Four patent applications provide method of domain name valuation and domain suggestions.

Domain name registrar GoDaddy has filed four patent applications related to domain name appraisals and spinning.

The applications list Paul Nicks, who is Director of Product Development for GoDaddy’s auction service, as inventor. They were filed in February 2010 and just published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today.

The domain name appraisal portion (pdf) of the patents describes a system of valuing a domain name based on “5 Ps”:

Precision – may include the number of distinct keywords found, the length of the name and the number of keywords found in the dictionary.

Popularity – may include various search engine search result metrics and tracking of words searched per month.

Presence – may include the age of the domain, and the rank of the web site according to web ranking services or software.

Pattern – may include the number of premium characters, the part of speech (such as noun, plural noun, verb, adjective, etc., possibly considering if the domain is a one word domain), the relationship of vowels and consonants etc. (possibly considering if the domain is a 4-5 character word).

Pay-Per-Click – may include the maximum number of pay-per-click bids from various advertising tracking services or software, and the number of ads returned within search engine searches.

Then a “dynamic multiplier” based on registration statistics for each of several top level domains (TLDs) may then be applied to the domain evaluation to determine domain scarcity.

The spinning portion of patents is for taking a domain submission, extracting its elements, and suggesting a number of available domain names.

More proof that providing whois proxy services isn’t free.

Remember when a Miami blog suggested that Moniker provided child porn?

Now Moniker is named in another porn lawsuit (pdf), and it appears the lawyers filing the case are confused. But it’s another example of why I say providing whois privacy isn’t free.

Adult movie producer Fraserside, a division of publicly traded company Private Media Group Inc., sued “Moniker Privacy Services, dba DrTuber.com” for copyright infringement. DrTuber.com is one of the web’s most visited web sites; Alexa ranks it #409.

Fraserside points to a number of its videos that are hosted on the explicit web site.

Typically you’ll see a whois proxy service such as Moniker named in a lawsuit so that the service will reveal the owner. But the way the complaint is written, it appears Fraserside’s lawyers think that Moniker Privacy Services is running DrTuber.com.

Even if the plaintiff drops Moniker once it understands the relationship, it will cost Moniker to respond…another example of the costs of providing a whois proxy service.

Letter of approval issued in error according to Mumbai’s IT department.

A few months after Minds + Machines announced it was working with India TL Domain Pvt Ltd for the .Mumbai top level domain name, a city official is saying that ICANN should not allocate the .mumbai domain name.

The letter from Y.S. Mahangade, Deputy Director (IT) of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), requests that ICANN “Not allocate any domain ending with .mumbai (dot Mumbai) to any party / organization / company”.

According to Mahangade:

Honorable Deputy Mayor of MCGM inadvertently issued a letter to one organization which has been revoked later by Honorable Deputy Major of MCGM. It may please be noted that the official position of the City of Mumbai is communicated by Municipal Commissioner.

Frankly, I was a bit surprised to see the .Mumbai announcement in the first place given how the city “works”. My impression is it’s not exactly easy to get something done quickly through the bureaucratic process.

United Domains pitches existing domain names to registration customers.

United Domains has added SedoMLS Premium to its offerings, which means it now offers fixed price, instant transfer domain names to its customers.

Here’s an example of what users see when they search for a domain that’s for sale:

Sedo has two levels of SedoMLS that closely mirror a similar offering from Afternic. SedoMLS Premium includes syndication to more sites than regular MLS as well as instant-transfer availability. The commission is 20% and domains must have a fixed price to use the Premium option.

Through its somewhat complex corporate structure, Sedo can be described as a “sister company” to United Domains.

Kindle adds KindleWave.com to its stable of domain names.

Amazon recently registered the domain name KindleScribe.com, sparking speculation that it could be the name of a future Amazon Kindle device.

But there’s another domain name Amazon picked up at the same time: KindleWave.com.

Could Amazon release a Kindle Wave?

To be fair, both the Kindle Scribe domain names and Kindle Wave domain names could be merely defensive registrations by the company. KindleScribe.com and KindleWave.com recently expired and Amazon picked them up after they were deleted. KindleScribe.com was registered to a Los Angeles company; KindleWave.com was registered by a Tennessee company.

Still, in this gadget and tablet crazed world, this certainly fuels speculation.