Facebook awarded 21 trademark-infringing domain names.

A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has ordered BuyDomains founder Mike Mann and his company Domain Asset Holdings to transfer 21 domain names to social networking site Facebook.

The domain names all include Facebook plus an additional word, such as AboutFacebook.com, FacebookFest.com, and FacebookStuff.com.

The case was delayed at first over some confusion apparently caused by Mann’s legal team. The legal team apparently asked domain name registrar DomainDiscover to cancel the domain name registrations and the registrar complied. This put the domain names in pending delete status.

After realizing the problem, DomainDiscover went to .com registry VeriSign to get the domain names restored.

Mann did not respond to the complaint.

Web adds more domain names in Q1.

April started with approximately 209.8 million domain names registered according to VeriSign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief (pdf). That means the base of registered domain names grew by 4.5 million in the first quarter.

The company says there are a combined 108 million .com and .net domain names registered. I suspect we’ll see some huge PR as the base of .com domain names approaches 100 million.

VeriSign estimates there are 81.7 million country code domain names.

The .Com and .Net registration base is increasing at a faster clip than ccTLDs.

In terms of rankings, .uk moved up a spot to be the fourth largest TLD, surpassing .org. China’s .cn dropped from seventh to ninth as a continued result of higher registration prices and hefty registration restrictions.

Germany’s .de remains the biggest country code domain name.

Two domain name industry heavyweights spend more on government lobbying in 2010.

Both VeriSign and Go Daddy substantially increased their spending on U.S. government lobbying over the past year, data collected by Domain Name Wire show.

The numbers are based on public records filed with the U.S. Senate under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

VeriSign spent $3.315 million on lobbying last year, up from $2.4 million in 2009. Go Daddy Group, which owns domain name registrar GoDaddy.com, spent $1.162 million in 2010. That’s up from $715,500 in 2009. Among the issues Go Daddy lobbied were piracy, privacy, and rogue internet pharmacies. Go Daddy has been a strong advocate of shutting down these pharmacies and suspended 150,000 domains related to rogue online pharmacies last year.

Most other domain name related companies either held lobbying expenditures steady or decreased them, as the chart in this post shows.

Non-domain companies also spent money lobbying the federal government about domain names. For example, Christian Coalition of America was at it again, lobbying the government to stop the .xxx domain name. (ICM Registry, which operates .xxx, just registered to start lobbying the government this year).

Which country charges the most for second level domain names?

Which country code do you suppose charges the most money to register a second level domain name?

Perhaps established countries like Germany’s .de? Another rich Western country?

Nope. I’m not positive, but I think Nigeria wins the prize.

According to Nigerian publication Next, a grand total of 10 second level domain names have been registered in the country’s .ng domain name since the registrations became available.

Price tag: $20,000 USD a pop.

But that’s a deal compared to the original price tag of $40,000.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the companies forking over this money for second level domain names aren’t Nigerian companies. Domain name registrar webdomains.com.ng has registered at least eight of the domain names. I previously wrote about Microsoft’s registration of Bi.ng. Google is responsible for four .ng registrations: google.ng, gmail.ng, youtube.ng, and googli.ng.

If Nigeria charged a more modest $20 a year it would take 1,000 registrations to equal the cost of one registration at the current price. But I think they’d make a lot more money in the long run, not to mention create a true extension for the people if Nigeria.

Strong sales week but no six figure transactions from top marketplaces.

The two largest domain name marketplaces, Afternic and Sedo, combined for well over $1.5 million in announced domain sales over the past week.

Sedo led the way with Bills.org, while Afternic had a very strong sale with FunChat.com at $40,000.

Here’s a list of notable sales above $5,000 (Afternic sales denoted with “Afternic”, others are Sedo):

.com
humidifiers.com 50000 USD
funchat.com $40,000 USD Afternic
physical.com 42500 USD
undergraduate.com 22000 USD
playbet.com 21600 EUR
IVIDEOS.com $16,800 USD Afternic
francemutuelle.com 15000 EUR
Xumo.com $15,000 Afternic
misjuegosdebobesponja.com 10000 EUR
thredbo.com 10000 USD
CreateAPoster.com $10,000 Afternic
altus.com 9600 USD
betterdna.com 9000 USD
niceprice.com 8000 EUR
autonova.com $7,700 Afternic
wholesalevoip.com 7500 USD
bowandarrow.com 7000 USD
Nicker.com $7,000 Afternic
periodoncia.com 6500 USD
peoplecounting.com 6000 EUR
alphadebt.com $6,160 Afternic
taxnation.com $6,080 Afternic
gxnews.com $6,000 Afternic
WebsiteUptime.com $6,000 Afternic
jiangshi.com 6000 USD
visiontrends.com $5,800 Afternic
stockpage.com $5,588 Afternic
booklamp.com $5,502 Afternic
bigswing.com 5000 USD
likeus.com 5000 USD
ukcloud.com 5000 USD
ifast.com 5000 USD
dragonglobal.com 5000 USD
cocogirl.com 5000 USD
milcoches.com 4500 EUR

ccTLDs
it.cc 15000 USD
gaertnerei.de 11781 EUR
gärtnerei.de 11781 EUR
holland.co 9000 EUR
beat.fm 8500 USD
storyboard.de 8000 EUR
vanrental.co.uk 6220 GBP
brandy.co 6000 EUR
energiemakler.de 6000 EUR
smo.co.uk 6000 GBP
virus.nl 5001 EUR
datarecovery.us 5000 USD
gin.co 5000 EUR
smartkauf.de 4500 EUR

Other
bills.org 70000 USD
darlehen.net 15000 EUR
emailserver.net $10,000 Afternic
sipnet.net 10000 USD
raw.info 6000 EUR
upgrades.net 5500 USD
shawbrook.co.uk 5000 GBP
youthhostels.co.uk 5000 USD
qrs.net $5,000 Afternic
compute.net $5,000 Afternic
mafia.info 4000 EUR