Long legal battle between Moniker founder and Oversee.net is over.

Moniker.com founder Monte Cahn has dismissed his lawsuit against Oversee.net regarding money he said he was owed under a bonus plan.

Cahn joined Oversee.net after Seevast sold Moniker to Oversee.net. Cahn left Oversee at the end of 2010. In May 2011 he filed a lawsuit against the company arguing he was due part of a $13 million bonus plan.

Having read many of the documents and examinations filed with the court, I can say this was a particularly unsettling legal battle for both parties. There was certainly ill-will between Cahn and some of Oversee.net’s former staff.

Yet a lot has changed since the lawsuit was filed. Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky left the company in August 2011, and Oversee.net sold Moniker earlier this year.

387 documents were filed since the case was initiated. There was already an initial trial on one issue, which the judge ruled in favor of Oversee.net.

Here’s the statement of dismissal:

VOLUNTARY DISMISSAL WITH PREJUDICE
Pursuant to a settlement agreement between the parties and Rule 41(a)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Plaintiff Monte Cahn and Defendants Oversee.net, Jeffrey Kupietzky, and Lawrence Ng, through their respective undersigned counsel of record, hereby stipulate to the voluntary dismissal of this Action in its entirety against all defendants with prejudice. Each party shall bear its own attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses.

Details of the settlement were not disclosed. I’ve reached out to both sides for comment.

CEO and president to leave one of domain name industry’s biggest companies.

Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky will depart the company at the end of the August, the company has announced. He will be moving his family to Israel.

Kupietzky has been with the company for five years, with the last 2 1/2 years as CEO and President.

Going forward, day-to-day operations will be handled by Co-Presidents Debra Domeyer and Scott Morrow.

Kupietzky has had to manage a number of tough changes to the domain name business in recent years as well as company scandals (e.g. SnapNames insider bidding scandal).

Although the company has had its share of both good and bad press, Kupietzky did a lot of good for the industry. He represented the industry to the media with professionalism, often scoring key mass media interviews.

The announcement comes about a month after three top executives left the company.

VeriSign interviews founders and CEOs of top domain name registrars.

Some domain name registrars have boisterous CEOs with their own blogs and video blogs. Others are a bit quieter. As part of its “25 Years of .Com” celebration, VeriSign has captured the stories behind 10 of the top domain name registrars, and it’s a good opportunity to hear from the quieter CEOs in the industry.

VeriSigns “Meet the domain pioneers” features the CEOs or founders of ten domain name registrars. Among the video interviews are Elliot Noss, President and CEO of Tucows, Bhavin Turakhia, Founder & CEO of Directi, and Jeff Kupietzky, CEO & President of Oversee.net.

Next week VeriSign is holding a gala event in San Francisco where it will honor the “.com 25″: “remarkable innovators, entrepreneurs and companies whose inspiring contributions were fundamental in shaping the Internet and, thereby, forever changing the way we think and act as individuals and as a society.”

Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky gives opening remarks about how we’re still in the early days of domain names.

Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky gave opening remarks to a record crowd at DOMAINfest Global 2010 this afternoon. His message was that we’re still in the early days of the domain business.

Looking at Oversee’s three businesses:

1. Domain parking – DomainSponsor

Over 80% of visitors to parked domains still don’t convert. Even though RPMs are high compared to alternatives, there’s still potential. Working on leveraging growth overseas (Oversee.net set up a new office in Germany). DSNextGen platform was announced last week. Need to build tools for where traffic will be in the future, not just now.

To stay ahead of the curve, need to plan for emergence of new traffic sources.

2. Buy and sell domain assets – Moniker/SnapNames

Less that .5% of domains trade hands every year. Commercial real estate trades 5%-10%. Focused on bringing tools in to increase liquidity. Starting Moniker Broker Network — a network of domain brokers partnering with Moniker who will get first look at inventory.

Key to increasing domain liquidity is creating ONE exchange, not many different exchanges.

How do we improve velocity of domain name aftermarket?

3. Develop domains into online businesses –

e.g. LowFares.com. Over 30 million registered names still not developed. Oversee is still looking to acquire web properties, especially in lead gen.

Developing properties is the hardest problem we have. How do you do it for hundreds of thousands of web sites? How to you automate the process to build out? A parallel might be the move from apartment buildings to houses. At first everyone live in apartments. But then mass customization of houses was “invented”. Once that ecosystem was built, enabled massive build-out of single family homes.

How do you solve the “domain build-out gap”?

As I posted on my Twitter feed @DomainNameWire, Jeff Kupietzky cracked a light-hearted joke about the SnapNames bidding scandal. He said the conference keynote was a stand in because he couldn’t get halverez to speak. I thought it was a good way to crack the ice on the issue.

Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky talks about next month’s DOMAINfest Global conference.

DomainSponsor’s DOMAINfest Global conference returns to Los Angeles next month with a few changes. I interviewed Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky (Oversee is parent company of DomainSponsor) to learn more about the conference. DOMAINfest is typically the largest domainer-focused domain conference of the year, drawing in 600+ people. In this episode of DNW radio, you’ll learn:

-Why the show changed venues this year
-If DomainSponsor plans to hold a second conference in 2010, and where
-How the SnapNames problem affects planning for the show
-Who will be judging the PitchFest and Launchfest competitions
-What to expect at the party at The Getty

You can listen to the show below, or read the transcript if you’d prefer.

Note: I realize the audio of me on the radio show is low. I’m working to resolve this problem in future recordings.