Base of registered domain names continues to grow.

VeriSign released its quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief today, reporting that the total base of domain names increased by 5.2 million last quarter to 215 million.

Registrations have grown by more than 16.9 million since the second quarter of 2010.

The total base of .com and .net domain names passed 110 million. There were 8.1 million new .com and .net registrations during the quarter. VeriSign manages the registry for both of these top level domain names.

VeriSign reports that the rankings of country code top level domain names in terms of registration base stayed about the same. .Eu dropped one spot to ninth and China now holds the number eight spot.

You can view the full report here (pdf).

Top 5 domain name news stories for the past month.

August is coming to a close and I’m thankful.

Why? It’s been so damn hot here in Texas that I’m counting down the days until fall.

We also had some hot news in the domain industry this month. Here are the top stories attracting views on Domain Name Wire in August.

1. Canadian Court Rules Domain Names Are Property – ruling in Tucows suit lends credence to the legal idea of domain names as property.

2. Google Gets XXX Domain Name* – Google wins case over GoogleXXX.com.

3. Are Domain Names Less Important? – domain names are now competing for mindspace with twitter, Facebook, and other ways to connect with businesses.

4. 9 Reasons Your New TLD Will Fail – thoughts for new TLD applicants about why their new TLD might fail.

5. iPhone Jailbreak Site Files Lawsuit Over Domain Name – Company behind Cydia files lawsuit after losing UDRP.

New TLD program not exactly progressing at warp speed after approval.

This is one of those blog posts where I essentially refer you to another blogger’s post.

Kevin Murphy of DomainIncite published a story this morning titled “Should new gTLDs be delayed?” It’s a thoughtful piece that, as a fellow blogger, I know took some time to put together. And it’s really good.

Kevin isn’t saying new TLDs should be delayed, but he gives a good run down of the current status of the program and how it seems that certain aspects of it are “behind”. ICANN needs to show some leadership and certainty if it’s going to pull this off.

It’s definitely worth a read.

Another week, another set of end user domain name sales.

As I do weekly, here’s a look at a sample of end user sales through the Afternic platform…

A client of brand management company MarkMonitor bought Stumblers.com for $6,000. Could the buyer be StumbleUpon?

Accessories company Sprigs, which uses the domain name sprigsville.com, bought sprigs.com for $8,000.

The owner of Offsitesolutions.biz upgraded to Offsitesolutions.com for $6,000.

Austin, TX-based uShip.com bought uShip.co.uk for $1,400. The company already offers services in the UK at uShip.com/uk.

Source Interlink, which owns a huge network of automotive web sites, bought Wrenchheads.com for $2,509.

World Car Sales LTD bought carzilla.com for $11,000.

The owner of CaliforniaRadiology.net upgraded to CaliforniaRadiology.com for just $1,300.

Travel Planners International bought vacationspecialist.com for $2,500, travelbysea.com for $1,000, and thetravelplanner.com for $1,450.

TiVo, meet TiVo.

DVR company TiVo certainly has a trademark to the term “TiVo”, but it may have found its match: a band member who goes by the nickname “Tivo”.

Rocker Majan Fernandez Primitivo goes by the stage name “Tivo” for his acts, taking the last four letters of his last name. He registered Tivo.es to promote himself.

That didn’t sit well with the DVR maker, who filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization to get the domain name.

But the arbitrator balked at the claims. After all, Primitivo was using the domain name and certainly has a legitimate interest in it. He wasn’t trying to profit from the company TiVo. It follows that he didn’t register it in bad faith, either.

If the TV maker wants to get its hands on TiVo.es, it might need to license Primitivo’s content for its services…and ask for the domain as part of the deal.