Domain Name Wire

Aftermarket.com to combine parking and selling

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 24 May 2013 18:53:34 +0000

Thought Convergence’s domain marketplace will integrate domain parking and the company has switched ad feed providers.

Aftermarket.com, the domain name sales platform by Thought Convergence, is getting ready to launch a combined parking and selling platform.

In a blog post today, the company said it will start offering a parking platform integrated into Aftermarket.com. Domain owners will be able to park their domain names and funnel purchase inquiries through Aftermarket.com.

Although details are scant, it sounds similar to what Afternic, Sedo, and DomainNameSales.com offer. All of these systems allow you to park your domains with For Sale notices integrated with a backend sales management system.

Thought Convergence also owns domain parking service TrafficZ. The announcement said that “Aftermarket has partnered with the leading search engine and upstream provider”. TrafficZ was previously a Yahoo partner; this announcement means it is now a Google partner.

Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Demand Media commits five TLDs to private auctions, but three are dead on arrival

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:23:28 +0000

Demand Media throws five domains into private auction ring, but three are against competitors who won’t participate.

Demand Media subsidiary United TLD has committed five of its applied-for top level domains to the first private domain auctions to be handled by Peter Cramton.

The five domains are .fishing, .green, .mom, .rip, and .wow.

Donuts recently committed 63 domains to the same auction.

In order for an auction to take place, all applicants for the string must participate. Three of the domains United TLD committed are in contention sets with applicants who have already said they won’t participate.

Top Level Domain Holdings has applied for .fishing and .green. Uniregistry applied for .mom. Both companies have stated they won’t participate in private domain auctions due to concerns about anti-trust rules.

[Update: see note below regarding Top Level Domain Holdings, which may participate afterall.]

Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

17 end user domain name sales from Sedo last week

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:17:57 +0000

Some expensive spring chickens and a cruise company were among last week’s end user domain name buyers at Sedo.

Here’s a selection of end user domain sales from Sedo last week:

A UK company called Spring Chicken Direct Limited bought SpringChicken.co.uk for a whopping 12,000 GBP.

Online game company Greentube Internet Entertainment bought Greentube.it for 1,500 GBP. Its website is greentube.com

IFN.com, which offers a toll free forwarding business, bought LiveAgent.co.uk for 1,100 GBP.

Viking Cruises, which does ocean and river cruises, bought VikingCruises.co.uk for 8,000 EUR.

San Antonio and Austin printing company Chile Media bought ChileMedia.com for $3,000. It has been using AddChile.com as its web address.

A Mark Monitor client bought BrandAlly.com for $750.

Advertising company Blvd Media Group dropped the hyphen from its domain, buying BlvdMedia.com for $1,750.

Entertainment company Discovery Communications bought HistoryStuff.com for $1,995.

GEA Group AG bought GEAGroup.co.in for 1,000 EUR. Its web address is GEAGroup.com.

Online gambling company Monte Carlo Ltd bought Casino5.com for $8,000.

The owner of San Francisco Bay area destination weddings company Holliday Weddings, bought TeamHoliday.com for $790.

New Economics Institute, which seeks to build a New Economy that prioritizes the well-being of people and the planet”, bought NewEconomy.net for $1,350.

Clothing company Next Plc has been busy at Sedo lately. It bought NextDirect.co.in for $1,500 and Next-uk.com for $1,599. Last week it bought Next-USA.com for $1,000.

Infragistics, a New Jersey development shop, bought MobileBusinessApps.com for $1,600.

O’Reilly Automotive Stores paid $3,995 for Orewards.com.

South African packaging company Mpact bought Mpact.com for $10,000. Its web address is mpact.co.za.

Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Afternic’s big announcement and 22 end user sales

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:23:39 +0000

Afternic signs a big distribution agreement.

Before jumping into this week’s list of Afternic end user sales, Afternic made a big announcement today. It inked a deal with Directi to sell its premium domains through Directi’s registrars. This means Afternic has deals with 9 of the top 10 domain registrars.

OK, on to the sales.

Education advocacy group Achieve, Inc. bought BusinessandEducation.com for $2,488.

Online education company ePals bought ToolsforSchool.com for $3,000.

Advertising technology company Switch Concepts bought LinkedConcepts.com for $1,688.

eByline, a service that helps manage the publisher and freelancer relationship, bought FreelancePay.com for $1,395.

Healthcare communications company Discovery Chicago bought DiscoveryWorldwide.com for $3,088.

Bridal site bridal-expressions.com bought BridalExpressions.com for $2,000.

Broadcast Music Incorporated, known commonly as BMI, bought BroadcastMusic.net for $1,096. BMI already owns BroadcastMusic.com.

QEP Resources, Inc. in Denver paid $3,800 for QEPM.com.

A new company is launching next month on the domain FolioMatch.com, which sold for $1,200.

