What a year in domaining. Here’s a look back.

Here’s a look back at the top stories on Domain Name Wire for all of 2011. These are ranked by number of pageviews.

1. Apple gets control over porn domain names – apparently Apple + Porn equals traffic.

2. .XXX launches national TV campaign and www.Buy.xxx – OK, so the top two stories have something to do with porn. Maybe that will change for story number 3.

3. ICANN Approves New .XXX Top Level Domain – guess not. That’s it, I’m eliminating all other .xxx and porn stories from the top 10.

4. Proactiv wants to be quiet about its product recall – finally, something about teenage angst rather than porn.

5. Canadian Court Rules Domain Names Are Property – an important decision from a Canadian court.

6. Is Bit.ly Toast if Libya Shuts Down the Internet? – It could have been catastrophic.

7. Joan Rivers Body Double is No Stranger to Go Daddy Commercials – Will next year’s .co/GoDaddy Super Bowl commercial be as talked about as the Joan Rivers commercial?

8. Domain Owners Should Not Worry About Poker Domain Seizures – but poker site operators targeting U.S. customers should.

9. Monte Cahn Sues Oversee.net Over $13 Million Incentive Plan – the case may go to trial in early 2012.

10. Bob Parsons Explains Go Daddy – KKR Deal to Domain Name Wire – shortly after announcing a deal to sell part of GoDaddy to three large private equity companies, founder Bob Parsons talked to Domain Name Wire about what the deal meant, including him stepping down as CEO.

Domain already attracted attention with a long way to go.

[Update: domain appears to have sold for $3,300]. Domain auctions usually don’t attract much attention until the final hours. But bidding for the domain name RightHaven.com, which is being auctioned off to help settle a legal judgement, is attracting quite a bit of attention.

The auction at SnapNames still has close to 10 days to go before it closes, yet it has already attracted nine different bidders and has been pushed up to $1,850.

The domain name belonged to “copyright troll” Righthaven, one of the most hated companies on the internet. I can imagine a lot of people would like to buy this domain name as a trophy, and the auction is certainly getting a lot of press.

Righthaven.com is currently in control of receiver Rimon, PC. They have smartly forwarded the domain name directly to the SnapNames auction page, so you can follow the action at Righthaven.com.

It’s the end of year, and that means it’s time for Domain Name Wire’s annual Domain Dunce awards.

Let’s kick things off with a smelly situation.

By all accounts the Hotel des Almadies, which housed attendees of ICANN’s meeting at its recent meeting in Dakar, Senegal earlier this year, was far from luxury.

Attendees complained of rats, security concerns, air conditioning issues, and non-working showers.

That prompted Barbara Ann Clay, ICANN’s Vice President for Communications, to write a nastygram to Senegal’s Minister of Communication asking for compensation for guests. Attached to the letter was a 20 page report from ICANN’s at-large committee (ALAC).

But before the hotel or Minister of Communication could respond, ICANN retracted its complaint, writing that the letter was sent without appropriate buy-in from ICANN’s leadership.

Oops.

Below: a staircase at the Hotel des Almadies, which ALAC labeled “A dark, steep Staircase” and complained of a “tripping risk”.

Please help with this year’s domain name survey.

I’m pulling together then seventh annual Domain Name Wire survey and need your help.

Each year new domain businesses come on the scene, and I want to make sure they’re included in the survey.

With that in mind, please comment about new companies in the following sectors:

Domain Parking – I already added ParkingPlace, Voodoo, InternetTraffic, and ParkingCrew

Escrow – I already added eCop

Domain Sales Sites – I added DomainNameSales.com

I’m also looking for nominations for what was the most important domain news story of 2011.

Feel free to comment below or send an email to me.

At least some of them were registered after GoDaddy changed its mind.

Oh, the irony.

A Houston, Texas man registered the domain name SopaBoycott.com on December 20 and promptly started creating a web site about the ills of the Stop Online Piracy Act.

But apparently he had not done his research yet for his section on “who supports it”.

He registered the domain name at GoDaddy and may even by using GoDaddy’s web hosting services.

Yet on December 20, when he registered the domain, GoDaddy was a SOPA-supporter.

Oops.

I guess he didn’t get the memo about boycotting GoDaddy over its SOPA stance.

GoDaddy reversed its position on SOPA on December 23, so I guess we’ll give a pass to the anonymous registrant of Anti-SOPA.com. That domain, which hosts a web site about SOPA, was registered at GoDaddy on December 24. Same goes for another anti-SOPA web site registered at GoDaddy after it reversed its support: AgainstSOPA.com.