriSign stock (VeriSign runs the .com and .net registries).

I recall a couple other tools that help analyze a day’s registrations and trends, but can’t think of them off the top of my head. Please leave a comment if you recall what they are.