Opportunity to block .xxx domain name registrations ends today.

Update: ICM Registry has extended sunrise period to Monday, October 31, 2011 at 16:00 UTC (Noon ET).

Companies that don’t want their trademark attached to a .xxx domain name have until the end of the day to take action.

The sunrise period for the .xxx domain name concludes today.

The sunrise period offers an opportunity to two groups: adult entertainment firms that wish to register domains related to their trademarks or existing domain names, and non-adult firms that wish to block their trademark from ever being registered in .xxx.

As of Monday the .xxx registry had already received 42,000 applications for .xxx sunrise.

As I’ve argued before, many small businesses don’t need to participate in sunrise. .xxx Registry fees are relatively expensive, which should keep cybersquatting down.

Also, there will be plenty of opportunity to reclaim or take down infringing domain names if they are registered.

Still, the one time blocking option makes sense for a number of businesses.

You can see a price comparison of .xxx sunrise applications here.

Landrush for .xxx domain names will begin November 8.

Admiralty Way has a new domain name resident.

An attorney with a long history in the domain name world has started a consulting firm to help new top level domain name applicants.

Bret Fausett, who was most recently Of Counsel at Alvarado Smith, has started Internet Pro APC (www.Internet.pro).

The firm’s address is on Admiralty Way in Marina del Ray, California. If that address looks familiar it’s because it’s the same street as ICANN’s headquarters.

Although information on Fausett’s company web page is scant, he provides a bit of information to Ray King in this video filmed at this week’s ICANN meeting in Dakar.

Fausett was the attorney representing the group that sued VeriSign over its price increases. He has also been in the thick of many interested domain name cases.

A couple years ago I sat down with him in his L.A. office to discuss domain names.

Fausett has also restarted his LexText blog, although it’s not longer in a blog format.

GoogleBaidu.com: no merger, just an interesting domain dispute.

Baidu might beat Google in China, but Google just got a hold of a little bit of Baidu.

Google was just awarded the domain name GoogleBaidu.com in an arbitration case before National Arbitration Forum.

You can understand why Google was irked by the domain name. It resolves to a page that looks like Google’s home page but is in Chinese and has a combination logo of Google and Baidu:

The GoogleBaidu.com domain was also nicely indexed in Google’s search engine:

It makes sense that Google won this domain name in the arbitration proceeding. Still, it puts Google in the interesting position of owning a domain name that includes one of its main rival’s trademarks.

I’ll also give Google credit for not messing with its search results and taking care of the problem the correct way.

Sedo to start showing estimated parking revenue; audited numbers displayed in about 48 hours.

On November 1 Sedo will change its domain parking statistics to an estimated earnings system. This means they will display estimate earnings at first and then actual earnings from Google in 2 business days.

This means your reported earnings might change.

Here’s a message Sedo just sent out:

1) Adjusted earnings: This change means that the “Earnings” statistic shown in the Parking Reporting section for the current and previous day will be based on estimates. Within 48 hours, we will receive the actual earnings amount from our primary ad provider, Google, and after two business days we will make the necessary adjustments to the earnings shown in your account. This change only affects the “Earnings” category. The entries in the “Uniques” and “Clicks” categories will not be affected. This means that if you review the day’s earnings in your statistics on November 1st, you will be viewing estimates. Starting November 3rd, you would then be able to review the real earnings (before spam) as of November 1st.

2) Taking into account the spam count in your earnings: When you review your daily parking earnings, starting November 1st, these figures may include spam that our primary ad provider Google recognizes on the go. You will not be able to see which specific domains are affected. The total spam attributed to one account will be deducted from your parking earnings on a monthly basis. You can see the deductions in the Parking Reports section, on the “Payments” tab, in the “Corrector” column.

In recent years, Google has been continuously improving their success rate in fighting spam. Given these improvements and the already low spam rates in Sedo’s own network, we anticipate that this change will only affect a small number of domain names.

Our recommendation: Starting November 1st, whenever you review figures for specific domains, please bear in mind that:

1) The final data will be available after approximately 48 hours.
2) Unexpected increases in earnings for specific domains may be caused by spam. If this is the case, this spam will be deducted at the end of the month.

Update: Sedo has released a clarification about what this change means:

As of November 1, Sedo’s parking payments will be calculated based on the exact figures we receive from Google, our primary ad provider. This is the result of network-wide changes to how Google reports figures for all their partners, and also means that spam will be included in the initial parking revenue figures. However, this does not mean that the spam rate attributed to Sedo’s customer accounts will increase.

This is simply a change in how we report parking revenue within our customers’ accounts, and it will not affect actual parking revenue or our customers’ parking payouts.

New TLDs aren’t for everyone. Get over it.

I hear a lot of gripes about new top level domain names and the cost of applying for and running them.

Frankly, $185,000 in application fees may seem ridiculous. Especially when a third of that is going to be earmarked for legal issues. What if your TLD doesn’t create any legal issues.

Add to that the cost of running the registry and marketing domains and any serious applicant (other than .brand) needs to earmark millions of dollars just to get into the game.

But here’s the bottom line: new gTLDs aren’t for everyone.

Two things make me want to rant about this.

First, there are groups that don’t have the money to apply. These are generally non-profits or developing nations.

I agree, $185,000 is a lot of money for these guys to hand over to ICANN. But it’s peanuts compared to how much they will really pay for a new TLD.

And there’s the rub — if you need to ask for a discount on the application fee then perhaps new TLDs just aren’t for you. It would simply be a poor decision to go ahead and apply for one. It costs too much money.

I was reminded of this again this morning reading about the “Continued Operations Instrument” aka failure fund for new TLDs.

I thought it was hilarious when ICANN suggested that startups had to prove they had access to multiple years of backup cash in case their registry failed. Do you actually think a new TLD startup on the verge of failure is going to call it quits when they still have a few years of continuation cash available? Of course not. They’re going to tap that money until it runs out.

Likewise, you’d be a fool to provide a letter of credit to one of these companies saying you’ll make a loan for maintenance costs if the TLD fails.

The only people in a position to do that would be registry back end providers. My understanding is many of them are banking on making money from renewals once a TLD operator goes out of business.

So here’s the bottom line: new TLDs simply are not for everyone. If you don’t have the money or you think you have something better to do with the money, then just don’t apply.