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Corporate China loves English-based domains

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Kassey Lee explores Chinese companies using English domain names.

Image of China on a map

What do PreGene.com, GeneQuantum.com, and MemBlaze.com have in common? They are all owned by Chinese companies with the namesake brands.

PreGene is a biotech company founded in 2012. Its Chinese name is Pu Rui Jin (普瑞金), which is a transliteration from “pregene”. The company owns the matching PreGene.com as its corporate domain. However, it does not seem to own PuRuiJin.com, which is not being used.

GeneQuantum positions itself as a global player in the pharmaceutical field. Its Chinese name is Qi De (启德). Founded in 2013, the company has raised two rounds of funding, which amount to about $20 million. Its corporate domain is the matching GeneQuantum.com. However, the company does not seem to own QiDe.com, which is currently parked.

MemBlaze is a memory card supplier founded in 2011. Its Chinese name is Yi Heng ( 忆恒). The company has raised four rounds of funding, which amounts to about $25 million. Its corporate domain is the matching MemBlaze.com. However, the company does not own YiHeng.com, which is still for sale.

These companies are typical of what I often come across when researching end users in China, and they have the following characteristics.

  • English-based
  • Brand-matching
  • .com

Therefore, if you have such domains, make sure they are exposed to and can be easily bought by end users in China. For details, read my article “How to sell domains to China“.

Entrepreneur takes a second stab at Spase.com in UDRP

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

One reverse domain name hijacking finding was not enough for this entrepreneur.

The words "Reverse domain name hijacking" and a computing image of a skull

Oh, dear. Say it ain’t so.

An entrepreneur who was found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking for the domain Spase.com earlier this year is trying again.

Spase, Inc., which runs a business as Spase.io, just filed a UDRP against the domain at National Arbitration Forum.

The company’s founder, Sahil Gupta, filed a previous case against domain owner Mrs Jello LLC at World Intellectual Property Organization. It was an easy case for the panel because Mrs Jello LLC acquired the domain in 2005, well before Gupta started his business in 2019.

UDRP panels frown upon people refiling cases unless new information comes to light that could not have been known when the original case was filed. Gupta argues that new information about Spase.com has come to light: that popular security software flags Spase.com as a dangerous site.

Gupta filed a complaint with Enom that resulted in the DNS for the domain being suspended.

It appears that the domain has been parked at ParkingSpa.com the entire time. Internet security software sometimes flags parked pages as malicious.

Of course, even if Mrs Jello were distributing malware on the domain, it wouldn’t change the crux of the case.

Regrettably, it does not seem that Gupta hired an attorney to refile the case. I think this was a risky move.

WIPO gets 50,000th cybersquatting case

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

Organization receives its 50,000th cybersquatting case over two decades.

Blue image with the letters UDRP

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reports that it has received its 50,000th cybersquatting case.

The majority of these are under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), a system put in place by ICANN to efficiently address cybersquatting disputes.

While multiple organizations resolve UDRP cases, WIPO is by far the biggest.

For the most part, UDRP has efficiently resolved the clear-cut cases of cybersquatting that it was created for. The majority of cases are rightfully found for the Complainant without the domain name owner putting up a fight. UDRP saves both the trademark owners and the domain owners money that would have been spent on expensive lawsuits. The only two remedies for winning a UDRP are canceling the domain registration or transferring it to the trademark holder.

Unfortunately, some companies have abused UDRP in attempts to get valuable domain names without paying for them, a practice called Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.

WIPO says cases are up 11% this year through October compared to the same 10 months in 2019. It suggests this is due to increased online activity in the wake of the pandemic.

Google Ads RPM drives CentralNic revenue growth

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Surge in ad rates drives organic growth at CentralNic.

Images of ParkingCrew ad landers

Google ads on domains parked at ParkingCrew are paying a lot more this year. Image from ParkingCrew.com.

Domain name and online advertising rollup CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC) reported earnings for the first nine months of 2020 today.

Due to major acquisitions, CentralNic’s revenue grew 118% to $168.5 million year over year. The company reckons that revenue grew 17% organically during the period if it had owned the acquired businesses last year.

Much of the growth is thanks to increasing ad rates at Google.

In order to understand Google’s impact on CentralNic’s revenue, it’s important to understand CentralNic’s three segments:

  1. Indirect – Revenue from the reseller registrar channel, registry services provider (e.g., providing the backend for .XYZ), and running the .sk country code. Revenue in this segment was up 51% to $63.5 million, mostly due to two acquisitions. It was up 8% ($4.9 million) on a pro forma (organic) basis.
  2. Direct – Revenue is generated from sales to end consumers such as small businesses, i.e., retail. Revenue was down 9% year over year to $31.1 million, but some of this was due to rejiggering segments. CentralNic says it was down 2% on a pro forma basis. (It’s worth noting that CentralNic recognizes revenue for domain registrations in both its reseller and retail channels upfront rather than over the life of a registration. This is different than most publicly traded domain name companies.)
  3. Monetization – Monetization revenue is mostly from the Team Internet business that CentralNic acquired at the end of the last year. On a pro forma basis (assuming it owned the business last year), it grew 39% to $72.9 million in the first nine months of 2020.

Monetization is the biggest segment, and it’s basically a new segment at CentralNic this year.

The increased revenue in 2020 isn’t due to more traffic (that’s up only 2%); it’s because of a higher RPM. RPM stands for Revenue Per Thousand and measures how much revenue is received per 1,000 views. It’s up a staggering 36% this year.

This means that increased ad rates have driven about $19 million of CentralNic’s $25 million organic growth this year.

Take out the increased RPM and the monetization segment is up only $1.2 million so far this year.

Almost all of CentralNic’s monetization revenue comes from Google, which provides ads for its parking pages. In the first nine months of 2020, 92% of CentralNic’s monetization revenue ($66.9 million of $72.9 million) was from Google.

This is both good news and bad news.

It’s great that Google is paying more. There’s reason for optimism that rates can go higher: RPMs continued to grow in Q3 and certain ad market segments are still depressed right now due to Covid. A return to normalcy sometime in 2021 could drive segments such as travel higher, increasing RPMs even further.

But ask any domain name owner and they’ll tell you that depending on Google for so much revenue can be a double-edged sword.

 

Investing in new TLDs with Oswin – DNW Podcast #314

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This domainer has success selling new TLDs.

Making profitable investments with new top level domain names has proven challenging for many investors. Registries held back their best inventory or priced it at a premium. Today’s guest, Madhu Oswin, made a great return on his new TLD investments. The sample size is small, but it shows that domainers who selectively choose their investments and negotiate well can make a profit on new TLDs.

Also: GoDaddy tricked, reverse domain name hijacking, and a new calculator site.

Sponsor: Donuts

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