Domain Name Wire » Domain Registrars

Domain registrar offers UDRP insurance

Andrew Allemann — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:07:15 +0000

Registration service offers free insurance against expensive but unfounded UDRP filings.

Francois Carrillo, the guy behind Domaining.com, has launched a new domain registrar (an eNom reseller) with an innovative twist: “UDRP insurance”.

Basically, if you’re hit with a UDRP on one of your domains registered at DONA.com then you’ll get assistance with finding a domain attorney. Selected domain attorneys offer discounted rates to DONA customers. And if you successfully defend your UDRP, DONA will reimburse you for your legal expenses.

It sounds like an interesting idea that might offer some peace of mind if you frequently get hit with bogus UDRPs.

Additionally, DONA donates 30% of its profits to the Internet Commerce Association, an advocacy group for domainers.

.Com domain registrations at DONA are $11.15.

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Dotster moves domains to Domain.com credentials

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:30:49 +0000

Company transfers domains between registrar accreditations.

If you start to see domain name registrar Domain.com growing in registrar ranking reports, there’s a good explanation for that.

Dotster, which owns Domain.com, has transferred the domain names from its Dotster accreditation to the Domain.com one.

I was alerted to this change when I received a DomainTools whois change alert on a friend’s domain name that I helped her register. My first thought was that her domain had been stolen, until I remembered that Dotster owns Domain.com.

I reached out to Dotster to find out what was going on. Brian Unruh, General Manager at Dotster, told Domain Name Wire:

Through acquisitions, Dotster historically has owned many registrar credentials. We consolidated them to deliver a higher quality customer experience and better efficiency. In fact this change is just one of many that we’re making to improve the services we provide our customers. While Dotster.com’s registrations are now using the Domain.com credential, Dotster customers will remain Dotster customers and continue to receive industry leading service and care.

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14 funniest domain registrar names

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:39:26 +0000

From dessert names to rather unflattering names, here are 14 odd domain registrar names.

People get creative when coming up with domain names. Even registrars sometimes get into the act when naming their registrars.

Many registrar names are created by companies creating drop catching registrars. Since they aren’t public facing registrars, they get really creative. Here are some of the more amusing registrar names (both drop catching registrars and regular ones):

Afterdark Domains, Inc (eNom) – what is this, a registrar for porn names?

Backslap Domains, Inc. – just a really funny name for a domain registrar

BearTrapDomains.com LLC (Moniker) – I guess the visual makes sense for one of SnapNames’ domain registrars.

Betterthanaveragedomains.com LLC (Moniker) – Sell it to me!

Decentdomains, LLC (Dotster) – I’m having a tough time choosing between Better Than Average Domains and Decent Domains as my domain registrar.

Chocolatecovereddomains,LLC (Dotster) – Yeah, I’ll take a dozen.

Domainsouffle.com LLC (Moniker) – or maybe I want a souffle instead.

Dontaskwhy.ca Inc. – I won’t ask why. Forwards to NameScout.

DuckBilledDomains.com LLC (Moniker) – uh, ok.

eNom’s numbered registrars enom1008 Inc., enom1009 Inc (enom) – eNom didn’t have the all night drug induced namestorming session that SnapNames apparently had

EurotrashNames.com LLC (Moniker) – Love it!

Microbreweddomains.com LLC (Moniker) – Little know fact: name was brainstormed at a microbrewery.

NotSoFamousNames.com LLC (Moniker) – No thanks, I’ll keep my business at DecentDomains.

Wild West Domains (GoDaddy) – got to wonder what GoDaddy was thinking when it named its reseller division. Nothing says “lack of trust” more than the Wild West.

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Here’s what law enforcement wants you to do before registering a domain…

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:27:34 +0000

Registering a domain name might become a lot more time intensive in the future.

Negotiations between ICANN and registrars to amend the registrar accreditation agreement are ongoing, and law enforcement agencies are asking for some pretty big changes to how domains are registered today.

Law enforcement proposals relate to verifying whois information and tracking more information about registrants. Law enforcement agencies that have been involved in consultations include:

Australian Federal Police
Department of Justice (US)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (US)
New Zealand Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Serious Organised Crime Agency (UK)

The latest recommendations from law enforcement agencies are:

* In order to register a domain name you’ll need to phone and email verify. First you’ll receive an email with a link to a verification page. When you go to the page you’ll enter more information including verifying your phone number. You will then get an SMS code or voice message to your phone with a PIN, which you will then need to enter at the registrar’s web site before your domain is added to the zone.

* Law enforcement wants your IP address recorded at time of registration/verification.

* For annual whois updates, registrants will have to take action by completing some sort of verification. If you don’t verify/confirm your details, your domain might be suspended. This verification step will also record the registrant’s IP address.

* An alternative suggestion from law enforcement agencies is for ICANN to run a central verification system.

