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Two more companies call it quits on dot-brand top level domains

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Blanco GmbH and SPIEGEL terminate top level domain names.

Two companies have notified ICANN that they no longer wish to operate their dot-brand top level domain names.

Blanco GmbH is a kitchen company that sells faucets and sinks. It is terminating the .blanco top level domain name.

Publishing company SPIEGEL-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH & Co. KG separately informed ICANN that it wishes to terminate .spiegel.

Neither company appears to have used their top level domain names other than to create the mandatory nic.TLD website.

Both of the companies only applied for one domain name, so this marks their complete withdrawal from the new TLD program.

A complete list of companies to withdraw top level domain names is here.

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I ordered takeout and went down this domain name rabbit hole.

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Why it takes me a while to order takeout.

I sometimes get distracted by domain name stuff when I — hey look, squirrel!

I ordered takeout this weekend from a local restaurant, Russell’s Bakery. It took me down a bit of a domain name rabbit hole.

While visiting the restaurant’s website to read the menu, I was impressed with the layout and structure: a clean mobile design, easy-to-read menu (no .pdf!). It wasn’t until I got to the bottom of the homepage that I realized it was built on GoCentral, which I reviewed last week.

When I clicked the “Online Order” link I was in for another domain name surprise: the site was ordering.app. This is the first time I’ve come across a .app domain in my normal browsing.

Ordering.app is run by an Austin company called MAVN Online Ordering. It provides online ordering capabilities for a lot of local restaurants such as Torchy’s Tacos, Thundercloud Subs, Cabo Bob’s and JuiceLand.

JuiceLand is an Austin-based juice bar that paid $20,000 back in 2015 to acquire the domain name JuiceLand.com. It also used to own the new TLD Juice.Land and promoted it on the site of juice bottles, but it subsequently let the domain name expire.

As you can see, ordering takeout can be a bit involved for me.

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GoDaddy adds tool to refine domain searches with more information

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

Tool gets more search data from user to suggest available domain names.

A big challenge for domain name registrars is understanding what a domain searcher is looking for based on just a keyword or two.

GoDaddy has added a feature that collects more information to provide customized domain name choices and hopefully chip away at this problem.

The feature is available when a domain you search for is unavailable. It’s currently being tested with a small number of customers. You’ll see a “refine” button on the notice that the domain is taken:

This takes you to a form asking for more information that can be used to create domain suggestions. The form asks for keywords, the business category, your location (suggesting a city name or zip code) and your name. The business category is a fixed list, but it’s big.

I originally searched for Hockey.com and then clicked the refine button. Here’s the info I added: Click here to continue reading…

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Doh! State Bar of California loses cybersquatting dispute

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

Organization that oversees California lawyers let domain expire and loses cybersquatting challenge to get the domain back.

The State Bar of California let the domain calsb.org expire and failed to get it back in a UDRP.

The State Bar of California–the group responsible for admitting attorneys to practice in California–has shown its member how not to argue a cybersquatting dispute.

The organization let one of its domain names, Calsb.org, expire last year. It first registered the domain name in 1996.

It filed a cybersquatting complaint under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) with National Arbitration Forum in an effort to get the domain back. In the dispute, it failed to persuade panelist Debrett G. Lyons that the Calsb.org domain name is confusingly similar to a mark in which the Bar has rights.

The State Bar of California has a registered trademark for “The State Bar of California” and claims that it has unregistered trademark rights in “California State Bart” and “Calsb”. Lyons determined that the domain name is not confusingly similar to the first two and calsb could stand for many things.

Regarding unregistered rights to Calsb, Lyons was unconvinced by the evidence the Complainant submitted.

The Bar previously won a UDRP in 2001 for CAStateBar.com and in 2005 for CaliforniaStateBar.com. Its official website is calbar.ca.gov.

Calsb.org was purchased in a GoDaddy expired domain name auction last year for $676. This morning the domain name forwarded to a zero click parking page for a scam security warning.

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Why Cyril Fremont just bought an entire TLD – DNW Podcast #203

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Entrepreneur has a unique idea for the .best top level domain name.

dnw-podcastMy guest is Cyril Fremont, an entrepreneur who recently acquired the .Best top level domain name. His story is very different from most people running a new top level domain. Fremont originally looked at acquiring a TLD as a way to save money because his internet marketing company was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on domain registrations each year. Now he has an innovative idea for .best that involves cryptocurrency and helping people create review sites.

Also: GoDaddy gets Cognate, .Amazon and more.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:49 — 31.9MB) | Embed

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Subscribe via iTunes to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, view on Google Play Music, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)

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