.TV auction is going strong with two days remaining.

The .TV auction on SnapNames doesn’t end until Wednesday, but already 72% of the domains have bids.

At the time of writing 121 of the 169 .tv domain names have bids. 108 of the domains have met their reserve and will definitely sell by Wednesday.

So far the top bid is for MR.tv at $3,600. HI.tv isn’t far behind at $3,200. HI.tv is good because ‘hi’ is a word, but it is also the abbreviation for Hawaii.

The auction is mostly two and three letter .tv domain names — but there are also some good keywords.

Stocks.tv and Streaming.tv are each at $2,500 but they haven’t met their reserves. Some of the keyword domains I like that have not received bids yet are GreenLiving.tv, Bargains.tv, Joe.tv, and Tabloid.tv.

Poker site nailed for reverse domain name hijacking.

PokerStrategy.com operator Anachusa Ltd. has lost a UDRP for five clear typos of PokerStrategy.com. Not only that, but a three person panel also found the company guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.

So how does the owner of PokerStrategy.com lose a case for pokersrategy.com; pokerstategy.com; pokerstratgy.com; pokerstrtegy.com and pokrstrategy.com? It attempts to mislead the UDRP panel.

Anachusa Ltd. acquired the PokerStrategy.com domain name in 2006, well after the typos were registered. Until it was acquired the domain name was used for essentially the same purposes as the typo.

Anachusa Ltd. argued that the respondent must have registered the domain names in bad faith since PokerStrategy.com was registered in 2002. But the respondent had a trick up its sleeve — he hired domain attorney John Berryhill. Berryhill had actually represented the seller in the transaction where Anachusa acquired the domain. So he was well aware that the domain was acquired after the typos were registered.

Berryhill argued (in the panel’s words):

The point of this species of proceeding can only be the advice of counsel that, although there is no substantive merit to the claim, the speed with which the Policy operates and the variable degree of attention that a panelist may apply to the facts, renders it possible to catch a Respondent unawares and to essentially “sneak one by” with a definite probability of obtaining a domain name in circumstances where it is not warranted.

The panel agreed. In finding RDNH, it wrote:

…the Panel is satisfied that the Complainant’s representatives were well aware of the importance of the chronological issue – the Respondent’s attorney had alluded to it in pre-action correspondence and indeed the Complaint specifically referred to the question of whether the disputed domain names predated the trade marks.

Further, the Panel considers that the Complainant attempted to mislead the Panel on this point. The Complaint claims that the Respondent registered the disputed domain names “fully conscious” of the business it could generate from confusion with the Complainant as its own domain name pokerstrategy.com had “already” been registered in 2002. And, in the section “Identical or Confusingly Similar”, the Complainant states that the domain name was created in 2002 “and has been used since”. These statements were clearly designed to convey the impression that the Complainant itself had been using pokerstrategy.com for a website from 2002, before registration of the disputed domain names. Whereas the Complainant could hardly have been unaware of the fact that it had only acquired pokerstrategy.com in 2006.

The complainant won a previous case for pokerstrategy.co.

New site brings together basic building blocks of domain development.

A new web site seeks to help domain name owners develop their domain names with the power of crowdsourcing.

DomainPeers.com brings together logo and template design as well as web hosting for one site a week day. Domain owners can submit their domain for voting by the community. Once the community picks the weekly site, designers and hosting companies go to work. The community then selects the winning designs.

The designers get paid with a portion of sponsorship fees. Companies can sponsor the weekly competitions and get exposure. (Update: each competition lasts a week, but a new one starts every day.)

This is a neat idea if the site can bring together all of the necessary players — primarily designers and sponsors. Still, it doesn’t solve one of the biggest problems plaguing domainers getting into the development game — content.

So if you’re going to use the service I recommend only submitting domain names you’re passionate about and are willing to put in the elbow grease required to build out great content.

Once again Escrow.com is top rate domain name escrow provider.

Escrow.com is the best domain name escrow service according to a survey of over 1,500 domain industry professionals.

46% of respondents in Domain Name Wire’s sixth annual survey said Escrow.com was best. Sedo’s escrow services came in second place with 32%.

1. Escrow.com 46%
2. Sedo 32%
3. Afternic 8%
4. Moniker 7%
5. EscrowDNS 6%

Domain name escrow service vary in price and services. Some (including Escrow.com and Moniker) offer complex escrow services such as payment plans.

Here’s how much a small and large transaction would cost with each of these five services.

$5,000 Domain
Escrow.com $162.50
Sedo $150
Afternic $150
Moniker $149
EscrowDNS $350

$75,000 Domain
Escrow.com $667.50
Sedo $2250
Afternic $2250
Moniker $697.50
EscrowDNS $750

You can view more results from the survey here.

Lots of people interested in .xxx domain names.

ICM Registry has received over 300,000 pre-registrations for its new .xxx domain names as of this morning. It has received tens of thousands of pre-registrations in just the past few days.

Of course, these pre-registrations don’t necessarily mean .XXX will get 300,000 registrations on the first day. There’s no cost to pre-register. There’s also no guarantee that those who express an interest in a name will get it. It’s more of a notification system than anything else.

Domains will be allocated in multiple ways. There will be options for trademark holders, possible priority for those that own the same second level domain name under a different TLD, an RFP process for developing valuable names, and auctions.

Details about the pre-registration option are available on ICM’s web site.