Cricket.com to remain with current owners.

Wireless company Cricket Communications has dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit it brought against the owners of Cricket.com.

Cricket Communications sued Global Cricket Ventures alleging that the site about the cricket sport was merely a coverup to show ads related to wireless phones. The mobile phone company said that Global Cricket Ventures had hardcoded a Cricket Wireless logo onto its site to look like it was merely part of a third party banner.

Cricket.com changed after the lawsuit was filed. All ads related to mobile phones were removed.

Cricket Communications filed a court document in July saying that it was in settlement negotiations with Global Cricket Ventures.

Number of people part-timing with domain names seems to have fallen.

Many sectors of the domainer industry have experienced a steep fall since about 2007. Has the number of people dabbling in domain names also dropped?

I suspect so. Over the past year or two I’ve noticed a drop in the number of hangers on. I think we’ve seen this at domain industry shows, on domain forums, and perhaps even on blogs. People that used to comment all the time have simply disappeared. (Admittedly, I don’t really have any data for you.)

It’s also possible people just aren’t spending as much time on it if they aren’t “all in”.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just an observation I’ve made. What do you think?

Company files complaint over EtsySucks.com and four other domains.

[Update: Etsy won the case.] Arts marketplace Etsy.com has filed a complaint with National Arbitration Forum over EtsySucks.com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info.

The domain names appear to be owned by the former editor of the now defunct “Unofficial Etsy News Blog”.

Etsy has received its fair share of criticism from current and former users, so it’s no surprise that these domain names exist.

Freedom of speech? It’s true that someone could register EtsySucks.com and write about their dissatisfaction with the site. But the domain names are merely parked, which isn’t good proof that they were registered in good faith.

Unless there’s something non-obvious here, you can expect the arbitration panel to award Etsy the domain names.

Show heads to London for two day vent.

The London edition of ad:tech got underway this morning with a discussion with Nike brand communications director, global football Ed Elworthy and EuroRSCG CEO Russ Lidstone.

The event runs through Wednesday at the National Hall in Olympia in London.

Compared to the U.S. ad:tech shows, exhibitors at the London show have a definite slant toward mobile advertising. There are about 170 exhibitors the show.

If you’re at the conference please stop by our Media.net booth. It’s on the left side of the exhibit hall at booth 208.

Two large publishers buy domain names.

The Washington Post Company and Entrepreneur Media both bought domain names this week. Here’s a look at these and a handful of other end user sales at Afternic over the past week.

The Washington Post bought expressnow.com for $1,188.

After buying FullBeauty.com for $4,290 two months ago, Redcats USA picked up FullBeauty.NET for $1,856.80.

Online document signing solution RightSignature bought pleasesign.com for $1,000, signatureonline.com for $2,200 and securesignature.com for $1,500.

Implix, the company behind email marketing service GetResponse, bought EmailMarketingSecrets.com for $2,500.

OpenText bought OpenGov.com for $6,300.

In an end user purchase that will resonate with domainers, DomainTools bought ReverseDomain.com for $1,988.

Entrepreneur Media, publisher of the popular Entrepreneur Magazine, bought EntrepreneurAwards.com for $2,088.

Employee benefits technology company Motivano bought BenefitHub.com for $2,588.

Another HR company, HRToolbox, bought globalcompensation.com for $1,500.

User experience research company AnswerLab bought UsabilityResearch.com for $1,888.