Roundabout Theatre Company in NYC bought CabaretBroadway.com for $1,595.

Athletic Orthopedics & Knee Center in Texas upgraded from AOKC.net to AOKC.com for $3,500.

CLG, which bills itself as a leader of “behavior-based strategy execution and performance improvement”, bought BehaviorBreakthrough.com for $3,288.

Coast Dental Services, based in Tampa, bought NevadaDental.com for $1,100.

The owner of Mediate.com bought OnlineMediators.com for $1,577.

If you’re a bar in Silicon Valley, you better know domain names. Jack’s Bar does; it shortened its domain from JacksBarSanJose.com to JacksBar.com for $1,000.

CapeGold.com was bought for $1,700 and now is a site selling South African Abalone.

Boxc Logistics, wich operates on Boxc.co, bought Boxc.com for $5,000.

Diabetes In Control picked up Prediabetes.net for $1,700. It does not own the .com.

Viticola Corcova SRL, owner of Corcova.ro, went global with Corcova.com for $1,500.

Milestone Technologies INC bought MIServices.com for $1,552.

ABC Gas Repair, Inc. in Columbus, Ohio, bought ABC4U.com for $2,988.

Project Management Institute paid $1,095 for PMPlanet.com.

Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Applicants file 722 responses to GAC advice

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 24 May 2013 02:35:53 +0000

Applicants flood ICANN with responses to GAC advice on new top level domains.

ICANN has published applicant responses to the Governmental Advisory Committees “Advice” on new top level domains.

722 responses were filed in total.

Many applicants submitted the same comment on each TLD they believed was affected by the advice.

The overarching theme in responses was: we have what we believe are adequate protections for our strings, the GAC should not be concerned, with our applications, and please don’t delay things due to GAC advice.

Some applicants, such as Top Level Domain Holdings, responded by saying they already addressed the GAC’s concerns in its public interest commitments (PICs).

Amazon.com, on the other hand, took the opportunity to say that it believes:

…if implemented, the Communiqué will circumvent years of active and transparent Community development by reversing policies and implementing new requirements and definitions on applicants, registries and registrants.

The GAC raised concerns with “closed” generic top level domains. Amazon plans to keep all of its TLDs closed.

If you’re looking for some bed time reading, have at it.

Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Breaking: Ron Paul found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:29:37 +0000

Former congressman guilty of reverse domain name hijacking, says WIPO panel.

Earlier today I wrote about how Ron Paul lost both of his domain disputes brought before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

The disputes were filed against RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org and were both heard by the same arbitration panel under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

The panel ruled that in the case of RonPaul.org, former congressman Paul is guilty of reverse domain name hijacking (pdf).

The owners had offered to sell RonPaul.com to Paul but also offered to give him RonPaul.org as an alternative if Paul didn’t want to buy the .com. Since Paul filed a UDRP against RonPaul.org after the owner offered to give it to him for free, the panel found the case to be reverse domain name hijacking.

Respondent has requested, based on the evidence presented, that the Panel make a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. In view of the unique facts of this case, in which the evidence demonstrates that Respondent offered to give the Domain Name ronpaul.org to Complainant for no charge, with no strings attached, the Panel is inclined to agree. Instead of accepting the Domain Name, Complainant brought this proceeding. A finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking seems to this Panel to be appropriate in the circumstances.

The panel did not find reverse domain name hijacking in the RonPaul.com case (pdf), but determined that Paul did not prove a lack of rights or legitimate interest in the domain by the respondent. As a result, the panel ruled the domain name should remain with its current owner.

A UDRP arbitration panel will find so-called reverse domain name hijacking when it believes that a case was filed in bad faith in abuse of the administrative proceedings.

Both cases have a number of unique circumstances and conclusions, and show the convoluted ownership trail for the domains. They’re worth reading.

There is no financial penalty for reverse domain name hijacking in a UDRP domain dispute.

Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

.Home and .Corp are not the only invalid TLDs that currently get queried

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:07:48 +0000

They’re not as big, but several applied-for TLD strings get invalid queries.

ICANN is investigating internal names used by corporations and how they might conflict with applied-for top level domains.

.Home and .Corp are frequently among the top 10 queried invalid top level domains, but they aren’t the only ones.

ICANN hosts a page that shows invalid TLD queries. It seems to time out if you expand the timeframe to more than one day, so it’s hard to get a grasp on overall invalid TLD queries.

That said, some TLDs that companies have applied for other than .home and .corp are showing up on today’s list:

.Win – .Wins is listed in a document concerning invalid local names, but .win is popping up on today’s list. I believe it has something to do with Microsoft Windows. A Famous Four company applied for .win.

.Med – this TLD is already facing formal objections filed by the independent objector.

.Ice – there’s a brand application from IntercontinentalExchange, Inc., also known as ICE, for this TLD. Its current URL is TheIce.com.

Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.