Domain Name Wire » Domain Services

LogicBoxes Manages .Co Transition

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:04:26 +0000

LogicBoxes powers .co registrar for transition of domain names.

LogicBoxes, a sort of “registrar/registry in a box” solution, announced today that it is the registrar backbone behind .Co Internet’s transition of .co domain names from Universidad de los Andes to its own platform.

.Co is being commercialized into a global brand this year. As part of the process, the .co registry needed to transition 27,000 already registered third level domain names (e.g. name.com.co) away from Universidad de los Andes, which previously managed .co.

Eventually, all of the .com.co domain names will be transitioned to one of the ten registrars that will be initially accredited to register .co domain names. However, the .co registry will continue to use LogicBoxes to maintain restricted domains including .org.co, .edu.co, .gov.co and .mil.co.

A number of domain name companies and individual domain investors use LogicBoxes to reap the benefits of owning their own registrar without the technical headaches.

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LogicBoxes Helps Domainers Set Up Domain Registrars

Bankaholic Founder to Contribute to MO.com

Andrew Allemann — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:48:05 +0000

Entrepreneur who cashed in on sale to BankRate.com will contribute to MO.com.

MO.com has announced that Johns Wu, the entrepreneur who founded Bankaholic.com and sold it to BankRate for $15 million, will be contributing to MO.com.

MO.com is a new site that profiles entrepreneurs as a way to learn from each other. It was founded by Brian Null, an entrepreneur and domainer who built and sold OfficeSupply.com and GolfCourses.com.

Null interviewed Wu, himself now a domain investor, earlier this month. During the interview Null half-joked “Now that I have dazzled you with my interviewing prowess, the chances of me luring you out of retirement and into a joint venture on MO.com are…?” Wu jumped on it, and the two struck a deal shortly thereafter.

Null said Wu will use MO.com to talk about his latest efforts and to reach other entrepreneurs across the net.

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Domain Name Whois Privacy Has Its Limits

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:07:17 +0000

Complete anonymity isn’t guaranteed with whois privacy services.

Using a whois privacy or proxy service to register and set up a gripe site? Or perhaps some other web site or domain you don’t want attached to your name? Be prepared for the potential that your information will be disclosed.

There are two types of whois security services: privacy and proxy. A privacy service generally shows your name but includes a service’s address, phone, and email. With a proxy service, the service usually registers the domain name on your behalf and then licenses the use of the domain to you. The preliminary results of a whois privacy study released last year (pdf) show that as many as 25% of domain names use some sort of whois identity protection service.

When someone files a complaint, be it law enforcement or a UDRP, the proxy service doesn’t want to be stuck holding the bag.

Consider the most popular service, Go Daddy Group’s Domains by Proxy (DBP). If someone files a UDRP against a domain name that uses DBP, the service changes the whois to reflect the owner’s true identity. Kelly Lewis, Deputy General Counsel for Domains by Proxy, explained to Domain Name Wire:

DBP provides privacy services for millions of domain names, and it takes the protection of its customers’ information very seriously. As a proxy service, DBP substitutes its name and contact information in the whois database in place of the customer’s information, thereby providing privacy. In disputes under the UDRP, however, the registrar is required to provide a verification of the registrant and the registrant’s contact information. This allows the customer to defend his or her interest in the domain name. Before the registrar can make that verification, it is necessary that the privacy services be temporarily terminated so that the verification process can be completed and dispute resolved. If the customer prevails in the UDRP proceeding, the customer can then have privacy services reinstated.

Of course, if you signed up for the proxy service to protect your identity, all another party needs to do is file a UDRP to unmask it. Sometimes the respondent prevails. If the respondent wins, DBP will reinstate the whois proxy information at no charge upon request. But the information has already been disclosed.

Many, but not all, proxy services provide contact information to UDRP providers upon the filing of a case. Registrants should be aware of what proxy and privacy services are as well as their limitations.

And remember, nothing is completely anonymous.

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Domain Madness 2 Set for Las Vegas

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:09:58 +0000

Second domain name auction in Las Vegas scheduled for later this month.

DomainConsultant premiered “Domain Madness” last year, a (mostly) online auction that was broadcast live from The Palms in Las Vegas. They’re back at it again this year, organizing an auction that will conclude on March 23.

This year’s auction will be limited to only a dozen or so premium domain names, and the auction will take place online at ~~OneofaKind.com~~site to be named soon. The sales commission is 8%.

Last year’s event was supposed to be online only, but the group organized a last minute trip to Vegas. This year will have a small crowd, as DomainConsultant invited a handful of people who were willing to pay up for an all-inclusive 48 hours in Vegas. Sounds like fun, but I won’t be able to make the last minute trip this year.

The 2009 event sold $150,000 in domain names. Here’s some video from the KingPin suite at The Palms, where the event took place.

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Domain Companies Head to Austin for SXSW

Andrew Allemann — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:15:52 +0000

Domain companies en route to Austin later this week.

Several domain name companies are heading to Austin later this week for the start of the annual South by Southwest Music, Film and Interactive Festival. The Interactive portion of the event attracted over 10,000 attendees last year. Many stay in town for the music festival, which kicks off in the middle of next week. Although the interactive festival is big, music is a big draw: over 2,000 musical acts will play at 80 official venues next week, and many more unofficially.

So here’s who I know will be in town for SXSW 2010:

DirectNIC – domain registrar will have a booth at the Interactive trade show. Swing by booth 932 to say ‘hi’.

Name.com – will be at the show

Demand Media – the company has a big contingent in Austin, thanks to its acquisition of Pluck

Traverse Legal – one of the attorneys at Traverse Legal, which handles a number of domain name cases, will be here

If you’re with a domain name company and heading to Austin for SXSW, feel free to leave a comment.

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New Tool Lets You Scan Web Pages for Available Domain Names

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:23:49 +0000

URL2Domain scans text and looks for corresponding domain names available for registration.

Whenever I hear or read a new term I haven’t heard of, I add it to a list of possible domain names to register. A new tool call URL2Domain now makes that process easy: it will scan entire web pages to find words that aren’t registered in .com.

All you do is copy the URL you want scanned, paste it into the box at URL2Domain.com, and it starts scanning. It shows you the progress as it scans each word on the page and sees if the corresponding .com domain name is available.

Because basically every one word domain name is taken in .com, don’t expect to get a lot of hits. So far I’ve found mostly typos in articles coming up as available domain names. URL2Domain will find more available domain names if you use it to scan web sites that have never terms, such as slang dictionaries and scientific research.

One improvement already in the works that will increase the hit rate is the ability to scan against multiple TLDs in addition to .com. Although most words are taken in .com, you might find some good ones in .net, .org, or even country code domains.

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DOMAINfest Announces European Show

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:30:50 +0000

Second DOMAINfest conference to take place in Prague.

We now have the details about the second DOMAINfest conference for 2010, something the company foreshadowed back in July.

Oversee.net announced today that it will hold the second conference in Prague, Czech Republic. It will be a two day event, October 6 and 7, 2010 at Hotel Intercontinental. Conference details will be released in June. Registration is not yet open, but hotel reservations are available for 159 EUR per night.

A European conference is a natural progression for Oversee, which recently expanded into Europe with a new office.

The Fall is shaping up to be a busy season for domain conferences, although they will be spread geographically. In addition to the DOMAINfest conference, TRAFFIC will hold events in October (South Beach) and November (Hong Kong). Chef Patrick is organizing a domain name cruise in October as well.

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