ICM Registry CEO doesn’t expect adult TLDs to be introduced in New TLD round.

Will the new top level domains round that opens next year mean competition for the .xxx top level domain name?

Stuart Lawley doesn’t think so.

Lawley, CEO of .xxx registry ICM Registry, doesn’t think domains like .sex will be approved. Yesterday Lawley told the crowd at the TRAFFIC conference in Fort Lauderdale that he thinks some of the new objection procedures in the new TLD guidebook, along with increased involvement by ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee, will make it hard to get any adult related TLDs through the process.

He said that if it does happen the applicants should be ready for a long and expensive process.

On that note, Lawley has some advice for all new TLD applicants: keep your burn rate down. Plan on the process taking three times and long and costing three times as much as you think.

Lawley is speaking from experience; he spent millions over the past 5 years getting .xxx approved.

Brand protection company Mark Monitor registers defensive domains for Las Vegas Sands.

Casinos may be on their way to sunny Miami, and Las Vegas Sands corporation is going on the defensive when it comes to domain registrations.

Last week Michael Berkens spotted that the company had registered a number of domains related to casinos in Miami. Now the company is going on the defensive, snapping up domains that may have been used by the group’s detractors.

Among the domains: SayNoToSands.com, SayNoToAdelson.com, TruthaboutSands.com, KeeptheSandsOut.com, KeeptheVenetianOut.com, and TruthAboutSheldonAdelson.com. Sheldon Adelson is CEO of Las Vegas Sands. All told I count over three dozen defensive domain registrations.

SedoMLS gets another partner.

Sedo has signed up domain name registrar Dotster to participate in its SedoMLS network. The news comes just one day after the company announced a similar deal with Moniker.

SedoMLS is the companies distributed sales network that offers added exposure and “instant transfer” capability for domain name sales.

Dotster is the 18th largest domain name registrar with just over a million domains under management according to Webhosting.info.

Sedo already had a strong relationship with Dotster. In 2009 it purchased Dotster’s parking company RevenueDirect for $825,000. The acquisition included a continuing monetization agreement. Sedo also had a basic sales listing integration with Dotster back before SedoMLS was born.

Schilling recounts a seven figure deal he made earlier this year.

Within twenty minutes during this year’s DOMAINfest conference Frank Schilling agreed to pay $1.65 million for a collection of .xxx domain names — before .xxx was even approved.

Schilling retold the tale today in a TRAFFIC session alongside ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley.

During the DOMAINfest event in Santa Monica Schilling started discussing a purchase with Lawley. The next day the two met up and started discussing names. Within twenty minutes Schilling had handpicked a set of domains for a total purchase price of $1.65 million.

Who got the better end of the deal?

“Two days later we realized we’d been raped by Frank Schilling,” Lawley joked.

The deal was conditional on .xxx being approved. Schilling made a deposit and wired the rest of the money shortly after .xxx was added to the root.

Schilling is already earning cash off his purchase. He’s leasing 5 of the domains for a solid five figures a month. The rest of the domains currently generate 1600-1800 uniques a day.

Schilling isn’t the only well-known domainer who bought in early on .xxx. Michael Berkens has also purchased domains through the .xxx founders program.

As for ICM Registry, early sales aren’t the only indication of a strong start. Lawley said he now expects sunrise registrations to be 4-5 times as much as originally forecasted and numbers will be higher than .co’s.

Company plans more pink slips at iconic domain registrar.

Web.com plans to fire more Network Solutions employees after it acquires the company than it previously thought.

The company, which also owns domain name registrar Register.com, originally thought it would save $30 million through efficiencies. Now it expects to save much more by “cutting senior manager posts, including Network Solutions’ chief executive, and consolidating data centres and applications”.

“There is significantly more overlap than we originally estimated, and so it’s likely going to be more headcount reduction,” CEO David Brown told Reuters.

It looks like those cuts will come from senior management and not lower level and customer service employees.