Auction at TRAFFIC conference will allow for remote bidding.

Rick Latona announced that his auction at next month’s TRAFFIC conference will be simulcast on the web. The auction will use Proxibid, which Latona calls the “biggest and best online auction company in the business.”

Latona’s auction will include his own domains, including some real winners such as SecurityAlarms.com, LotteryNumbers.com, and Cyberspace.com. It is unclear how the reserves and pricing will work.

So here’s what the auction scene at TRAFFIC will look like:

Rick Latona - offering his own domains. He’s hired a live auctioneer and will simulcast on the web. [update: Rick says he's offering other people's domains too.]

Moniker - Moniker will hold the premier auction. As usual, it will allow for live bidding through its online interface.

TrafficZ - 60 or so premium domain names. You can submit your domains at Aftermarket.com. It will likely leverage the online bidding technology used at Domain Roundtable conferences.

Bido - it’s unclear what Bido will do. When it decided to hold a live auction it said it didn’t know what it’s exact plans were. Since then Bido has suspended its online auctions as it works through technical issues.

Rick Schwartz - Schwartz will auction off some of his own domains. I suspect that Moniker will handle the auctioning of his domains, but in a separate auction.

John Oliver explores anti-Clinton sites, only to find that the best domains are taken.

Daily Show fans are getting a dose of the Mile High City this week as the show covers the Democratic National Convention in Denver. On last night’s episode correspondent John Oliver tried to help Clinton supporters heal from their loss and support Obama.

The Clinton supporters he heard all had their own anti-Obama domain names:

ClintonsforMcCain.com
DemocratsforMcCain.com
HigherHeels.com
Puma08.com (Party unity my ass 08)

I may have misunderstood the first and third domain names as they don’t seem to resolve to anything.

But Oliver didn’t think these domains were that good. So he asked the Clinton supporters about an alternative:

Oliver: What about F@ckThatGuy.com?
Clinton supporter: It’s taken. I looked into a few names similar to that but they’re taken.

Alas, perhaps all the good domain names are taken.

But good news for the pro-Clinton anti-Obama camp. F@ckthatguy.com expired on July 2 and is currently in the redemption grace period. Perhaps you can pick it up in the drops.

Daily show video:

Moniker shortens length of exclusivity period and changes auto-renew clause.

In an e-mail announcement sent to customers, Moniker announced it is changing the exclusivity period for domains submitted for its live and silent auctions. These changes are likely due to increased competition at upcoming auction events, including five separate auctions taking place at TRAFFIC in Brooklyn next month (although only two are accepting submissions from domainers).

The new period is 60 days from the date of submission or 60 days after the conclusion of the auction, whichever is later. The terms seem to indicate that this exclusivity period applies to all domains, not just those that are accepted for auction. The previous terms called for 120 days after the submission or 60 days after the auction, whichever was later.

Perhaps more importantly, the new terms change the automatic renewal of the exclusivity period. Previously you had to notify Moniker in writing 15 days before the end of the period or it automatically renewed. The new terms suggest that you’ll be given the option to opt-in to this automatic renewal if you wish your domains to be considered for future auctions:

To avoid resubmission of names for multiple auctions and events, if, at the time of submission of a name, the seller of the name elects to have any name which is not sold at a particular auction to be sold in subsequent auctions run by Moniker/ SnapNames , the Exclusive Moniker Sale Period will automatically renew at the end of each term unless Seller notifies Moniker/SnapNames in writing within 15 days of expiration of the Exclusive Moniker Sale Period that it is terminating such period.

One of Moniker’s competitors at the TRAFFIC conference next month is TrafficZ. TrafficZ’s exclusivity period is 90 days from when you submit domains or 30 days after the auction, whichever is later.

Both Moniker and TrafficZ are still accepting submissions to the auction:

Moniker submission
TrafficZ submission

Domain Name News has scored the domain DNN.com. But there’s a story behind the domain.

Last week domain news site Domain Name News announced that it had acquired the domain name DNN.com for use with its web site. This is a great domain and the team at DNN deserves a tip of the hat.

Earlier today I was reviewing UDRP decisions and came across a three character domain decision found in favor of the respondent. As I read the case, it hit me: this is the domain DNN.com, which Adam Strong and DNN now owns.

A bit of research shows that DNN.com was previously owned by media behemoth Knight Ridder. In early 2008, NameBubble, LLC bought the domain name for $14,000.

In April 2008, DotNetNuke Corporation filed a UDRP to try to get the domain name DNN.com. The company claimed that NameBubble had offered to sell the domain to it; NameBubble says it contacted DotNetNuke only when a related company offered to lease the domain and to ensure that it didn’t create a trademark conflict.

DotNetNuke’s first UDRP filing went nowhere because the panel determined it didn’t have a trademark for DNN. A company related to DotNetNuke, Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems Inc, had filed a Canadian trademark, but Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems didn’t file the UDRP in its name.

In June 2008, Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems filed the same UDRP under its name but lost again. This time NameBubble hired domain name attorney John Berryhill to represent it. The panel determined that Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems did not show that NameBubble didn’t have rights or legitimate interests in the domain.

On the company blog, DotNetNuke’s Shaun Walker wrote about the UDRP filing back in June:

Research revealed that the dnn.com domain name had somehow changed hands in January 2008, and was currently in the possession of a domain name squatter. The squatter requested an outrageous sum of money for the domain name, and I responded that DNN Corp did not have the financial resources to entertain such a demand. The squatter indicated that another party in our ecosystem had expressed interest in the domain name, and it soon became apparent that he was attempting to leverage one party against another in order to try and generate the maximum profit.

Of course, very few people think of DotNetNuke when they hear the term “DNN”. In fact, the first thing I think about is DomainNameNews.com. It’s great to know that a company that understood the value of the “outrageous sum of money” it would cost to buy the domain ended up with it.

New service will help monetize emails to parked domains.

Our friend Adam Strong over at Domain Name News has the scoop on a new product launching at TRAFFIC Brooklyn next month. Replycycle is a system for responding to misdirected e-mail, such as an e-mail sent to a parked domain name. This can create an additional monetization stream for parked domains — something that is sorely needed right now.

If you think your parked domain names don’t receive e-mails, think again. Some of my domain names that aren’t parked but don’t have content receive multiple e-mails each day from people seeking information. Sometimes it’s from an expired domain or from someone who confuses the domain name with another company or web site (even though it’s not a typo).

Replycycle is a good start, but domain owners need to find a way to continually monetize e-mail addresses. At the GeoDomain Expo in Chicago last month, I commented on how so few domain names have a sign up box for a newsletter. Capturing e-mail addresses is a fantastic way to drive repeat traffic to a web site. Hopefully Replycycle will find a way to get people to “opt-in” to receiving future e-mails on the topic of the domain name.

As Adam Strong points out, this isn’t just a solution for parked domains. It can be used by corporations to respond to e-mail sent to typos of their domain names.