The silly thing about all of this is it won’t stop a criminal from doing what he or she does today. Sidestepping these systems is very easy. Just ask anyone who has created a phone verification system how many bogus requests they get from Google Voice phone numbers.

Adding these verification steps will certainly increase the cost of domain registrations and lead to massive cart abandonment at domain registrars.

Of course, this is merely a wish list from law enforcement. We’ll see what happens. You can follow the RAA negotiations here.

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Bari Meyerson latest to change jobs within domain industry

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:05:11 +0000

Meyerson lands at eNom.

Once people discover the domain industry and all it has to offer, it’s hard to move to any other industry.

The latest move comes courtesy of Bari Meyerson. Meyerson left her long-time post at Moniker as it was being sold to Key Drive. Today eNom announced that it has hired Meyerson to work with domainers.

Here are some other people who have recently (some more recently than others) changed jobs within the industry:

Jim Grace – from DomainSponsor to Domain Holdings

Frank Aiello – from Sedo to Domain Holdings

Peter Dengate Thrush – from ICANN’s board to Top Level Domain Holdings (sure, we’ll call the board position a job)

Kamila Sekiewicz – from Sedo to NameDrive

Tessa Holcomb – from Sedo to PPX

Jeff Gabriel – from Sedo to PPX

Lisa Box – from iREIT to Oversee.net (now Moniker:SnapNames)

Who else have I missed?

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General Counsel Christine Jones leaving Go Daddy

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:46:34 +0000

A long time fixture at Go Daddy is moving on.

Christine Jones, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary for Go Daddy, will leave the company Friday after 10 years.

Jones managed all legal affairs for the company and frequently represented the company as a witness at congressional hearings. She was a key player at the company and the industry given her role in lobbying in Washington. She even had a cameo in GoDaddy’s 2009 “enhancement” Super Bowl commercial.

During her ten years at the company she watched it grow from a small startup to a multi-billion dollar company, including taking on an investment from PE firms last year.

But her tenure wasn’t always smooth sailing. Most recently, Jones got caught up in SOPA as she originally testified to congress in favor of the bill. GoDaddy later relented and changed its stance on the bill, but its position resulted in a good number of customers transferring their domains to competitors.

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DNW Interview: Go Daddy applies for .godaddy and two other TLDs

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:34:44 +0000

Warren Adelman discloses new TLD applications and discusses the challenges of offering more domain choices to customers.

Go Daddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, has applied for three top level domains, CEO Warren Adelman told Domain Name Wire today. (News of the applications was first reported by Paul Sloan at CNET).

The company has applied for its own .brand domain .godaddy, as well as two additional top level domains (TLD). That’s a lot less than you can expect from at least one competitor.

“As the world’s largest domain name registrar, we wanted to have our own TLD,” said Adelman.

He thinks the company’s plans for the additional two TLDs will be more interesting. But he is mum on what those TLDs will be since the application process is still open.

Even bigger on the company’s radar for the next couple years is how it will offer hundreds of new TLDs to its customer base.

“No one can sell 2,000 TLDs,” he said.

Go Daddy already uses algorithms to determine which TLDs to show in domain search results. The company received a patent on its ranking system last year. Think of it like Google Adwords; registries “bid” for placement on GoDaddy.com and then are ranked based on a number of algorithms.

“We’ve done some work with it [the algorithm] and you may see it become more important in 2013 as a way for us to actually handle a fairly large number of new TLDs,” said Adelman. “All registrars will have to make decisions about how to best present TLDs to customers.”

With registry-registrar integration, Go Daddy will be able to offer its own TLDs to its customers. Although that may create a conflict, Adelman points to the company’s handling of .me as proof that it can be managed. The company helped commercialize .me, the country code for Montenegro.

“.Me started with an email I sent to the Minister of Communications in Montenegro,” Adelman said. Go Daddy has certainly promoted .me on its site, but it’s not the number one search result.

As for the company’s position on new TLDs in general, Adelman says it has always been cautious.

“We always voiced caution in the size of the rollout,” he said. “We said ‘Listen, there’s a lot of things happening simultaneously — new TLDs, IPV6, IDNs, DNNSEC. Perhaps there should be a more cautious approach.’”

Problems with ICANN’s new TLD application system are one example of unexpected challenges that can come up — and that’s just with applying. Adelman says ICANN will certainly have to explain the problems to the community at its next meeting in Prague. But he puts it in perspective.

“Every day I wake up and, generally speaking, the internet works. People kind of trivialize that accomplishment, but for the most part they’ve made sure the infrastructure is up and working and we can access IP addresses as part of the domain name system. They’ve done this in a complicated environment of various internet users.”

“2013 will be a wild year,” said Adelman.

That’s for sure.

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DNW Interview: GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman discusses company’s stance on SOPA